Adios, 2009. Hola 2010!

So it’s nearly over. The year, the decade. A lot of people are doing decade wrap up posts but unfortunately for me I can barely remember most of this decade. I will go over some high lights though and then we’ll talk about how interesting 2009 has been for me.

In 2000 I was watching my friends graduate high school when I should have been. I dropped out in 1999 a year before I would have finished, early and with honors if I’d just have stuck it out my last year. I needed a math credit, some gym credits and a single science credit and I would have been done. However I made the wonderfully brilliant decision to move out on my own, quit school, get engaged (to a man I did not actually end up marrying, obviously) and start my life as an adult WAY before I should have. My friends graduated. Some of them went to college. I lived in a shitty apartment off of Jewel Lake in Anchorage, AK where I could barely afford to keep the lights on and worked nights doing merchandising at the Gap to keep myself in Ramen noodles. Clearly dropping out of school was a good idea.

This pattern of bad decisions and grievous missteps continued all the way through the early part of 2003 when I decided, two weeks shy of my 21st birthday to move out of Alaska. I moved in with my aunt and uncle on McChord AFB outside of Tacoma, WA. I spent 6 months in Washington and had a really lovely time actually. It was there that I finally decided to break off a horribly inappropriate and destructive relationship I had been carrying on for the better part of two years. My best friend Shannon moved down to Tacoma and we had many good and interesting times wandering all over the Western side of the state doing things like getting so drunk I couldn’t feel my face and suffering through truly wretched shows in cramped coffee houses in Olympia for the benefit of our musician friends. After 6 months however I was ready to move on. I met a boy on the internet, talked to him for a few days on the phone, convinced myself he was my soul mate and when he told me on the 4th day of non stop phone calls that he had a date…well, I made a drastic decision. And I moved to Las Vegas, NV.

I took a train from Tacoma to Portland, OR to spend a few days with my cousin Scarlett. I hadn’t seen her in nearly 10 years and it was a joy to get to see her and spend time with her. (Even if most of that time was spent drinking and falling off of bar stools.) Then I got on a bus in Portland and spent the next 36 hours riding a Greyhound down through the middle of California in the hot August heat with about 65 of my new closest buds who didn’t speak English. I got my hoodie stolen from me at the bus station in LA, the a/c on our bus went out outside of Modesto so we rode for almost 100 miles with no air and then finally the last leg of the ride from Barstow to Vegas was spent trying to ward off the advances of a group of military guys who had been stuck on some God forsaken post out in the middle of the desert for who knows how long and I was looking mighty attractive. (Which is saying something since I’d been on a bus for 2 days without air or a shower or sleep.) I got into Vegas at about 2 a.m., met Mike at the Fiesta Casino at 3 a.m. and the rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve been in Vegas ever since and I’ve been with Mike ever since. I enrolled at the Art Institute for a program in Interior Design, spent two quarters there getting straight A’s before I realized the school was unaccredited and I wouldn’t be able to apply for a commercial design license when I was done with my degree. I left the Art Institute and with my dreams a little bit crushed enrolled at the community college for business. I worked in coffee houses, a temp agency, a tech support company, a gay bar and finally a knit wear designers’ home office and then ultimately the yarn shop all while attending the College of Southern Nevada. I changed my major many times finally settling on Sociology somewhere in 2008.

That brings us to 2009:

This year has been a ride for sure. A lot of really awesome stuff happened, a few not so awesome things as well. Over all though I can look back on 2009 fondly I think. It hasn’t been that bad of a year to me. Weird, to be sure, but not bad.

Some of my favorite things that happened this year:

• I graduated from CSN in May. I got an Associates of Arts and graduated with a 3.45 GPA. I immediately enrolled at UNLV as a junior in their Sociology degree program.
• My Grandma Linda and my Great Aunt Emmy came over for our graduation which was wonderful, I hadn’t seen my Grandma in nearly 2 years and I had never met my Great Aunt Emmy. Aunt Emmy is in her 90’s and is the twin sister of my late Great Grandma Pearl. Aunt Emmy made both Mike and I quilts for our graduation present. My quilt is keeping my feet warm as I type this. I am blessed to be from a family of such vivacious, creative and determined women. I am constantly awed by them.
• My youngest sister Christina gave birth to my beautiful niece Erin Marie (who I call EM or Emmy) and I spent the better part of my summer knitting for her.
• My baby brother Jonny graduated from high school and joined our brother Jim at college in Ft. Valley, GA. They are both there on full ride academic scholarships that they worked their asses off for all through high school. They are two of the smartest, wittiest, most handsomest brothers a girl could ask for. I am so proud of them. I
• My other sister Katrina has decided to go back to school as well and last I heard will be attending UAA (University of Alaska Anchorage) next semester.
• My other brother (older), Eric got engaged.
• Mike was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and won some money and finally got to put his lifetime of weird trivia knowledge to good use
• 2009 is the first full year that I have been able to support myself financially entirely from knitting. I worked at Knit Las Vegas for most of the year and also supplemented my income there by selling yarn, fiber and patterns through my online shop www.buydanido.com.
• I launched my first yarn club; Rock Your Socks Off and my 2nd yarn club the Choose Your Own Adventure Club
• I begin my association with the Phat Fiber sampler box and made a whole bunch of super awesome friends and associations with wildly talented fiber artists.
• I learned to spin and bought not one but two spinning wheels this year. And a drum carder. And about 100 lbs of fiber.
• I opened my first wholesale account for yarn.
• I was a Maid of Honor in a friends wedding (congrats Josh & Sylvia for getting hitched this year!), this was the first time I’ve ever been asked to be in someone’s wedding.
• I took several little road trips with my best friend(s), Christina Marie and Laura Marie.
• I started blogs galore; including Mouthy Maries, Loud and Mouthy and Sock Yarn: Debunked.
• I wrote (briefly) in a professional capacity for HandMadeNews.org 

I could go over some of the not so awesome aspects of 2009, but for the sake of posterity I’d like to look back and only remember the awesome. Yucky stuff happened too, of course, but nothing so grievous that it needs to be documented here. I will remember 2009 as the year of accomplishments, not only my own but of the people I love and admire as well.

I met some awesome people this year, made some startling revelations about myself and where my life is headed. I hope 2010 is a year of fulfilling hopes, dreams and ambitions. Or at the very least of getting a little closer to some of them.

Happy New Year everyone!

(p.s. I have no idea where this week went or how I managed to completely fail to post a new Knit Tips video. There will be new ones soon, and also information on new patterns, a new project I’m launching for up and coming designers and lots of other stuff. Let’s just survive New Years Eve in Las Vegas first.)