My family has a history with breast cancer so while I do not say much about it, this is a subject near and dear to my heart. In my case, it was a male member of the family that was diagnosed a few years ago. He unfortunately found out about it too late and passed away within 6 months of the diagnosis. So men, though this is primarily discussed in association with women, you also need to take care.

Since the percentage of men getting breast cancer is so low and my grandmother had ovarian cancer as well (there is a link between the two), my mother was tested for the BRCA1 and 2 genes and thankfully was cleared. Admittedly this does not mean I can not get breast cancer, but does rule out the genetic factor – mostly. Because of my family history, I am still checked every 6 months and get an annual mammogram even though I am younger then is normally recommended (40).

Breast Cancer effects us all.

Some links:
American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp
National Cancer Institute – Breast Cancer: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/breast
Relay for Life: http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month: http://www.nbcam.org/
Susan G Komen Foundation: http://ww5.komen.org/
Save the ta-tas: http://www.savethetatas.com/index.php/mission/
Genetic testing for Breast and Ovarian Cancer risk: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/Genetic-Testing-for-Breast-and-Ovarian-Cancer-Risk

1) Acquisition went through so get to do all the wonderful stuff associated with it… various paperwork , reading *lots* of company materials on policies and changes, benefit choices, townhall meetings, etc…. not to mention normal work.
2) Various PHPC stuff. I have to admit I have been not been as diligent with this as I normally would but the others have been nice in pointing out necessary stuff and yelling at me when needed. Thank goodness.
3) PHPWomen stuff. Again been dropping the ball on this but Elizabeth Naramore has things well in hand so I am not worried about it. She kicks me when I need it.
4) Kid’s college stuff. Kid is applied to the college of her choice for a Nursing degree, ACT/SAT scheduled, FAFSA and FFAA completed, a couple of scholarships have been applied to, still need to push her to apply to more. Who’d a thunk it would be so difficult to get a kid set up for school.
5)Hubby and his motorcycle. Yeah after much discussion, checking out of the local dealership and checking of the budget – he got a motorcycle. His retirement present to himself and for a mid-life crisis – there are worse things. See it on his facebook page if you are interested.
6) Discussion on a graduation present for the kid. Current plan under discussion – her and a friend doing a 5 day stay at Disney with park hopper passes. 3 previous plans rejected thus far for various reasons
7) Planning the logistics for the party for Kid’s graduation. Currently have about a dozen family members coming in from around the state and California.
The great Khan dog is showing his age and limping around from arthritis. After the vet visit he is now on 3 pills (vitamins, anti-inflammatory, and pain reliever) and is to be strictly restricted in his movements. So no going out with our younger dog, no running, no jumping.
9) Oh and I have to start the garden this month so next month I can start planting in it supposedly. Gardening is new for me so we are learning and faking it to start. With how much I spend on produce, I am hoping it is cheaper in the long haul. Hoping to start prepping the area for it this weekend so wish me luck.
10) The solar panels. Don’t *even* get me started on that!
11) Preparing for Hubby’s military retirement. Not really a lot to do but budgeting, saving, paying off bills, planning for the class on retirement and just all around getting ready to lose almost half of the current household income.

All this – and still have to do all the normal stuff of life – cook dinner, clean and dust the house, work on home improvement projects, check on the kid and her school work and after school activities… you know – life.

Well this past weekend we attended a local colleges seminar on admissions and financial aid that really opened her eyes to all the things she needs to be doing. Since then we have filled out her FAFSA, the states version for financial aid, started looking at scholarships/grants to apply for, and scheduled her ACT and SAT tests.

She still has quite a bit more to do to have everything done in time, but at least she has started.

For 2009 I was supposed to try and meet a couple of personal and professional goals. Some of the goals I like to think I have met include:

1) relearning how to balance my work and family. When I started working at MySQL I felt so completely inadequate in my new role that I completely submersed myself in it to try and get myself to someplace that while not comfortable, at least didn’t leave me feeling stupid all the time. I found that place after about a year, but by then I was so consumed with work that I had little time for anything else. 2009 was the year I wanted to take back my personal time.

Now that I have again found that balance, for 2010 I want to get back to my roots and turn my hand back to so PHP coding again. I am massively rusty, but I do miss it so it should be fun.

2) speaking at conferences. I am always telling people to submit talks to conferences but never seemed to have the time to do it myself. Yes I was being a hypocrite.

For 2009 I swore I would submit talks to any conferences I thought I might actually be able to get the time off of work to attend and as luck would have it – they liked me… They really liked me. Crazy people – must be stoned or something.

