Get your lists together now because there are only 78 shopping days until Christmas. That’s right, I said it, Christmas. I cannot believe it is October already. It seems like just yesterday I was wondering how 2009 would treat me, considering that 2008 was actually not that bad.

Actually, 2009 has turned out to be an up-and-down year for me so far. I lost a job but was damn glad to lose it. It helps to have a back-up plan, and so far the back-up plan has been pretty nice. It just needs some fine-tuning.

I gained a lot of weight in 2009. I want to try and lose at least half of what I have gained by the end of the year. Of course, I say this as I munch on a brownie made by my wife. To my credit I have been able to cut the Pepsi intake down to just one a day, and that was not easy. But apparently I still have a lot to learn about the logistics of weight loss. I am slowly getting better at it but, hey, I am only human.

I think I finally got my roof temporarily taken care of. The last two years I have been forced to hear the slow drip-drop of water as it falls from my roof, through my ceiling and into buckets strategically placed throughout my fireplace room. After two years of it, the wife and I decided to call in some help. We think we may have it tackled for now. We shall see. The long-term fix was a little out of our price range, but on the up-side, if we do the long-term fix, we will have an entirely new second floor to the house.

The boy continues to grow into a man, but I refuse to stop calling him “the boy.” He bought his own car this year, pays his own car insurance and has been testing new facial hair styles for the last few months. As soon as I told him I liked his goatee, he shaved it. So much for my opinion. But he is a good kid and he has gone through a lot of changes in 2009. I would have to say that 2009 was a pretty good year for the boy.

I have finally decided to start putting my fictional writing ideas to paper. Yes, it only took eight months of me promising that I would write for fun every day to finally decide to start writing for fun every day. I am still hopeful to get some of my fiction published by 2010, and I am hopeful that a novel is not too far off into the horizon. I got some motivation for my novel idea the other day when I saw a television commercial for a movie with a plot that is along the same lines as my plot. Two things struck me about that. The first was that my idea was obviously good enough to make an entertaining book because Hollywood has already churned out the movie version. The other thing is that my idea is different enough that I can still write it. But I am not taking any chances. I have already started outlining it.

The wife and I had a chance to develop a stronger friendship with our drive-in friends in 2009. It kind of feels like we have known Stu and Sue for 20 years. It is that kind of a thing. The four of us hit it off right away, and now we spend a ton of time hanging out together and doing things. Friends are great to have, but close friends are irreplaceable.

I guess I could go on about 2009, but it isn’t over yet. I still have more than two months to royally screw something up. As usual, I will take a full inventory of 2009 in my last column of the year, but until then I think I will try to make the rest of 2009 as positive as the first nine months have been. Our happiness is in our own hands. We make ourselves happy or miserable based on the things we choose to do, and the company we choose to keep. I am going to try and remember that for the rest of 2009.

George N. Root III is a Lockport resident. His columns appear every Wednesday. Send comments to georgeroot@verizon.net.