30 Days of Me: Day 28 - This year, in great detail

Oh this past year... gotta admit, 2010 has been quite a bit better than 2009!

Let's see, this time last year I had just recently started selling Mary Kay and I was also working seasonally at Sears Essential as a cashier to pick up some cash.

Christmas went the same as it always has with family. We went out to Freeport and spent New Years Eve with hubby's brothers and some family friends of theirs. We were going to spend the night but I just couldn't get to sleep and so hubby and I drove back home in the middle of the night to spend the night in our own bed.

Mary Kay started out well, but after the first of the year, it slowed down A LOT and I was getting a bit frustrated. I did go to my first ever ice hockey game, as my unit and our families went to the Pink in the Rink game where some of the proceeds went to help fight breast cancer. I also went to a Mary Kay conference with my unit up in Madison for a weekend, which was pretty neat and a lot of fun and gave me a boost of confidence to put more of an effort into it, however after a month of hardcore trying with no results and my leads exhausted, I realized it maybe wasn't for me and by summer I had sold off most of my remaining inventory and sold the rest back to the company. It was fun while it lasted, but I just wasn't getting out as much as I was hoping. I do love the products though and will probably continue to keep using them.

I had my first experience with Jury Duty in February. I waited around all morning in a room with like 200 other people, then I got called to the courtroom with 40 others and was one of the first to be selected for the jury. After lunch they finished the jury selection and started on the case when I realized while listening to the first witness that the defendant was involved in a sexual abuse and custody case that my good friend's relatives are involved in. I mentioned it to the bailiff when they dismissed us and he had me come in the next morning to state when I knew regarding the defendant to the judge and case workers. They ended up letting me leave and go home, feeling that my prior knowledge of the other case would taint my opinion of the defendant in this case.

Also in February, hubby got a second job with the Verizon retailer that his brothers also work for and he started doing that during the day as he was getting bored and antsy at home. They had him working fulltime hours for meager commission pay at a not-so-good location, so after getting a paycheck for $3 he decided to quit as it wasn't worth it. The next day they called and offered him a salaried assistant manager position at their main location in town, so he gladly took that. In a matter of months he ended up becoming the actual store manager there. He works a lot, but as he put it tonight, although he complains about working all the time, if he wasn't working he'd be bored at home like I am.

At the end of May, I gave in and got my first smartphone after playing around with hubby's new Droid he got a month or so prior. I was skeptical at first, as I didn't see the point, but now having had one, I can't see ever going back to a phone that isn't one! My phone can do sooooo much! Sure, I can text and make calls, but I can surf the internet, watch videos, blog on it, read other blogs as well as full books, update and keep up with Facebook and Twitter (zomg, Twitter makes so much more sense to me now) at the press of a button, use it as a GPS or a music player, play fun games and do soooooo much more with it as there's tons and tons of apps! I love my Droid! And it's so customizable too - there's like 7 or 8 Droids in my family now and no 2 look the same as we have ours customized to our own personal preferences and looks.

It also came in handy when our computer's power source died and we were pretty much without a computer for a few weeks! Thanks to our Droids, we were still able to keep in touch with stuff online.

Around Easter, working the Verizon kiosk out at the mall, hubby got bit by the baby bug, seeing all the cute little kids out there with their parents shopping for Easter clothes and visiting the Easter bunny. We decided I'd finish the pack of birth control pills I was on and then not get the next pack. We figured it would take a couple months - at least til summer - to get the hormones out of my system, but we ended up conceiving at the very end of May and announced it to our families on Father's Day a week after we found out. Our first doctor's appointment wasn't until the end of July at 10 weeks though and it seemed like FOREVER. Now, 6 months in, it seems like February 20th is quickly creeping up on us, as the holidays are going to make November and December fly by!

The rest of the summer was pretty uneventful.

October was our big vacation for the year - going to Dallas to visit my old college roomie and see a Cowboys game. It was a nice, fun relaxing trip...

...until we hit the buck on the drive home. So I guess that's one thing that happened in 2009 that also happened this year - getting in a pretty expensive car accident! In February 2009, we got hit going through an intersection when this teenager ran his red light, totaling hubby's car. We ended up getting the car he has now, which is the one that we hit the buck in and came close to being totaled! Hopefully next year we won't have another car accident (*crosses fingers*).

Anyways, that next week back I got my hours cut again at work AGAIN as there's no business going on at all. I got a seasonal job for now, but I still feel kinda bummed as I haven't gotten too many hours there yet and I feel bad that hubby's pulling most of the weight financially right now, but I just don't know what more I can do to make my work situation better - I feel a bit helpless, as it's not like it's my fault the economy sucks. Hopefully once I get a few more shifts in at my seasonal job they'll see I'm a good worker and put me on for more hours than they have been (I hope).

So yeah... that's been this past year thus far for us.