Its The End Of The Year As We Know It Share

December 31, 2009

We had a really great Christmas. This Christmas was exciting because we really get to start reliving it through the eyes of child, now that London is coming of age. She got some great presents. I was worried that she would get too much toys or too much chocolate and that things would get imbalanced. But really I feel like she received a good balance of practical things and fun things. She got a rocking horse, books, clothes, toys, dolls and more. Tennessee came through with some books, a cell phone and Barney DVDs.

Holy cow, Barney. Most of London's DVDs have characters that I eventually want to pummel. Like Veggietales, that was fun for about two weeks. Then I just wanted to kill cucumbers and tomatoes. It took Barney about 3 minutes to acheive that state. I think Veggietales try to have humor for adults and they do silly things and its all very tongue in cheek. I now enjoy watching Veggietales...again...and again...and again. Barney is nothing but oozing sweet cuteness. He makes no apologies. That's all he's trying to be. I better stop. I'll end up over analyzing it. But London melts when Barney comes on. She freezes and just stands, hypnotized. I beleive she is thinking, "Whoa! What is that big purple thing and I want 10 of them." So if she's happy, I beleive I can deal with Barney. But if he ever steps out of line...

One thing that was on my list was activities that I could do with my daughter. Beckah got me a kit that is used for teaching toddlers letters, numbers and colors. It has posters and games and books. I thought it was just random stuff, but we opened it last night and its a whole system. You introduce one topic each week, spend 20 minutes twice a day (or more much as possible) as per her attention span. London basically knows upper case letters and almost has conquered numbers (digits anyway). So last night we started on colors. It was new for her but she seemed to get the basic idea of how to play the game. I honestly would expect her to start naming colors in the next week, and have them conquered easily in a month or sooner. We shall see.

I will forget details here but I also got some great stuff. Beckah takes really good care of me at Christmas. She says its because I refuse to buy anything for myself during the year, which I think I mostly agree with. I try hard to not let myself buy toys. I try to be budget oriented and when there is extra money I will do something practical with it. But during the year my list of wants waxes and wanes. That gives Beckah good ideas. One thing she got me was a fancy Apologetics Bible in a new translation that I can't remember the name of. It goes in depth and describes all kinds of things about behind the scenes history, various beleifs that each verse has inspired from Christians to Mormons and Wiccans and everything else. I love that! There is also a big concordance that a pastor might use. I havn't dug into that yet but it will be a good argument solver for sure!

I received many DVDs, including a David Attenborough series that I am really enjoying. It's about the Bird of Paradise and people of New Guinea. Absolutley fascinating. She also got me seasons 1-4 of a series called "The Office" which we just started last night. I like it so far. She also got me the entire Weird Al Yankovic music library. I love that too. Weird Al is musical and comedic genious. Hyper creative, very intelligent. She also got me some clothes which I always need at Christmas time because I never buy anything for myself. Why would I? I get way to stressed out clothes shopping. I hate it. If Beckah ever dies I will probably end up naked and cold.

All that is just Beckah. Ashli got me a groovy desk organizer which I am using and like. It's such a simple thing and I wouldn't think about buying it if I saw it in a store, but now that I have it I like it a lot. My desk is cleaner! Eddie got me some gardening stuff that I am looking forward to using this spring. But we're just getting started! Mom and Dad offered to pay for Beckah and I to fly to Springfield, MO to see Ashli and associates. That is a great gift. It's not material, it's all about family, and it's very helpful. Eddie and Brittany got the same thing so it's just a matter of organizing the trip. I need to wait for things to settle down with my job before I plan vacations but we have some ideas!

There were a few other odds and ends that I forget now. Nerf dart gun to annoy folks at work, new Bathroom Reader book (gotta have that) and lots of candy. But, overall a great Christmas. Now, let's talk about the new year.

First of all, 2009 was a great year. My daughter walked, I learned lots of new things, we did a rafting trip, no major disasters. I made a resolution to do more volunteering type things last year. I made the weakest attempt and can not say I acheived that goal. I did some but nothing worth mentioning. I will have to try to do better in 2010. This year I am job hunting (again) and my goal is get a permanent job. I passed one SQL test in 2009. I want to finish my SQL 2005 DBA certification which consists of 3 more tests. If I can do that this year that will be significant.

I want to read the entire Bible, cover to cover this year. I have read the Bible this way twice in my life, but its taken over two years to do it each time. This time I want to conquer it in a single year. And I don't want to just read it as a checklist. I will use the Bible Beckah gave me and I will increase my understanding of God's word. Adapt, adopt, improve, divide, conquer, destroy and mock! 2009 was great, 2010 will be even better.

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