Goodbye 2009, hello 2010!

It's hard to believe that another year is over and that a new year will begin tomorrow! Time does go so quickly! Not only will we be starting a new year, but a new decade. Things have changed so much in the past 10 years for me personally, but also in my family and in the world. 10 years ago I didn't have any nieces or nephews, but now I have 12 -- soon to be 16. My life has changed in a big way physically, of course, as I became permanently paralyzed in 2003. 10 years ago I was a young girl of 15, but now I'm an adult of 25.

It's crazy to think of all of the inventions of the past decade, as well as all of the technological upgrades and advancements too. A cell phone was just a telephone 10 years ago, but now cell phones are virtually palm-sized computers with wireless internet capabilities, and you can do all sorts of things with them like take pictures and video, send text messages and e-mails and even update your Facebook status! MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs are all relatively recent "inventions" as well. I just wonder what kinds of things will be invented and how things will change and evolve in the course of the next decade.

My favorite New Year's Eve memory is from 2003. I was still in the ICU at Barnes Jewish Hospital, and my mom and two of my older sisters (Sharon and Annette) came to the hospital to spend the evening with me. I asked my mom to bring the original 1978 Superman movie with Christopher Reeve and crab rangoon from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I wasn't celebrating New Year's Eve the way I really wanted to or expected I would, but I was happy to be alive and happy to be with my family. It wasn't an extravagant celebration, but it was memorable.