Yeah, okay, best-laid plans and all that. I ended up with a much crazier week than anticipated, and only now am I starting to find room to breathe again. Maybe I’ll catch up on those other posts. Maybe not. So, where were we? Oh yeah, the best of 2009 — best place.

This is another one I could answer in a number of ways. I found a couple little coffee shops and restaurants this year that I like to visit when I need a change of scenery from the home office, and I always do my best thinking when I’m walking on the beach, strolling the paths at the zoo, or wandering the galleries at the art museum. But this year, “place” is all about our house.

Last month we celebrated two years here, and as much as it is still very much a work in progress (and will likely remain so on into eternity), this house is finally starting to feel like ours. When we met, John and I each had our own house; after we were engaged, I moved into his place (it was bigger) and put mine up for sale. Soon after our wedding, we began looking for a new place. One whirlwind house hunt later, here we are.

We’re in an inner-ring suburb, but our neighborhood is tucked up against the Metroparks and our lot is mostly woods, so it’s a weird little pocket of nature in the middle of the ‘burbs, complete with critters (raccoons, foxes, owls, groundhogs, deer, turkeys, etc.) and randomly falling trees. The house was built in 1967, and we are the third owners. It’s a quirky and unusual place, bigger than we need, really, but suited to our personalities and lifestyle.

The house has very few right angles, so furniture placement can be a challenge. The rooms aren’t really laid out in straight lines, either, so sometimes I still surprise myself with being able to see stuff that I don’t think I should be able to see from a given point. It’s a little Alice in Wonderland. But from every room there is a great view of the woods or the gardens, and there is room for me to have both an office and a studio.

When we got it, the colors were a little crazy (Pepto-Bismol pink, anyone?), but we’ve been slowly working our way around and neutralizing so that your gaze doesn’t stop at the shocking walls but continues as it should to the lovely outdoors. We took all the heavy and dated downstairs window treatments down, which has helped a lot, too. The biggest thing we did this year was start to remove the white (yes, white — who does that?!?!) carpeting from the downstairs rooms. We’re still undecided on what will replace it, but for now living with the cement is better than that grody carpet.

I spent a lot of time in the gardens this summer, improving the view from my office window, excavating some evil, invasive groundcover, and filling in a formerly swampy area with some dirt and a lot of deer-resistant perennials. The gardens are starting to make sense now.

While there’s still a lot to do, the house now feels like home, a comfortable space where we can just hang out and be. And that’s why it gets my vote for favorite place of 2009.

This one is difficult. How would I define “best”?

Was it the wine and crabcakes Kristen and I shared at Hyde Park to celebrate the publication of our book? (With a prelude of margaritas, of course.) A happy celebration of a momentous occasion.

Was it the anniversary dinner with my husband at the same Hyde Park, the one where we had our second date and where we now have “our” waiter? The joy of celebrating having found just the right person to share my life with while enjoying the best steaks on the planet.

Was it the long-delayed ribs and fries on the patio overlooking the river at the Moosehead Hoof & Ladder with my old friend Nancy, one of those rare friends you can pick right up with even though you (sadly, tragically, why-do-we-let-it-go-so-long-ly) may not have seen each other for a year? Casual and comfortable, followed by even more time catching up as we walked around the town center, window shopping and admiring the gardens.

Was it the impromptu visit to L’Albatros with my husband and our friends after viewing the Gaugin exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art, with all that wonderful atmosphere and the mouthwatering chicken confit? An unexpected treat a bit out of character, as it’s rare for me to not have planned such a thing in advance.

Or was it last week’s dinner with my alumni club girls at Players, and that fantastic, complex macaroni and cheese with chicken and bacon? A triumph for all of us, celebrating being shut of a highly dysfunctional situation.

Hard to say. Each was a favorite moment for different reasons, but I notice now that I’ve been thinking about it that on every one of those occasions, the company was just as important as the food. (Although I like me some stellar food to go with my friends; I won’t deny that.)