2009: Blog Year-at-a-Glance

It weighs heavily on me that I have written nothing here for three weeks. No jolly holiday entries, no 2009 epilog entries, no political exhortations…not even a rant about the restaurant. My only excuse is that we did record sales at the café in the month of December, and dealing with that while trying to carve out some kind of personal holiday season left me with little energy for much of anything else. And then, on New Years’ Day, I came down with The Crud (a term coined by one of my former bosses, which referred to the nasty winter cold/flu/whatever to which we managers usually succumbed sometime during or after the holidays—no doubt brought on by the stress and long hours thereof…)

Feeling a bit better this morning, I sat down to write my traditional “year at a glance” New Year’s entry—the one where I take the first sentence from the first post of every month as the story of my year. But I realized that my schizophrenic opening, closing and re-opening of Coming to Terms left me with two months of 2009 where I did not post at all. So, because I want to do this anyway and I want to quit kicking myself for neglecting my writing, I’ve decided to use posts from Hot Flash Café and Women On to fill in for the months when Terms lay dormant. It’s all my writing, right?

So—here it is:

January--I set about the task of de-Christmasifying the house when I got home from work today. (Posted January 10th… I’m right on schedule—haven’t touched any of it yet this year. Planning that for…later.)

February--It's true…I stopped publicly adding to "Coming to Terms…" (And then started, and then stopped, and started again…)

March—(From Hot Flash Café)-- Yesterday, one of my employees whispered to me that she’d “heard on the grapevine” that one of our competitors has not paid their rent in four months. (A hint of the scary prevailing climate in the small business world…)

April--I finally have things arranged so that I don’t have to tote a computer back and forth to work. (…so that I can walk to work. Which I have done exactly once in the ensuing nine months. Go me!)

May—(From Women On…) Here is a headline that really disturbed me: Churchgoers More Likely to Back Torture. (And I did try to keep my political wits about me…)

June--I know...I said I was closing down this journal... But someone, awhile ago, wondered what had become of the stray cats I had written about. (Oh, yeah…that on again, off again thing...sneaking up to being on again...)

July--If it seems that I am neglecting my blogging, please forgive me. I have been spending inordinate amounts of time online…but I’ve been attending to other things. (Off again?)

August—This has been a hard week. (Aren’t they all? But that which does not kill us makes us stronger…)

September--Coming To Terms is coming up on its sixth birthday. Six years. Wow. (That fact alone made me realize I couldn’t close it down…)

October--An amorphous sense of discontent has plagued me lately. (Likely chafing against the economy-spawned sense of spinning my wheels this entire year…)

November--I grew up in Estrogen Central. (A little rant about the trials and pitfalls of inducting a male into the heretofore estrogen-heavy crew of the “Hot Flash Cafe…”)

December--It's not escaped my notice that I tend to head right for the keyboard when I'm stressed, unhappy or overwhelmed. (No…duh?)

2009 was…a year. A year that I realized, on my walk to the mailbox after work today, was not all that bad. Only a few minor traumas, and some really good memories. And in spite of the economy, the Café held its own, with only one or two small panic attacks along the way.

So, Happy New Year, Everyone! May 2010 bring each of us a little peace, a little calm, and one or two of our heart’s desires, large or small.

Lisa :-]