On the last day of 2008, I thought it would be prudent to sit back and look at the year that’s been. All told, Lauren and I have had a very big – and successful – year. After all, I started at Gizmodo, we got married, I travelled around a bit and now Lauren’s been promoted to manager of her work. Not a bad year for a couple in the penultimate year of their 20s…

And to think that this time last year I was in a state of turmoil. I’d just signed the contract for the job at Giz AU, and while I knew I’d be earning more money, I essentially needed to start running my work life like I was running my own business (which, technically, is what I’m doing), and that was a daunting prospect. On top of that, Lauren and I were in the final stretch for wedding preparations, and the costs were climbing every day it seemed. Last Christmas was a very budget affair, and it made it harder for us to know that we were climbing into more and more debt.

But then January came around – I started at Giz, and everything started getting better. By the time the wedding arrived in March, we were already much more at ease and although I have never been more nervous than I was on our wedding day, everything was better than perfect, including the Fijian honeymoon.

On the work front, things have just continued to expand. When I started in January at Giz, we had a monthly readership of about 250,000. In November, we cracked 800,000. Plus, we’ve just been announced as a finalist for best Australian blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. And despite a handful of frustrating moments over the past year at work, looking back at what I’ve achieved gives me a nice warm feeling in my sub-cockle area.

Outside of the whole work and wedding spectrum – we’ve finally started getting the house in proper order. We finished painting the loungeroom, got ourselves a new wall-mounted TV, bought a new Mac at the start of the year, replanted the herb garden and generally kept things moving forward. And we don’t feel like we’re struggling financially anymore. Sure, we’re not wealthy, but we’re not poor either. I guess that makes us the shining example of middle-class…

It wasn’t all good though – Lauren’s had a few health issues that weren’t a lot of fun. Most of them are under control now though, so fingers crossed we won’t have any problems for next year.

So, what for 2009, the final year of our 20s? Well, I guess we’re both hoping for a fourth and fifth addition to our little family – both a dog friend for Simba and child of our own. Hopefully I’ll finally get around to painting this hideous pink study (doing it this weekend!), as well as the rest of the house. Plus, we’ll just continue the gradual process of making our home exactly the way we want it. And in the end, I just hope that we continue to grow the way we both did this year.

Happy New Year! I hope you all have as good a 2009 as we did a 2008.