2011 is nearly here.

And it sounds...exciting! Yearly Horoscope for Cancer - Astrology.com From that astrologer's keyboard to God's ears!

Okay, I'm definitely not someone who runs her life via her horoscope, but I am amused at how often people born under the same signs have strikingly similar life experiences at the same time. Take me and my virtual cousin (she and her family could totally blend with a group photo of my people) Crazy Aunt Purl. Okay, we are different ages and in different occupations, and yet in the spring of this year, both our jobs went majorly off the rails, and we found ourselves reporting to the last people on earth, or at least in our respective organizations, we'd ever WANT to report to...and it became bad fast. Coincidence, probably, but also kinda uncanny - I lived that. I read this post today, and Laurie's description of dreading work and feeling so stressed and miserable rings true - though she lasted until June, while I jumped out of the frying pan at the first solid proof that it was as bad as I'd feared. With my brain thang history, I wasn't about to stick around and let the stress actually kill me. The life after job story is similar too - reconnecting with family, realizing that life is a whole lot better when you aren't commuting 2-3 hours a day to a job you have come to dread...the details may differ, but yeah, we had a strikingly similar year in many ways.

2010 is ending far better than it began. I will forever mentally bless the VP I was assigned to, because just by being His Very Special Self, he gave me the shove to do what I'd talked about doing. He forced me to really take a look at what I was doing with my life (pissing it away hoping things would get better, while the evidence to the contrary kept piling up) and evaluate the risks I was willing to take to make the changes that were screaming to be made. And now I'm here, in Asheville, in a pleasant apartment, with my daughter and her husband happily settled in my FL house, my son and his family nearby, and Sophie is snoring on my knitting chair and Murphy is determined to drag me on walks in snowstorms, and all is right with the world. I have big picture plans I'm too superstitious to discuss, but I'm feeling good. Not just hoping to feel good, but really feeling good.

Of course, I do have goals to meet for 2011 - what is a new year if not a chance to evaluate where you are, and what you need to change to get to where you want to be? I have major goals that really MUST happen - not lightweight, optional goals. But this year was HUGE - so many huge changes. I've never quit a job without a new one lined up waiting. I've never undertaken a solo move to another state. I'm taking chances that I always backed away from as crazy and irresponsible, and while I still occasionally hear my father's voice telling me I'm being stupid, and my mother's telling me I should never, ever give up "security," I'm sleeping better than I have in the last decade.

So bring on 2011! I'm ready to jump in! Oh, and I made one small change only the sharp-eyed may notice. I took the parentheses off the (s) on the blog title. Because my funny little Sophie isn't a newcomer anymore and deserves full credit as part of the Bossy Dog Team.