Lemmings

Yes I am. I first did this last year, but after all a year has gone by and perhaps I will find enlightenment this time through the exercise. Thank Amy for reminding me, and Jen!c@ for following up!

20 years ago, I:
1. was a junior in college. Life was good: I had a boyfriend, my classes weren't awful, I was getting good grades, I liked my roommate. I had just gotten back from China, the USSR, Switzerland, and Italy. I was running the campus radio station. My boyfriend was a football player. Yeah, life was VERY good.
2. was living in a dorm. It wasn't awful; I was used to it by then. As I said, my roommate and I got along great (she's now a children's librarian in Texas, which is one thing to do with an art and education background!).
3. what did I know? Everyone was fine. My brother was still married, my family was intact; the biggest drama was that my oldest niece Elizabeth was partying too much in high school.
4. technically still had a dog, Tippy, living at home with my parents, 1000 miles away. He was 11 and a little cranky. My boyfriend had hermit crabs in his dorm room. Do those count as pets? My sister, who lived nearest to the school I was at had a cat, and possibly a dog (Gypsy didn't last very long at their house...).
5. had a loft built by my dad. Why in the world did I sell that when I graduated?? It was a great loft! Otherwise, not a stick of furniture, but a lot of boxes.

15 years ago, I:
1. was working at a job I hated, in a community I wasn’t thrilled with, for Psycho-Boss from hell. I had determined that I was going to outlast her, however, no matter what. Because I was young and foolish.
2. was just about to find our first house. We were living in an upper flat near a very busy street about 4 blocks from a hospital (and very close to a great Italian restaurant).
3. my family (of origin) was getting along fairly well with one another.
4. was breeding zebra finches. Not on purpose: the first pair just had babies, and then those birds had babies….
5. had enough furniture to (barely) fill a full-size pickup truck.

10 years ago, I:
1. was delivering newspapers in the mornings. Over 100 of them. Every day. Brr. And yawn.
2. was living in a house I hated. We were poor—relatively speaking
3. was starting to recover from the deaths of my sister and dad, who had just died at the end of the last year. The whole family was reeling.
4. had a wonderful dog named Shady who really was, as Sparky told me yesterday, “The Best Dog in the World.”
5. had too much furniture for the house we lived in. Some of it nice, some of it ugly.

5 years ago, I:
1. was working part-time here, in the evenings and one day a week. Sparky was in daycare two days each week, so I was beginning to regain my sanity.
2. was still living in the same house. I was still obsessing over our bills.
3. was worrying about my mom’s health because it was beginning to become a real problem, and everyone was starting to drift apart a bit.
4. still had Shady, in spite of terrible allergies. She was now living exclusively outside. But she was still a wonderful dog, and Sparky’s best friend in the world.
5. had too much furniture, although less of the crap, and more nice stuff.

2 years ago, I:
1. had just switched to being the main cataloger on staff. I was trying to figure out who all the people in the library system were. I was trying to figure out how I could possibly work 25+ hours each week.
2. was still in the same house, but had finally gotten The Beast to start looking at building a new house. I think we’d even looked at some properties at this point.
3. had found out my sister Jean was diagnosed with Parkinson’s—the “bad kind”—and my mom had just had colon surgery for a small bit of cancer which hadn’t spread at all. My niece Katherine had moved to this area.
4. still had Shady, who at age 13 was really slowing down: nearly deaf, almost blind, arthritic, but still game to chase a tennis ball for hours.
5. had a decent-looking living room. The Beast also had installed a pseudo-wood floor in our bedroom and we’d painted the laundry room because we bought new appliances.

1 year ago, I:
1. was much more settled in my job, and chairing the cataloging committee for our consortia. (How did that happen?) I had met a wonderful new friend there, and generally was feeling like an actual grownup. I had started blogging about a month earlier. I was ready to kill Sparky’s teacher.
2. had MOVED! To a house we designed and built. I loved it.
3. spent my phone calls with my mom asking if I’d wakened her up with the phone and then to please repeat everything she said because she had a real mushy mouth. Oh, a stroke! My brother had gone mental. Marguerite, my niece, was getting married in the summer. We had seen my nephews James and Don and their dad, Dean, for the first time in about 6 years the previous Thanksgiving.
4. didn’t have a dog anymore. She died the summer before we moved. Sparky had received “two boy” guinea pigs for Christmas. One of them was pregnant by this time last year.
5. had just enough furniture to fit in all the rooms of the house with not too much left over. It only looks a little wrong here and there.

6 months ago, I:
1. still was liking my job, but I was no longer chairing the committee (or was I?). I was getting very compulsive about blogging, and had met one blog-friend while on vacation in July. Sparky was starting middle school.
2. had made it through a summer in the new place, which requires a lot more yardwork than any other place we’ve lived. But it has better air-conditioning inside, so that’s a pretty good trade.
3. thought Mom was improving: supposedly she was doing exercises, and she was taking anti-depressants and generally sounding better on the phone. Marguerite was married. Katherine was getting extremely serious about the guy she’d been dating, Alan.
4. still have guinea pigs. Sparky keeps asking about a dog.
5. have curtains on all the bedroom windows and in the office. Still nothing on the rest of the downstairs. The Beast is madly putting up drywall and moving electrical boxes in the basement. And the train set is back out down there. Sigh…

Yesterday, I:
1. didn’t have to come to work, so I address 60 wedding invitations for Katherine. We had a meeting for Sparky’s Challenge Corps last night here at the library. Pretty easy day.
2. had a very messy house, and I didn’t straighten anything up for Katherine's arrival. Well, I cleaned the bathroom, but that’s it!
3. was discouraged about my mom’s life/health, my sister Jean continues to get sicker, Marie's knees are in terrible shape, The Beast is having surgery next week, Sparky’s starting adolescence…. I don’t like my family life right now: it’s very complicated and messy and ugly.
4. was explaining to the pizza dude that those aren’t rabbits, they’re guinea pigs.
5. had no power first thing in the morning. Which sucked.

Today, I:
1. have been working. OK, or not. {Actually, I’ve crossed off 4 of the 6 things on my to-do list, so nyaah.} The Beast is out of town till tomorrow night. I got a haircut, and have to leave to pick up Sparky for his haircut in about 10 minutes. Then we’ll watch The Amazing Race tonight and eat leftovers for supper.
2. have to clean up the house so the cleaning lady can find the floors tomorrow.
3. continue to be discouraged about everything I mentioned above. I sure hope this surgery works for The Beast.
4. may not have to remind Sparky to clean the pigs’ cage. He’s getting better about remembering. Finally!
5. can’t wait to kick back in the recliner and relax tonight. And I really can’t wait for The Beast’s new chair to arrive.

Tomorrow, I:
1. will be at work. I have a chiropractor appointment in the afternoon, which is good because my back was killing me yesterday crouched over those dumb invites. I won’t be able to go to morning Bible Study, but I hope to do the evening one.
2. will have clean floors!
3. will continue to worry about everyone in my family. What choice do I have?
4. really must remember to make an appointment for the guinea pigs’ manicure (pedicure?)!
5. will commence looking for our new window blinds to be delivered. Maybe they’ll be installed before my sister arrives on March 12.