Goodbye 2008, hello 2009

Another year has gone by. I've turned another year older and there've been a lot of changes in my life. I am not one to make New Years resolutions because I know that there is no way I will ever do them,lol. So what that leaves me to do is to review the past year.
I changed the venue of my creative outlet to digital scrapbooking. I had so many photographs and memories that I wanted to remember and keep for not only myself but for others if they were so inclined. This started in May, when National Scrapbooking Day arrived. I joined the Sweet Shoppe Design community and haven't looked back; much. I don't like to burn bridges. The tagging community and the friends that I've made there are still a part of my life. It's been part of me for a long time and it's been another step to what I'm doing now.
That month of May was also very sad, as a beloved friend and mentor passed away. This man taught me so much about the one passion that has remained a constant in my life, my horses. Almost all of what I know I owe to him and consider myself fortunate to have had him in my life for so long, which was an incredible forty years.
My mental health has remained incredibly stable for the past three or four years. I consider it a gift each and every day. It's one thing that I am always aware of, always monitoring. Then again, I've spent a long time with it and learning lots of coping skills and other things to get me through each day. If I don't know what to do now, I'm hurting,lol.
In September I had to have a dear member of my animal family put down. Nancy Bright, my beautiful, talented, sweet and tough as nails Appaloosa whom I'd had in my life since day one, had a twisted bowel and so we did the kind thing for her. She's buried in the pasture that was her home. Nan was 29. She'd lived a long and good life. She was my friend, she owed us nothing. I owed her everything.
My dad. The person I called daddy or Johnny, whatever came out of my mouth at the time; the man who I adored, admired and missed incredibly because he'd moved so far away,died on December 12,2008. That year had been incredibly hard on him healthwise. Early in the year he spent a great many weeks in the hospital with a mixture of issues resulting from a multiplicity of health issues that included diabetes, heart and kidneys. He'd battled and fought back about a year and a half before, prostate and bladder cancer. But this time, he lost the battle. His heart finally gave out.
Johnny however, had looked at the past twenty nine years as a gift; he suffered a bad heart attack in 1979 at the age of 46. That was my daddy. He had an incredible capacity for looking at the positive side of things.
There were good things too, the best for me becoming a member of incredibly talented digital scrapbook designers creative teams, Penny Springmann and Darcy Baldwin. They and the women who comprise the teams have increased my self esteem and worth as well as broadened my creative horizons.
The last day of the year was incredible and was a fantastic way for the year to end. A young woman who'd been a big part of my life, who I loved and watched grow, became a part of it again. As young adults are wont to do, she graduated from college and found her new life and conseguently, we lost touch. I saw her a few times, but that was rare. One day last week I decided I'd try to find her and through the wonder known as the internet, I did. The morning of December 31 I awoke to a phone call with those wonderful words, "Aunt Brooke, have you been trying to call me?!". Let me tell you, that filled my heart with such joy that it made a lot of what's happened this past year bearable. Nikki, if you should ever run across this blog, I want you to know this, that you made me so incredibly happy.
What this new year will bring I've no idea. I'm not a big planner, so whatever comes my way, we'll just have to take it as it comes.