This has been a roller coaster year.  On the up-side, I’m thrilled to have been able to retire this year after 28 years on active duty.  I never would have imagined I would be able to do so back in April 1980 when I signed my enlistment contract with the Air Force.

I have some less than ideal memories from the Air Force — one hundred percent of them related to my troubles maintaining a completely ridiculous maximum allowable weight for my height and build (at least until the latter years, when I have to agree I was way out of tolerance).  The rest of my Air Force experience?  Tremendous.

Where else could I have completed three associate degrees, a bachelors degree, and a master’s degree all while working full time?  I made enlisted rank ahead of or on time, and when I applied for Officer Training School, I was accepted during the years when they were accepting very few applicants.  I had excellent opportunities as an officer, and when my time came, I have been able to truly retire.

I sacrificed a lot of time with family by being married to a husband who had a profession which did not permit him mobility, but we were committed to one another and achieving our ultimate goal of each of us achieving as much as possible from our respective careers.  That done, we now have time to devote to one another and our interests.

In the fall of this year, I saw my retirement accounts get hit for nearly fifty percent of their value from the beginning of the year.  Thank goodness my military retirement income is not dependent upon the stock market.  Those retirement accounts should have a chance to rebound before I’ll be old enough to draw upon them, but that wasn’t fun.  Hubby’s retirement account took a hit, but it was mostly protected, and his management firm moved all of it to a stable place as soon as possible after the crash began, so he should be ok.  Overall, we feel fortunate that both of us saw this coming several years ago and were prepared by ensuring we don’t carry any debt.

We have the two houses we’re traveling between, and that’s taken some getting used to.  We’re quite blessed to have them both, and we haven’t decided what we want to do with the house in San Antonio yet, so you’ll just have to keep wondering.  I love both houses, and both towns have their advantages, so I’ll just have to learn to deal with the hassle of going back and forth.

The ranch needs lots of road work and some old appliances that were there rotting when we bought the place need to be hauled to the scrap metal place.  We have a cow that’s been wandering the property for at least two years that we can’t catch and don’t know which side she should go to if we could catch her.  Unlike the bull we chased off several years ago, we can’t get close to this cow.  She’s a pretty girl but not socialized to people.

I’ve read 43 books this year.  That puts me nine short of my goal of 52.  That’s not too bad.  I have several non-fiction works I’m chipping away at, but they won’t be done until next year at the earliest.

I didn’t get very far in my efforts to take up drawing and water color painting, but I’m not done with that goal either.

I still cheer the Spurs on as they push through the regular season to the playoffs.  They have their ups and downs, but I like the team they built this year, and I think it has strong potential to do well.

I’m beginning  to learn more about web work — CSS and php and light coding stuff. Maybe I’ll reach a point where I can really update the personal website.

On the writing front, I’m nearly done with The How to Think Sideways Class — very good class.  I’m committed to completing the rewrite of Twilight early this year.  I want it ready to begin querying by mid-year.  While I have queries out on Twilight, I plan to work on either Threads and Ties or Polar Bear on the Loose.  I would also like to complete what should have been a small project I undertook several years ago — US Military for Writers.  Maybe, now that I’m retired, I can get over the hump on that one.  I think I’ve been making it harder than it has to be.  I should know where my Thirty Days to Regularity project stands by the end of March, and I’ll adjust my personal schedule to match it if necessary.

I’m avidly decluttering and sorting a lifetime’s accumulation of stuff.  Flylady helps with that, but more in the “you can do anything for 15 minutes at a time” sense than in working in step with her FLYtplans and control journals.

My health is a personal priority.  Without it, nothing else matters.  Hershey has put on too much weight since moving back to Texas, because he isn’t getting his daily walks like he was in Alabama.  He’s going to get more walks, and I’m pumping up the tires on my bicycle.  I get some exercise working with hubby, but there are plenty of days when I don’t get enough, so those are days I need to add in a bike ride and some weight work.  I lost nearly twenty pounds the first three months after I retired, and the next three months, they crawled back on.  That’s not how I want it to work.

I think I’m ready for 2008 to go it’s merry way, and I look forward to challenging life again in 2009.  May 2009 be prosperous and healthful to you and yours.