happy happy.

oh dear. i truly had grand plans to stop slacking in the writing dept over here throughout the month of december. and yet i've been gone so long i didn't even know that they added helvetica as a font option (YAY!). 

but i'm back just in time for my requisite end-of-year post. while i am scarily still in a similar boat to the one i was in last year at this time, i can safely say that this time i won't be reflecting on all the crying i did during the past year. PROGRESS! 

so i tend to sum up this year as all crappy, but in reflecting on it as of late, it wasn't a total waste. mainly a waste - yes - but some great things managed to sneak in within the past twelve months, and more importantly, i have a feeling i will someday look back and see that this year was more of a transitional one than a flat-out terrible one. i used to go around saying "when i get my old life back"....and then it hit me one day that i wasn't, ever, going to get back the life i had been leading since i've been out of college. and then it hit me that i'm actually ok with that. in which case 2009 had to turn out this way as it's laying the foundation for a new path for me. and there's nothing wrong with new paths, right? there can be oodles of exciting new places along it to explore. 

so this (possibly delusional) outlook is what's getting me through the end of this year, and more importantly, end of this decade. as i watch 2009 limp away from me with it's tail between its mangy little legs, i say bring on the 10's, and - good lord - my 30's. i can't wait to see what's in store. 

happy, happy new year, dear readers ~ wishing you all all the best for this shiny new decade. 

am i smarter than a fifth grader? most definitely not.

for reasons that shall go nameless at the moment, i have to re-learn my fractions this week. i mean old-school, mastered-when-i-was-nine-years-old-and-haven't-thought-of-since fractions. i always used to laugh about the people who went on those silly 'are you smarter than an elementary-schooler?' type shows, but now that i'm actually re-attempting math from 20 (jeez!) years ago, i realize just how freaking hard this stuff is.

after being completely bewildered by phrases like "greatest common denominator" a few hours ago, i'm starting to make strides. things are coming back to me, and i'm currently maintaining a passing grade of 77 (fine. barely passing.) on a website game for adding fractions. BUT i'm positively excelling when it comes to dividing fractions, with a 93% and a gold smiley-faced star. a fact that i am entirely too proud of -- i'm ready to print out the page and hang it on the refrigerator.