Top 25 Kim stories of 2005

Saw this on Robin’s blog, and thought it was a cool idea. So here are the top 25 “stories” of my 2005, in no particular order.

1. Discovering that Matthew was having absence seizures. This was a biggie and a very scary thing to accept, but he’s doing very well with his medication, and I’m trying to remain hopeful that he will outgrow them. My suspicions were reinforced this past week though that excessive X-Box time seems to aggravate the seizures. :-(


2. Joining the RAKScraps team as a Moderator and then Creative Team member. I love this site and all the people there, and have so much fun “working” there.


3. Related to the above – beginning to create my own digital scrapping kits. I have no idea whether I’ll ever end up trying to sell them, and really don’t even particularly care if people actually use them. I just have so much fun creating them. :-)


4. Matthew losing his first tooth during our aquarium visit.


5. Matthew losing his second tooth during our lunch break at Wendy’s while shopping for back-to-school stuff.


6. Officially shelving my business plans for Windows in Time. It was a business I never wanted, and it’s a relief to not have to have it sitting in the back of my mind anymore.


7. Moving to my fun new domain at Kim, Etc.


8. Dealing with major allergies. For the first time since I’ve lived in this area, I had to go in for prescription allergy meds.


9. Kaylee switching from in-home speech/communication therapy to her classes at the school. She’s really grown a lot this year, and seeing her improving so much at understanding us and expressing herself is so totally great… well, most of the time. :-p


10. Having approximately 10 hours/week of free time all to myself while Kaylee’s in class and Matthew’s at school. Too bad school isn’t year round. ;-p


11. Matthew beginning to read. He finished Kindergarten without a “reading level”, but has come a long way in this first half of 1st grade. He still struggles with it, but it’s so cool to see him making progress and all that stuff starting to click.


12. Finally learning to use my Wacom Graphire3 tablet after having it two years. This actually was more or less forced upon me, since the mouse I have loved so long started to wear out. I never found a replacement I liked, and I ended up learning my pen/tablet well enough that I now only reach for the mouse in certain situations where I can’t right-click properly with the pen. RIP beloved Logitech Mouseman Wheel. (And I’m adding the new Intuos3 6x11 tablet to my wish list. Would be perfect for my dual monitors.)


13. Winning “last Bunco” (the biggest prize) at my first two games with my moms’ group, gaining the reputation of “Bunco Queen”. Winning absolutely nothing since then. :-p


14. Dancing, talking, and laughing for hours at moms’ nights out with my moms’ group.


15. Losing another 10 pounds towards my goal… and then putting it right back on again. Argh. I’m going to try a heck of a lot harder to do better with that this year.


16. Getting a new car. Our 1994 Acura Integra got to the point that the repair bills were adding up, and it just didn’t make sense to keep it anymore. The plan was to begin researching and figuring out what we wanted, so that next time a repair came up, we would be prepared to buy instead, but within a week or so we had a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid (a decision greatly impacted by ridiculous and climbing gas prices at the time). So we now have a car payment again. This purchase, by the way, was all Mark. He tends to really push ahead with things, a total man of action. It drives him nuts when I say I want something, and it takes me forever to get around to getting it. Like the new camera I’ve been saying for months that I want, but haven’t even researched or gone to look at yet to try to decide which one I want. I mean, it’s not like I need a new camera; the old one still works ok. I just want a better one, and I’ll get one… eventually.


17. Another scrapping one (ok, maybe scrapping is too big a part of my life LOL) – switching from gearing my layouts for web to gearing them for print. I did printed albums for the grandparents for Christmas, and it was really cool to see all the layouts on paper.


18. Matthew’s 6th birthday party at the cool bounce place.


19. Kaylee entering the age of defiance, accompanied by a marked increase in stubbornness.


20. Kaylee entering the age of the frequent spontaneous “I love you”.


21. Mark’s trip to London (magic convention). It was a little scary to have him over there so soon after the major bombings, and there was a smaller one while he was there, but he made it home safe and sound.


22. Finally completing the redesign of Mark’s website.


23. Getting the kids up in the middle of the night to take Mark to the emergency room for severe abdominal pain.


24. A thousand little moments of mommy frustration.


25. A million little moments of love and laughter. :-)