Happy New Year!

As I am looking back on 2008, I've realized that there were quite a few firsts, many of them good, and some of them pretty painful. 21 isn't always all it's cracked up to be, but I can definitely say that this was an eventful year. Here are just a few of my firsts from 2008.

1. First real full-time, big-company job: I worked 40 hours a week at a wonderful magazine in a big city and had the time of my life actually DOING what I've been studying four years of college to do.

2. First apartment not BYU-Idaho approved: Nor would an apartment this disgusting and dirty EVER gain the university's approval. Although most 35-year-olds attending college probably wouldn't live with three other girls at BYU-Idaho, either. That's best left to the thriving metropolis of Salt Lake City.

3. First love and first broken heart: Not a path I would strongly recommend, although it does teach you to be careful what you wish for.

4. First car I entirely own: It's an Oldsmobile Intrigue, not exactly a Dodge Viper, but it is nice and it is mine. Although I do occasionally miss my white Chrysler LeBaron (however, I didn't trade an MG for it). If you didn't get the Cake reference, I'm sorry. It's such a good song.

5. First time to New York City: I took a tiny little bite out of the Big Apple when I went there for three days. My brother is still mad that I didn't bring him back a piece of the decrepit Yankee Stadium they are tearing down. He'll get over it.

6. First time (and probably the last) climbing Mount Timpanogos. My sister and I climbed it in August and ran out of food, water, and all ambition to climb in 90 degree weather. We found out when we were halfway up to the top that most people climb it at dark, spend the night there, and then climb back down in the morning. Maybe we would have avoided heat stroke that way.

7. First time going to an outdoor concert for someone big: I saw James Taylor in Salt Lake and was STILL talking about it weeks later. "You've Got a Friend" in JT. OK, OK, corny, I know, but he was seriously even better live, and that is rare.

And number 8 is... my first time going to a REAL New Year's party with people I don't know at all. We even had shots — of sparkling apple cider — in paper cups. Then we watched an apple wrapped in ribbon sliding down from a ceiling fan.

Yes, 2008 was full of firsts, but 2009 has come. Maybe it'll have a few seconds, although my resolution won't allow those seconds to involve cheesecake. Let's see how long that lasts.