I can't say as I'm going to miss it, despite the fact that '08 brought us our first African American President and as real a sense of hope as I can remember.

I won't miss it because 2008 also brought us full-force into the debauchery of our times. It forced us to stand in front of the mirror of our own making and see how much we've actually lost. How much we squandered.

On a personal level, 2008 has been good to our family. It's brought us back to the place we started; it's made us see what's important. We have two, healthy, growing children who happen, at the moment, to adore each other.

We have even prospered enough to risk our sanity and future solvency on a new business venture, which means moving a few houses down the road (hopefully by the summer of the New Year).

But it also means deciding to sell our barn: the place we've realized ourselves and raised our infants. It's where we were married, and where we planted our first tree. It's even where we buried our beloved dog Maggie. Someone else will be walking across the tile floor I installed. Someone else will open and close the big barn doors my father-in-law made. And eventually, someone else will paint over the marks on the wall charting our children's growth from the time they could stand until now.

All of that has next year to play out, but the deciding has taken place in this year.

I'm choosing to look at it as an opportunity to make a new home out of an old house. I'm deciding to look on the bright side and be excited.

Time moves on, so will we.