2005.

I was 20,living at home and single. I had gotten rid of my first and only boyfriend not long before because he was not a nice person and did not deserve me. (It would prove very difficult to truly get rid of him. He was a pest)

I was working night shift (7pm-7am) 7 days a week at a factory that made door panels for Mercedes. We worked 7 days a week for 8 months straight that year. I didn't have much free time so I didnt have an active social life. I remember feeling stuck. I disliked living at home where I was constantly nagged and had no privacy or respect but it made financial sense at the time. I did not feel my job was secure and I dislike that feeling. The job was not difficult but the work environment was. I am not sure I should elaborate on why it was difficult, so I wont. But it was not fun. If I had only known what my life would hold for me just 4 short years from then I would not have been so worried.

Every year of my life since then has been an upgrade. (Well,maybe not this year) I hope that is true and continues to be true for everyone.

Moved from MI to PA for 5 years. Great experiences while there.

wait, what, 2005 was 15 years ago?!! Ok, yeah I guess so, now that I think about it, lol.

This time of year the fringe trees are starting to flower. My mom & dad visited, and DH took a picture of her standing in front of our beautiful white flowering tree. She told us her colon cancer had come back, and she would be undergoing chemo again. But it didn't work so well. By August she told her doctor to stop treatment, by mid September she was gone. A sad year, but so it goes.

ETA: I didn't own even a cellphone, then. I know I was on a few music group forums. In particular, BRMC released "Howl" with one song in particular whose promise continues to pierce my heart. And my favorite musician posted a very funny post the day after my mom died, which made me laugh. Vivid memories of those two incidents. Odd how that works.

Divorced, 2 kids, 13 and 9 years old. Miserable job working on a med-surg unit. Patient-to-nurse ratio was horrible. Was exhausted all the time.

That year I turned 50. We celebrated with my twin sister and her husband on a weekend cruise to the Bahamas.

Oldest was a senior in high school and we were getting her ready for college in the fall.

As far as phones, my two were excited to have the flip phone when it first came out.

I liked it too because it was helpful for me for scheduling. No more forgetting to check the answering machine in case they wanted to stay after school etc.

I was 55--that seems so young now! We retired and moved from Alaska to Idaho. Maybe not our best idea, as we really miss our son and our friends of many years. There have been bright spots--we've been able to travel and explore the world.

The phone! I had a "candy bar" phone, then upgraded to a flip phone. I remember "learning" how to text on it--I quickly decided it was way more trouble than it was worth!

I was walking 18 holes of golf, carrying my clubs. Now I can barely play 18 holes riding a cart!

Flip top phone then and still have a flip top, but promised myself I would get a smart phone once the world returns to normal....the new normal anyway.

Our first born, who lived 10 hours away, was getting married here in August, and she and I spent the year and a half leading up to that date planning her wedding. I used the internet a lot, showing her pictures of venues ahead of visiting so that we could make each return home that she normally would make (holidays, birthday, etc) into another step arranged for the wedding--dress, alterations, consultant, wedding and reception site, menu, flowers, cake selection, band and then I hosted and drove his parents all around the area for their selections of reception dinner site and menu, groom's cake, flowers, etc. We did it all with her having to fly home special only one time for the last dress fitting. Both sets of parents had never been in a wedding--we both eloped. So everything was new to us. The wedding day dawned foggy and grey, but an hour before the wedding, the sun broke through, the ocean turned blue, and we had the most wonderful wedding weekend ever. Many of his family and friends from across the southeast came, and their wedding was the talk of the town when they all returned home. Fifteen years later, they live in northeast Texas, have two darling boys, and are happily married.

I had retired from my long successful career in the Government at the end of January 2005. I had already accepted a 32-hour per week job as a Government consultant that would start beginning in May. I was taking 3 months off to both enjoy a few months catching my breath and having some minor surgery. So I was just getting ready to re-enter the work force at this time. I'm now fully retired of course, but that one year of working part time turned into another full time career and I truly enjoyed myself for another almost 12 years, longer than I expected, but well worth it financially and otherwise..

I had just graduated college and was working my first full-time job. Good times!

The only thing I can particularly remember about 2005 is, that was the year I discovered GardenWeb (it was called something different then, iVillage or ThatHomeSite I think). I was researching getting a new A/C & furnace and came across the Heating and Cooling Forum.

I was working full time, my DD was in college, and I was spending many of my days off that summer cycling the various rails-to-trails in my area.

I was taking care of Ken. In 1999 my daughter graduated high school and moved to Houston to go to the University of St Thomas. We moved to Chocolate Bayou in Liverpool. I had a friend and neighbor...Ken. He was an interesting person but practically a hermit. Since he had retired, I was just about his only friend. After we moved, I still kept in touch every now and then, but in 2002, I hadn't talked to him in about 3 months. I called to see how he was, and his phone had been disconnected. I thought he had died and no one told me.

So I went to his house. Found him in his underwear. Beard. No food in the house except some moldy burritos in his fridge. Empty wine bottles stacked like cord wood in all of his cabinets. Hadn't been to the post office to pick up his mail. Didn't know his phone had been shut off. No one calls him. Family lived all around but no contact.

So I cleaned his house, picked up his mail. Got him to sign checks to pay his bills.

He had always been thin, but he looked like death warmed over. He did not want to go to the dr or talk to his family. He had emphysema...chain smoker...and last time he had been to his family doctor, he chewed him out for smoking, and he never went back.

