Looking back

Seriously don't know what has prompted this post, but I was just sitting here in front of my computer thinking about the upcoming holiday season and how different this year is from last year. At this time last year I was suffering under the regime of "Dragon Lady" and pretty much just miserable at work. Now I have a wonderful boss and an awesome group of coworkers and the laughter is back in the school! There are a lot of new teachers, but as a staff we have managed to bond really well and have an awesome working relationship.
At this time last year I had just recently moved into my condo and was trying to unpack and organize. Haven't made a hell of a lot of progress in that area over the past year, but I don't really give a damn.
Right around this time last year I commented in a post that I was actually enjoying all the early holiday advertisements and things because it helped to lift my mood. Now I have a confession to make. It's probably as a result of all the subtle brainwashing by marketing experts over the years, but I really rather enjoy seeing all the holiday commercials after Halloween! It helps to build anticipation for the Christmas season!
I was reading some of the posts I made last year around the time I moved and I realized that I never posted the story of how I knew that I was meant to live in this apartment. My realtor had already shown me a few places and I wasn't really seeing anything I liked. I was getting a sense of what I definitely did NOT want in an apartment or an apartment complex though. I didn't want to live in a huge, impersonal building. I didn't want to live on the other side of the city close to Delta, and I didn't want to live on the first floor. One day after school my realtor picked me up from work so that we could go look at this place. I was quite interested in seeing it because for the first time after reading the address of a place I was going to look at, I could envision it being my address. When we pulled up in front of the building, I just knew. It looked exactly right for me. When my realtor realized that she didn't have the right keys for the front door and that we'd have to go to her office to pick them up, I was very disappointed. I actually wanted to say "hurry up! I have to see my new home!" We retrieved the keys and came back to the building. We came up to this suite and looked around inside. Since it was vacant at the time there wasn't a whole lot to see, except the giant dehumidifier set up in the kitchen to clean up some water damage left by the previous tenant. We walked around and my realtor said "so, what do you think?" I said "I love it!" She said "do you love it enough to make an offer?" I said "let's do it!" A couple of days later, it was all mine! I have not regretted the decision one bit over the past year. Interestingly enough, almost exactly a year to the day I moved into the place, a few of us were talking at work one day about buying property. The topic of conversation had to do with those home improvement shows and how there was one of HGTV that talked about how to set up your house to sell it. Pretty much all the stuff that they said was in the show about how to set up your house to sell it (new coat of paint, furniture in the house to help people envision what their furniture would look like in the house, etc.) was the exact opposite of what this place looked like when I bought it! I. just. knew. I knew that this place was meant to be mine!
I hope you have a lovely weekend my fellow bloggers!