In 2009 I was accepted to speak at 5 conferences (6 if you include the Microsoft summit) and after being ill before the first one – had a fantastic time. I will definitely be continuing this for 2010.

I have been honored to already be accepted to speak at this years spring conferences – TekX and Confoo. Unfortunately though I have had to withdraw from the Confoo conference due to work requirements, but I will be attending TekX in May. And if I am brave enough, I am also going to try and submit to the MySQL User Conference.

3) install solar panels on the house to reduce our carbon footprint and our electricity bill. Took us a while but it is finally done. The solar panels are in and the solar water heater is working. We are currently waiting for the local electric company to come and install a 2 way metering system.

4) Help my daughter. While not on the original 2009 TODO list, it immediately went to the #1 slot when her father passed this fall. This will be an ongoing thing that may never have an end. But she is worth it.

5) hold semi-regular meetings for the PHPWomen board. Trying to coordinate 7+ people around the globe for meetings is a pain – but we managed to do it a number of times this year to discuss ideas, catch up on projects and touch base with everyone. Not bad.

Ok – time for the listing of things I did not do this year that I wanted to. This list could easily be couple of pages long but we will shoot for a condensed version.

1) get back into writing. I love to write and for some reason, just haven’t had cause to write in a while. Need to contact some people to see if they need any new articles… Wonder if E3 would let me do something for PHPArch maybe…
2) didn’t learn enough for work – still need to get more into performance tuning, benchmarking, cluster and server administration. Always so much to learn, and never enough time (remember trying to balance work/life).
3) PHPWomen – oh let me count the ways… I really wanted to have the paperwork filed for 501c3 this year, never quite made it. Wanted to also have a birthday party for PHPWomen during Zend Con but due to unforeseen circumstances that didn’t happen… also forgot to try and have a “Go Pink” drive for breast cancer.
4) help get the PHPCommunity organized with the provisional board. laying the foundation for hopefully better to come.

This listing can keep going on and on – but now seems like a good time to stop. Here is to hoping 2010 is a great year!

Andrii Nikitin is a MySQL support engineer in the Ukraine and his son desperately needs a bone marrow transplant operation. Unfortunately where he is, they do not have the facilities to handle it – so he must go outside his country to get Ivan the medical help he needs. This, of course, will be very expensive. Estimated costs are 150000 – 250000 EUR.

MySQL and all of it’s employees are working to help Andrii raise the money he needs. Many of us (myself included) have given money to help him. Will you join us? If every person that has used MySQL over the years gave just a single dollar to help Andrii, he would have the money to get Ivan the medical treatment he needs to survive.

For more information on Andrii Nikitin and Ivan or to donate via Paypal please go here

Today was a busy day. We hit up the Housing office (only got lost twice trying to find it) to see if they have any referrals for the area we want to live in (they don’t). So we took a drive to the area to just look around the area and maybe for a realtor. Liked the area (on a clear drive it is only 20 minutes away from the base) and found a real estate company that seems nice. Got a number of potential places to cruise through the neighborhoods to see if we like them. Talked to the bank about getting a mortgage and need to call a number to get a pre-qualifying value so we have a better idea of how much we can spend. Took a base tour to see some of the base’s services (gas is 2.96 on base) only to find they aren’t many and they are much smaller then we are used to but that is OK since we will primarily getting stuff out in town.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so everything will be closed. Sounds like a wonderful time to just sit back and relax for the day. Friday is soon enough to run around some more.

1) house – final pack out (Tuesday), final cleaning (in progress), yard cleaned (due by Monday) and final mowing, carpets cleaned (todo this weekend);
2) appliances – picked up on Tuesday;
3) bags packed – mostly – due by Tuesday;
4) dogs – tickets (done), crates (done), flight itinerary (done)… need to contact continental cargo for info on how to turn them in at 4AM, heath certificates (Vet Tuesday 10:20), need to drop that off at Dept of Agriculture for Guam vet to sign – pick up in 24 hours;
5) hotel reservations (accepts dogs) for the few days between when we move out and fly out – done;
6) hotel reservations for when we get there – done – need to reconfirm;
7) car – rented and can be dropped off at the airport when we fly out;
family notified – some – need to complete this weekend;
9) landlord final walk through inspection – Sunday;
10) sell the last car – dependent on husband;
11) Our tickets – bought and paid for – have passports available – fly out Sat the 17th at 07:30

Hope that is everything… If not – I am so screwed.

So now I am drugged to the gills on antibiotics, cough suppressants and decongestants… I hate taking drugs but hopefully I will sometimes soon be able to sleep the whole night through without waking up every couple hours to hack up a lung. I don’t believe I am going to say this but… please drugs – hurry up and work!