Christmas Letter 09

It’s time again to reflect back and summarize our year. Like all others, 2009 was a busy one. After ending 2008 overwhelmed and over-stressed I vowed to make some changes and I took measures to ease the burden of my side business. I spent most of the winter restructuring my YogaDudes business to take much of the day-to-day burden off of me. And because that restructuring wasn’t enough work, I decided to begin my studies to attain my yoga teaching certification. By the end of the Spring I was officially certified to teach so Karlo decided that I needed a studio . . . and the construction of the “Love Shack” began.

That certainly sucked up lots of time and resources, but it was mostly a fun project. We took a break from the work and enjoyed a terrific vacation in AZ. We took a tour on Karlo’s dream motorcycle, cruised around Lake Powell on a yacht, and hiked the Grand Canyon. We sure do love Arizona and have a feeling we will find ourselves back there some day.

We managed to blow the dust off our bicycles this summer and enjoyed some nice rides around home. I fell back in love with my beautiful road bike and wished there was more time in the day to get more riding in. We celebrated our 7 year anniversary by taking a bike trip in Maine and it reminded us how much we love Maine. There just isn’t enough time to do all we still want to do.

We also squeaked in another vacation this year. Karlo had a business trip to Milan and I tagged along, We extended the trip with a week in Southern Spain and it was just the break that I needed – warm beaches and a million photographic opportunities. I was in heaven.

After getting back home it was non-stop work on my new gallery (GreenValleyArts.com) getting ready for the big grand opening. I really made the most out of last year’s Christmas present. I guess you can say it was life altering to get a ‘real’ camera. I put it to lots of good use. And that, combined with my new kiln, gave me all the tools I needed to fill my new studio. The thrill of having my own art gallery was as great as I had imagined. Cross another thing off my Bucket List.
When Autumn approached Bentley took a turn for the worse and quickly deteriorated. It was torture to watch him struggle as we lost him to bone cancer. We buried him at the beginning of November and it still hurts. To ease some of the pain we decided to adopt another greyhound. We named him Cooper to continue with our tradition of classy car names. So far he’s fitting into our family perfectly.

I keep insisting that we will eventually learn how to slow down and I’m hoping that 2010 will be that year. I look forward to a fresh start and a clean slate. So far we have no plans for the upcoming year and that is some how exciting. I want to make next year more about fun times and less about work. That’s the goal. I’m very proud of what we accomplished this year, but I will be even more proud if we can successfully pull off a year of fun and relaxation.

As always we are extremely grateful for all our blessings and we are wishing all our friends and family a terrific year filled with health and happiness.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all.