Happy 2009!

Well, 2008 is officially over. Everything Jeremiah experienced last year were his firsts- first Valentines Day, first Easter, first time in the pool.... first birthday... now all of the main annual events are old hat. At least he will be older to enjoy everything more!

So, how did we ring in the new year here at my house? Louis and I were awakened at 12:01 a.m. thinking that someone was pounding on our door, when instead fireworks were going off everywhere in our neighborhood. People shoot off fireworks in our neighborhood all the time- for sporting events, Cinco de Mayo, the 4th of July (of course- craaaaazy night) and even when Obama was officially declared the winner of the election. Anyway, the evening wasn't nearly as festive as I had planned on it being. Louis was tired from starting training for his new (BIG!!!!!!) job that morning; I was tired from running around all day, cooking, cleaning and playing with my son. I made our favorite baked ziti with sausage and meatballs, and a layered lemon cake (courtesy of miss Betty Crocker). However, the ziti was waaaay too garlic-y. If I thought it was too garlic-y then it was definitely too garlic-y. Neither of us enjoyed it very much, to my disappointment. Then, we had neighbors knocking on our door from around 7-9:30, wanting to wish us a happy new year, which was nice but definitely took away the romantic ambiance I was hoping to have. We were planning on watching a movie until the countdown started on TV at 11:00, but wound up watching the latest DVD release of "Family Guy." On our laptop, in bed. Big mistake. We both were asleep by 10:30 and didn't wake up until those fireworks went off. Oh, well!

As for today- we went to Red Robin for lunch, and now Louis and Jeremiah are watching the game. Nothing else is really planned for today. I kind of wish we were at my grandma's house with my parents and a few other relatives, eating my mom's traditional New Years day bean soup, but I can understand how Louis wanted to spend the day at home, relaxing. Poor guy never gets to stay home and relax except on Sundays.

As for my car? Well, we had an opportunity a few weeks back to sell it (or rather, relinquish my loan to since it's not paid off yet) to one of Louis's customers. Last year we acquired a rather old (late 198o's) Mercedes and since then one of his customers was making noise about wanting to take over my car payments. I flat out refused at first, obviously, but after driving the car around for a few weeks while my Kia was having work done on it, I realized that it wasn't the piece of crap car I thought it was. In fact, it runs even better than my 3 year old Kia. So... bye bye Kia! We are now saving up for a larger vehicle. It's nice to have that car payment off of our shoulders. Louis's car will be paid off in a few months and then we won't have any car payments until we get our new car! With Louis's new job and not having my old payment we should be able to save up to flat-out pay off our new vehicle upfront hopefully by June.

That's all for now. Hope you all enjoyed your new year!