2008: A year of changes

This past year, 2008, has been a year of changes for me. Although every year seems to bring new challenges and changes, this year brought some of the most major changes yet. I moved half way across the United States, for a girl no less. I moved in with someone I had only met in person one time when she came down to move me to her house. I went through three jobs. I have seen my dog grow much older in this year. I now live with two cats, one of which GG and I picked out together as a kind of joint pet. And I turned thirty this year.

All of these changes have been good and obviously many of the are tied to one person, GG. She and I started to talk for who knows what reason. She just struck my fancy, first on Shakesville and then on her own blog. And it was probably about this time in 2008 that we started talking about me coming up to visit her in the Chicago area. So in March I did visit her and after a bit of a shy start for both of us, we warmed up and got more comfortable with each other and started to have fun. It didn't take much longer for us to decide that we should move in together and since she had a house where I only had an apartment and she had the more stable and much better paying job, I should move here to Chicago. This was massive and the whole move and getting ready for the move took over my life for a while. And then getting a job here and finding a bit of a routine for me and for us then took some time, but after 6 months together and I have a good job that I am happy in, I think we have found that sort of rhythm to our daily lives.

In 2009, I don't want as many changes, I don't think. Change can be hard for me and moving half way across the country and moving in with someone after not living with anyone for 5 years was a tough adjustment, so a year of non-massive changes would be nice, thank you very much. But there are things I want to change for 2009. I want to get back to blogging more again. When I moved I got so out of my routine that it has been a struggle to get back into blogging, but I want to blog with more frequency again. But the big change I want to make is that I want to finally work my way to becoming a pescatarian, a fish vegetarian. I have working on becoming a vegetarian it seems my entire adult life since I was 18 and maybe a bit younger. I have been doing this in stages, first not eating red meat and pork, then chicken, or at least that was the plan. I did well with the no red meat and no pork, although I did backslide on pork somewhat where I did eat bacon occasionally. But I have not been able to stop eating chicken at least not entirely, I will go a few weeks without chicken and then I will eat some for a few days and then not and so forth. But since I have moved here and GG is so supportive of my dietary ideals, I have been doing a much better job of not eating chicken at home, but I still eat it out sometimes. I want to just finally stop eating chicken at all. I know I cannot give up fish and seafood, I like it too much, but if I can finally be able to say I am a fish vegetarian and it be totally true, I would be more satisfied with my self. I tell people I am a pescatarian already, but since I still eat chicken this is not entirely true. And then when I eat chicken around people who I have said that I only eat fish, I feel like I have lied or deceived them and myself. So this year will be the year of giving up chicken, well it shouldn't take the year, I have no intentions of doing this slowly, I will no longer eat chicken or any fowl.

So to everyone out there who reads this post and even to those who have not read this post, Happy New Year.