A new year always brings a lot of talk about change. Resolutions are made with great resolve (thus they’re called resolutions) and everyone is determined that this year will be better than the last year which was full of procrastination and drudgery.

As I reflect on my past year, my mind reels with all the changes it brought. It’s still a little hard to comprehend, and I can't really imagine what this year's going to bring after this last one. Here’s a sum-up.

January: The place at which I was temping hired me permanently. I also corresponded with some missionaries on the field to which I was planning to go through World Team.

February: Jed and I started dating officially. The day after we made this decision, he left to go to Holbrook for a week to help fix up his grandpa’s old place. That was quite sad for me. But I went to Vegas with my dad

and visited Jed along the way. This was also my first Valentine’s day to actually be dating someone. But we’d only been dating for a week by the time that holiday rolled around, and all he got was an e-card and all I got was nothing.

March: Jed and I went on a double date to Chaco Canyon which was a lot of fun.

Right around this time, I also finished my application to the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

April: The family that I had been praying about going on the mission field with changed their minds about what organization they were going to go through. I was left in a bit of a muddle as I’d already joined World Team with whom they were originally planning on going. My relationship with Jed was a little funky at this time as we still hadn’t really figured out how to talk to each other about goals (or anything… We were quite awkward), so I briefly considered joining the Air Force (something I’d considered doing on and off since I graduated from college).

I mentioned this idea to Jed, and he objected quite a bit, so I decided that wasn’t the best idea after all. That got us started on talking about our future together and what we each thought about it.

May: (I think) Jed wrote me a letter telling me he loved me and explained what he’d been feeling since we started dating. To hear his feelings made me feel so much better about sharing mine and somehow, that created a much stronger bond between us than we’d previously experienced. Shortly after he’d written the above letter, he wrote another one explaining what he meant when he said he loved me. And boy, was it a heavy letter. But very good. However, the things he said in the letter and the level of commitment he demonstrated by saying those things made me feel uncomfortable progressing in our relationship on just a dating level. So I said so. About 10 or 20 minutes after I said so, as we were sitting in a lovely park near my house, he asked me to marry him.

June: I left for North Dakota. Jed drove me up, and, geniuses that we are, we drove straight from Albuquerque, NM to Grand Forks, ND. It took us 27 hours. And we had some funky car trouble on the way up and almost hit a herd of cows in Nebraska. SIL wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. But it was a lot of fun and I met a ton of awesome people there.

July: I was still in North Dakota, constantly drenched because of the humidity

and working my way through mid-terms. Somewhere in there, I dropped one of my classes because trying to take 10 credit hours, 4 of which were graduate level, and maintain a long distance relationship was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Jed and I talked a lot, but we got into quite a few very intense discussions. They were rather exhausting, and we got a lot of things out on the table which were quite helpful to know later in our relationship. He also came and visited me about halfway through the month, which was quite nice.

I ordered and received my wedding dress. $160 on eBay!

Jed found out that the job he had wasn’t going to be able to afford to keep him on any longer. Major bummer.

August: SIL ended and Jed flew up to drive me back. We brought along a passenger to drop off in Denver, and we stopped in Laramie to visit Jed’s brother and stay the night. We definitely weren’t going to try to drive straight through again. I started trying to find a job when I got back, but I also spent a little time just trying to recover from the summer and enjoy the nice dry air. Wedding planning, which started in June, continued full force as we tried to hunt down the perfect venue.

September: I found a job back with my old employer but in a different department and, great fun, had to work the night and swing shifts for 2 weeks without being given any warning. Wedding planning was on hold for me, but fortunately, Jed had taken a great interest in planning the perfect wedding. He however, was still looking for steady work, with contract work keeping him busy in the meantime. We sort of decided on a venue for our wedding.

October: We finally decided on our actual venue. Decoration buying and cupcake baking started full force.

I worked the night shift for the first bit of the month, but that was over with soon enough. I had my bridal shower, which was lovely, and my birthday, which was also lovely, within a couple of days of each other. And the wedding was only a month away!

November:
Wedding and honeymoon!

The wedding turned out lovely, even if it was a little crowded. And the honeymoon, thanks to my lovely aunt and uncle was wonderful. We went to Pagosa Springs and had a big condo all to ourselves. After the honeymoon, I moved in with Jed in his parents’ home (since he didn’t have steady work and I hadn’t worked very long yet). Jed continued to have a lot of odd jobs programming and helping people with computer stuff.

December: I had to work the night shift yet again for 2 weeks and began to feel like I was losing my mind being at work all day or all night with nothing (quite literally) to do.

My attitude got quite bad really, and I’m a little ashamed to admit that. However, that fact, along with some logistical things having to do with my health insurance (it’s rather involved), caused Jed and me to feel like maybe quitting might be the best option. So, I did. And then, as Jed was still having trouble finding a job, we decided to start our own business! Exciting, right? And a little crazy? Maybe.

So that’s where you find us at the beginning of this year.

For this year's plans, tune in next time!