I was sure he only had a short time to live. I knew he trusted me, so I promised him I would take care of him until he died. And I did....and he lived 8 years!! I went to see him every day, 40 mile roundtrip. I brought him food...anything he wanted. He was an alcoholic....I brought his wine. I cleaned his house, brought someone in to cut his hair, got someone to mow his lawn. Later I was there twice a day and as many as 4 times a day at the end. I spent a few nights there but he could get around and his smoking drove me out. I told him if he really needed me, I would be there, but not at night because I couldn't handle the smoke. The last 4 years of his life, he never left his house. He died in 2010.

So in 2005 I was doing that. Jody was a captain on a tow boat...gone 2 weeks at a time.

I had also let myself get talked into rehabbing wildlife. I ended up doing mostly possums. At one time....not sure of the year....I was getting all the possums trapped in Memorial Park in Houston and sent to the pound. I handled literally hundreds a year from them and local shelters.

I can't remember what else I was doing. Probably not much else....didn't really have much time for anything else. I was growing waterlilies and had about 200 varieties, and came home one day and my horses had gotten out and destroyed my entire collection...but not sure of the year, but about that time.

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It was to be a happy year of babysitting. In March, DH and I were packing up to leave Maui for home when our DS called to say he and DDIL were at the hospital. Baby was early. We flew all night in suspense and arrived to find DGS had arrived only a few hours earlier -- a long labor, thanks to his 99th percentile head!

DGD didn't arrive for another six years -- slipping out like a seal pup -- but also the day we returned from Maui. (OGG to ORD to Lutheran General, luggage in tow, twice!)

Adding...It would take a long time to list the many changes in the world between my mother's birth in 1905 and that of my DGS, one hundred years later. I have a photo of my mother at about age six, posed with a butter churn at their small farm in Rhode Island. Her grandmother is beside her, not much bigger than a child, a shrunken, toothless hag with a bright grin, dying of TB half a world away from her native Ireland.

I was involved in a car crash in 1972 - 99 days in the hospital. My hip was broken, screws were put in to hold it in place and I was in a very large cast.

Many years went by and the hip started to deteriorate. I used a cane at work and I was very slow walking. I went to a couple of docs and they basically said to live with it!!

The missus got a new job in 2005 and we moved from Chicagoland to downstate Illinois. About a month after we made the move, I went to a local ortho doc. He ordered x-rays and stuff. When I went to his office the next time, he basically said, "Why did you wait so long?" He operated 10 days later.

Oh Yeah, I was like a new person. No cane, no pain. What a wonderful year 2005 was for me.

I don't remember if we had flip phones, but I know we had didn't have dial up internet anymore.

Kids were old enough so we took our first and last cruise for our 30th anniversary. Found out we aren't cruise people.

I was working at a hospital based residency health center as a certified professional coder. A group of us retiries still meet once a month for lunch.

That was the year I went to Austria and spent time in a Castle taking an Antique musical instrument course. I made a Hurdy-Gurdy. I only did it because my SO was making a Nickleharpa(Swedish instrument) and I wanted to go to Austria too. Most of the people did not speak English but the person (polyglot)who taught the course took care of me and I had a wonderful time. fortunately I am good with woodworking. Not talking kits here. The castle was a real one, not a tourist hotel. Very fun but exhausting to climb up and down the hill through all the gates to get to the keep where you climbed up to the bedroom floor. We worked in the former garrison quarters.

I would have been finishing up my 10th year of working at a small K-8 elementary school and the school would have been finishing up the school year. At this time of year, we would have been practicing for the school play and participating in track events. May would have brought field trips to mark the end of the school year and the 8th graders would have been excited about their upcoming graduation trip. For many of them, it would be their first time going out of town and staying in a hotel. The 8th grade graduation plans would have been well under way.

Spring testing would also have been taking place along with parent/teacher conferences.

It was a very busy time of year at school, but also a fun time as everyone (students and staff) looked forward to the arrival of summer break. I think the only people who didn't look forward to the end of the school year were the parents!

It is fun to look back with all of you.

April, 2005 - I was delighted to become a grandmother for the second time as my beautiful granddaughter had just been born. My mother moved here from out of state to be closer to me, so I was happy about that. Later that year, two daughters announced being pregnant and another grandson and twin granddaughters were born in 2006, a real bonanza of little ones.

I was working teaching English 7th grade and began working at a new school in the fall. Happy about that too.

I had four little boys, the eldest being five that year. I don't remember much about 2005 except that I was profoundly happy and very tired most of the time.

I took my brother to Mexico City for his 40th birthday, and we stayed at a friend's condo near Chapultepec Park and several museums, which we also visited. We also went to Frieda Kahlo's house in San Angel, and my friend Michelle took us to her week-end house in Oaxtepec, which is sort of like Palm Springs, and you have to belong to a country club to have a house there. She also took us to Tepoztlan, which is near Oaxtepec and is very scenic with a very interesting open air art market.

We took a sides trips on our own to Taxco and Teotihuacan. Kevin told me that it was his favorite vacation/trip so far, but that was before we went to Costa Rica or Italy. Italy is my favorite.

I had three little ones five and under. We had daily outings and several picnics at the parks around town. My husband loved to camp so we went on a lot of camping and sightseeing trips.

My eldest graduated from high school and to our ever lasting shock graduated with honours. He was at school for a good time and not to work.

I ran my first half-marathon. A rather uneventful year it seems.

Nickel- I know, it's hard to believe that 2005 was actually 15 years ago! I mean, that was just yesterday right??!?

Marilyn- I know you've always been more reclusive than others but the way you continually cared for Ken and have ALWAYS cared for the abandoned/neglected horses, possums, etc speaks volumes to your character and the reason everyone here just loves you.

You truly have a heart of gold!

Seniorgal- I think I speak for most of us when I say we hope to be you someday!

Jim- so glad you finally found relief after so many years of suffering.

Patriciae- that sounds like a fascinating trip!! I would love to experience it!