Well, I am up late tonight and decided to add to my blog. Looking back on 2008...It wasn't a bad year but it also wasn't the best. I thank God for letting me live another day and have my two children with me. Let's see what happened in 2008 that was memorable. The first thing that comes to mind is De-On and I were in a tornado or something close to it. I was coming home from work late and there were tornado warnings where I lived, but of course I didn't know about it. I was driving home and we had just topped the big hill before you get to my house and all of the sudden I couldn't see, the wind was whipping and the rain was pouring and I knew that I couldn't drive any further. I pulled the car to the side of the road and I told De-On that we had to get out and go find a ditch. Well De-On jumps out runs around in a circle for a few seconds and then leaves me and starts running down the hill. The sight of him running with his arms waving and his legs flinging to the side was funny afterwards (he looked like a cartoon character running the way he did). I ran around trying to find a ditch but there wasn't one. I laid down on the side of the road and covered my head. I was in a skirt and had sandals on. It was hailing and I was bruised and banged on the head pretty hard. It seemed like forever before the wind finally let up and we could get back in the car. I had to yell for De-On because he of course was hiding in the trees and had abandoned me. A tree fell in front of my car and the stop sign was leaning to the side. I was in a state of shock and lost it on the way home. In looking back, I can laugh now but I am also thankful that nothing serious happened to us (besides a broken shoe, bruises on my legs and arms and a serious headache). It seemed that there were a lot of storms this year and De-On and I always seemed to be ahead of them or right behind them. This was the one storm that we ended up in and I pray the last.
I had a garden this year and despite the limited rain that we had, I had a fruitful year. I had so much stuff that I had to give it away and sold quite a bit at the longest yard sale. If it wasn't for my dear friend, Joe, I don't know what I would've done. He helped weed the garden as well as help getting it started. I love going out there every day just to see what new had popped up. We planted so many cucumbers for my mother to make pickles that she threatened to drive her car into the garden so that we wouldn't get any more. Needless to say though, she made her pickles and sold over 100 jars. They were such a big hit that one person said that he was going to plant cucumbers so that she could make more. I am looking forward to having a larger garden starting in March.
2008 was also a time that I had contact wtih family that I had not had in years or had never met. My sister decided that we shouldn't be so distant from the rest of the family and made it her mission to find everyone and then send contact information to everyone so that we can stay in touch. It is usually funerals that family gets together and she didn't want that to be the reason that we get together the next time. I appreciate the effort that she took in doing this even though I grumbled when she bugged the heck out of me to get her more information :). She has now decided to do the family history and pick up from where my cousin left off. He traced our family back to the Civil War. I can't wait to find out what he has learned about our family so far and what my sister will find out. Family is important to me.
There was also a few losses in 2008 of close friends, church members as well as friends who lost family members. Although we had these losses, we are able to continue in life and have the fond memories of those loved ones. We also lost a few famous people including Bernie Mac and Ertha Kitt, they will be missed by many.
I will have to do a follow up to this post as I'm getting sleepy and want to do a few more things before I go to bed.
God Bless everyone and may you all have a wonderful, blessed, fruitful year in 2009!
