Shoelaces for Josie

13. Traveling to North Dakota. Twice. In two weeks. It’s not every day you get used in an illustration of getting snockered on jaeger within two minutes of meeting someone. In a business setting. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 2009 was the only year in my life that ever happens to me.

12. The year I didn’t die from the swine flu. It was everywhere, this swine flu business – the great outbreak of H1N1 – and I survived 2009 without contracting the disease.

11. Gapingvoid.com. This website makes me laugh. Maybe it’s a little ridiculous that a website made my Baker’s Dozen, but I’m a bit of a ridiculous person. It’s three parts funny, seven parts politically incorrect and 18 parts really stinkin’ good. I love it. Even though I discovered it in 2009, I think it’ll still make me laugh in the years to come.

10. Life sans microwave. I don’t have a microwave. Well, I do, but it’s in the box in the center of my living room serving as a coffee table. I don’t have a microwave for the purpose that most people own a microwave. This is by choice. And you know what? I haven’t missed it. Not really. My counter is happier with the extra space. The very nearly buried health bugger dude way down deep inside of me is happy that I’m not eating over-processed, under-nutritional microwaveable food. And I’m happy that I have something to set my glass of water on in the living room, even if it is a microwave. In 2009, I fully came to appreciate the fact that things we view as necessities aren’t really, ya know, necessarily necessary.

9. Driving 28 hours straight. To Iowa. And then making the same 1,700 mile trek back a week later. This would go into the “ugly” category. I never want to drive it like that again. In fact, it’s going to be a few years before I can convince myself to drive it at all. Did you know? I almost turned around once on the drive to Iowa. I was in Lewiston – I’d gone a whole 40 minutes from my house. I wished every five minutes for the next 27 hours that I’d wimped out, but in 2009, White Flash and I outraced a big winter storm halfway across the United States.

8. Student loans DIE. I put together momma dollar and papa dollar and tried to make them have babies. I even gave them baby-making drugs and a nice bed. When that didn’t work, I decided to roll another year with White Flash and push my funds toward paying off my student loan debt. Now I can find something else to go into debt on, but in 2009 the evil money-sucking hair-clogged drain of cruddiness known as student loan debt lost the battle…hold on to your britches as I take my victory lap in White Flash.

7. Palouse Falls. I kept thinking I’d made a wrong turn when I was trying to find the Palouse Falls. The prairie looked just as flat as could be. But then a gorge opened up in front of me and what beautiful falls! And I’ve seen Niagra so I’m allowed to say that. I was impressed. Awed even. In 2009, I was struck to silence by the majesty of nature.

6. Hell’s Canyon. Twice – once in February and again in May. Glory be the beauty of that country! I wish I could describe the view looking out over Hell’s Canyon in the early morning sunshine. I wish I could paint a picture of words. I wish…and of course, it was the time of Gus, The Salesman and Carhartt. And, in 2009, I was reminded that sometimes strangers can be friends you just haven’t met yet.

5. Shoelaces moved to its own domain. The year 2009 was the third year Shoelaces had been in existence. It was also the year I decided it deserved its very own home so I bought it a domain and a hosted area on the BIL’s server. It was a move – a move that still isn’t complete since the entire 2008 archive still isn’t housed here, but it’s kind of like buying…shoes. Your feet need a home so you buy them shoes. Sometimes those shoes wear out, and you have to buy them a new pair. So in 2009, I bought Shoelaces a new pair of shoes.

4. Moving back to the country. I found a country rental in the spring of this year. Two weeks later, I moved in. It’s not a mansion. It’s not a textured walls, master bedroom, arched doorways or immaculate siding type of home. But it’s surrounded by fields and the hills. I can hear the birds early in the spring mornings and watch the sun rise over the butte. And the stars – I can throw my head back and watch the stars. I can grab an old quilt and hike up the hill to lie flat and stare at them for hours. This country rental – it is not a mansion, but it is in the country; I wouldn’t trade it for the classiest Victorian on the biggest corner lot. In 2009, I fell in love with the country all over again.

3. Nick’s book. Memorials are important to me. Sort of. They’re important to me when I make them that way, and Nick’s? His was important. So when the box filled with his book, Running with Nick, landed on my doorstep – well – it was a moment memorable enough to make the Baker’s Dozen. The moment I held that book in my hand I knew there couldn’t have been a better way to have such a man remembered; I was deeply honored to be a part of it even though 2009 marked the one year anniversary of his absence.

2. Cousin changed her last name. She put on a white dress, walked down an aisle and *gasp* held hands with a boy. When she walked back up the aisle she had a different last name and a really big smile on her face. And I was there. I carved out pumpkins and made cheesecake and said all the right things in all the right places. In 2009, I supported my best friend and helped her through the door into the next stage of her life.