Number 8: Reut Visits. Some events don’t get blogged about. This is one of those occasions, though looking back I’m a bit surprised I never mentioned it. Our good friend in Italy, Lamberto, has a sister-in-law named Reut Cohen who was days away from her mandatory service in the Israeli army. She wanted to brush up on her english beforehand, so she contacted her friends in the States to set up some visits. We hosted her for a week in September.

Reut’s english is already pretty good. Hallie and Travis absolutely adored her. We enjoyed visiting with her and learning about different cultures. She seemed to be very happy here, which of course made us happy, though Raleigh isn’t as exciting as New York or DC. Reut didn’t have the benefit of a car while she was here, which severely limits what she could do during the day. I never gave much thought to how important a car is to life in Raleigh before she came to visit.

9. Extreme weather. There’s weather every year, of course, but this year had some interesting stuff. It started with a bang (though fortunately not a literal one) when a tornado whizzed by our house close enough to hear. I like to think I’m prepared for most any weather emergency but that really, really spooked me. I purchased an automatic weather radio the very next day. Now when severe weather is announced the radio will alert us – a very prudent investment.

January will live in infamy from the surprise snowfall that paralyzed the city of Raleigh. While at first I made fun of the bad driving, once I joined them my tune quickly changed. My 30 minute commute stretched to over three agonizing hours. I was one of the lucky ones, too! The city of Raleigh got some really, really bad publicity, the government put a better snow plan in place, and eventually we all moved on. It remains to be seen if anything will change for our next snowfall, however. I’m not holding my breath.

One March morning the sky got ominously dark. We were just sitting down for breakfast when a terrible racket enveloped the house. Hail the size of quarters was falling, pelting the roof, cars, and everything else. I managed to measure and photograph one hailstone before leaving for work. It was the biggest hail I’d ever seen.

We got more hail in December from a freak storm. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Neither could our local forecasters, who differed on whether it was hail or sleet which had fallen. Quite unusual.

Sandwiched in the middle of all this was a long, hot drought. Droughts are becoming routine here, unfortunately. Some experts opine that the city should enact permanent water restrictions. I say that growth restrictions would be more effective. Raleigh citizens need to stop subsidizing sprawl. We should put plans into place to ensure that new development won’t put an unmanageable burden on our overdrawn water resources. Y’all newcomers want to live in a starter castle in the boonies? Fine! Don’t expect me to ration my water so you can fill up your pool.

Here’s hoping there’ll be no freak snowstorms or searing droughts to write about in 2006.

As promised, its time to look back and recall the top ten events of 2005. It was a unique year in a number of ways. There will never be a year quite like it. I toast 2005 and look forward to an even better 2006.

Let’s launch right into things and count ’em down.

10. Home Projects. Last year we moved into our current home and spent the rest of the year getting to know it. This year, we began making changes in earnest to make it our own. Projects we completed this year include shifting our home office from upstairs to our downstairs dining room. I fetched my grandmother’s antique bedroom furniture from Florida in April, though it was weird seeing her house empty. The furniture now furnishes Hallie’s room as well as our guest bedroom.

We had been planning to fence our backyard but needed to fix the grading before the posts went in. A homemade fix in January wasn’t ideal, so we called in the pros. A few bids later and the perpetual lake in the back corner was gone for good. The fence went up a few weeks later. There’s nothing like a nice fence to make you feel pride in your home!

The next projects were the most challenging: painting! The work itself isn’t as hard as determing colors. Kelly prodded me after Thanksgiving to revisit this, so we settled on a few colors and got to work. Now we have a nicely-painted den and foyer, with the kitchen and hallways next on the list. Paint can really fix a home up. We’re pleased with the results!