Reviewing the Zero Years

This morning I was reading Diana Peterfreund's blog and I thought her 'Decade in Review' seemed like an awesome idea (even though I agree with her that the decade isn't quite over).  So...  Here I am, reviewing the zero years...

Let's start with the night the zeroes began.  I don't know about you, but I was at home, online, chatting and waiting to see if the world was going to end because earlier programmers hadn't thought to write code to encompass the years past 1999.  Needless to say, nothing happened and we all had a good laugh about it in the chat room.

The year 2000 had its ups and downs.  Picture it: Burton, MI.  When the year started I was in a committed relationship that lasted another month.  By the end of the year, I had been through what I thought was a different committed relationship (I was monogamous.  Too bad he wasn't.) and ended the year in an online relationship that would last a couple years.  Daughter started the year in first grade, with a teacher who was determined to get her on Ridalin - because my child obviously had ADD.  Feh.  I was working in a job I loved that had significant parts I hated.  2000 also saw the last few weeks of my physical therapy from a surgery I had in October of 1999.

I spent New Year's 2001 in Tallahassee, FL, visiting my online romance and checking out the city as a potential new home.  The romance part went well, and it was nice to be somewhere on January 1st that wasn't covered in snow.  In March, my new beau came up to Michigan and it was decided.  I would leave my home of 30+ years.  I gave notice at my job - which had become more of the hated and less of the loved anyway - and I put my house on the market.  Daughter's second grade teacher sat me down to tell me that my child probably needed Ridalin, because she couldn't sit still in class.  Bah.  We moved to Florida at the end of June to start our new life.  The house hadn't sold, but I found what I thought was a wonderful person to rent it with an option to buy.  I didn't care.  I had money in my bank account and a new lease on life.  Lucky me, I found a job just before my savings ran out.  That Christmas, my beau got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.

Another New Year's Day rolled around - one I don't much remember.  2002 was a busy year. The start of it found me working my tail off for a place called Dial America as a floor manager, living in a lovely apartment in the best school district in Tallahassee, and playing house with a man I thought would eventually be my husband.  Daughter's new FL teacher was awesome, until Daughter got bored - then I got called in to discuss... you guessed it... Ridalin.  (Only this time she supposedly had ADHD.)  P'shaw.  We decided homeschool was the only way to put a stop to it.  In May, I got promoted to shift manager and two days later my father passed away.  (Not that those are related in any way, but the schism between the two left me a wreck.  Super happy, incredibly sad.  Talk about manic-depressive.)  The summer passed in a blur until the day I got laid-off.  Not to worry, I got another job offer within a couple weeks, but then again, so did the beau.  Only his offer was in Utah.  We had two weeks to pack everything and move.  Homeschool stopped, and Daughter got her first private school experience.  It lasted about a month before they asked me to remove her before they kicked her out.  Off she went to Utah public school, and off I went to a temp job.  (Finding a job in Utah is only easy if you already Mormon.  I'm not.)

Enter 2003.  Another jam packed year.  I found an awesome permanent job in January - at a place called Orbit (they make sprinker systems) - as... get this... Executive Administrative Assistant to the Vice President of Operations.  Daughter was doing fine at her new school - making friends, finally - and her grades were back up to where a girl with a 138 IQ should be (the FL school gave her an IQ test because they thought she was learning disabled... go figger).  In April, I got a line on my dream job - working for the same private school system Daughter was unceremoniously ousted from, and come May, I got the job.  I thought everything in my life was finally working out.  Two weeks later, my beau decided he never really loved me after all and we went our separate ways.  I moved again and Daughter had another new school to deal with.  Over the summer, we got Kira - our most loveable furbaby.

If I thought 2003 was jammed, I was in for a shock in 2004.  One night in January, after watching the movie Armageddon, I was laying in bed when the idea for a novel jumped into my head.  I got up and wrote down the general premise before going back to bed.  After work the next day, I sat down at my computer and began writing what would become my first book - Spectacle.  Two weeks later (what is it about two weeks and my life?  LOL), I was feeling lonely and decided to do a hard-target search on Match.com.  I found two profiles I thought looked interesting enough to write to.  One became a friend, and the other blossomed into something more.  By April we were serious enough that he flew me to Colorado and we spent a wonderful week in each other's company.  We were married in May, but between work and housing, we still couldn't be together.  Those six weeks of married but living apart was hell, but we survived them.  Daughter and I did the 600+ mile trek with Kira from Utah to northeast Colorado.  Once we settled in, I got back to writing and just before she began her new school, I finished the first draft of my first novel.

From then to now, it all sort of blurs together.  2005 saw me finally getting rid of that house in Michigan.  It also saw the end of Daughter's public school career.  I finished another book, and started a third.  In 2006, I began my first writing blog and my now-defunct homeschooling blog.  During those two years, I tried a couple writing forums - both of which I eventually parted company with.  I found the blog community, though, and I'm happier here with all of you than I ever was with either forum.

2007-2009 saw more of the same in both my life and my writing.  I've been cranking out books and collecting rejections, homeschooling Daughter (although she doesn't need me for much education anymore), loving my husband and keeping our house.  I've made some good friends - both online and off.  I'm settled here in Colorado - which is probably why it's a blur.  No major incidents to mark the passage of time.  Over the last couple years, my writing and/or my submission materials must've improved because I've actually gotten some requests for partials and a few for fulls.

All in all, the zero years weren't a bad decade.  Better than the '90s were for me, definitely.  In fact, now that I think about it, 2000-2009 was probably the best decade of my life.  I found true love, I discovered the wonderful person inside my troubled daughter, and I took the chance to live out my lifelong dream of writing.  Who could ask for more?

I don't know what the next ten years will bring, but if they end up with half as many good things as the preceeding ten, I'll be one lucky gal.  Here's to a wonderful time in the tens.

See you next year.  ;o)