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2012 Recap

Tuesday, January 1st, 2013 06:26 pm
fullygoldy: Yellow Roses (Default)

Happy New Year!  2012, you could have been better, but you could have been much worse.  I'm not overly sad to see you go.

My review of DW shows 46 posts, with 3 of those being marked private and abandoned incomplete.
My least posted month was April (1) and most was September (7). December had 6, two months had 5 (half the posts in 5 mos) and the rest had 3-4 ea.

My resolutions were:
 post more RL in both LJ and DW.  I accomplished this for DW, but LJ is largely abandoned except to read a few people.

do something active everyday - *facepalms* forever.  This didn't even come close to happening - if anything, it got worse.  No dance classes (partner wasn't up to it), no yoga class - no particular reason.  However, this holiday season doesn't seem to have been as fattening as last year... I weigh (barely) less now than a year ago.

go canoeing - Yay! had a wonderful Labor Day weekend camping with friends that included 3 days of canoeing.

get better at finishing projects at work - well, I closed 3 completely, and am trying to get 2 more closed, so I did OK. But I could totally do better at work.  I've been largely unmotivated, and I can't tell if it's just the SADD or if it's because I'm working from home (distractions), or if it's the lack of field work/lack of connection with co-workers creating my apathy.

get my finances in order - started out OK, got escrow and taxes sorted, worked on a charitable giving plan, but a series of unfortunate events beginning in June depleted all cash reserves by August.  le sigh.  Spent the fall attempting to recover, thought the small work bonus was going to resolve that for me, and now both the old cars need a lot of work, which means bye-bye cash.  Plus, we bought a new car in Dec, so now we have a payment instead of money to funnel into a reserve fund.  The best I can say is I had done a good job the first 6 mos, so that I was able to weather the summer events.

Fannishly, the year included new reading in Grimm, Teen Wolf, Avengers, Lewis, My Chemical Romance, Generation Kill, Sherlock (BBC), plus all the old faves.  New watching included Teen Wolf, all the Avengers movies, GK, Sherlock, Farscape (needs it's own post), Weeds, and White Collar.  Also, I hosted a fangirl meetup! It was my first face to face with all but 3 of the people who attended!

DH dragged me to several newgrass/bluegrass events which were enjoyable, but it's really not my genre.  I dove into Cuban cuisine while in Florida.  A road trip through S. Dakota and N. Dakota with a stop in the middle for my sister's (2nd) wedding was actually fun - who knew Mt Rushmore and the Badlands would be so inspiring?

For 2013? Survive January (DH's surgery), make car payments on time, DH's family reunion in July (at Opryland of all places).  Hopefully there won't be a wedding yet since the finances aren't there to support it, try to be physically active - yoga, walks, Wii at the very least. And go to bookclub once or twice before Wiscon.  I may bow out of Wiscon because it's DH's birthday weekend (60) and there's going to be some kind of event.  Build up a little cash reserve, don't incur anymore debt.  Be more engaged in fandom and work.  I'm aiming pretty low here, surely I can accomplish some of these.

Happy New Year

Monday, January 2nd, 2012 01:39 pm
fullygoldy: Goldy's Sparkles N Porn Nametag (Hello)


So I've been musing over what to do about LJ and the great fannish migration to DW, coupled with the great social migration to FB. I'm not a technophobe or luddite, even though tech doesn't always like me back, but I just don't see FB being a decent journaling tool. The timeline and archive will make things a bit easier to find, but no real tagging system, and the clunkiness, and having to put up with the advertising and weekly format changes just all add up to a not-very-user-friendly experience.

I really don't want to have my non-fannish people stumbling into my fannish posts, and I really don't want to filter because I've found that I have collected up a few subscribers over time due to some points of commonality, and I think that's really cool. If I filtered all my "fun" stuff, it would be much harder to make these interesting semi-random connections. And I feel awkward asking strangers for access when I might only want to read one thing, or visit one link. I know some people filter just about everything and then grant access when asked, but how do you know if the stranger who is asking is going to be welcome?

Anyway, it's a new year, so I'm going to try a new thing. I haven't been journaling much in the past two years anyway, so I guess I can resolve to do a little better on that topic. I'm going to keep posting the entirely generic stuff at LJ and link to those posts (not crosspost), but add more personal stuff here. Mainly because I do enjoy hearing the personal things my fannish friends have to say, I appreciate the glimpses into your daily lives and I think I should reciprocate.

I don't typically do hard and fast resolutions - and mostly I commit to things that are more about self improvement than self-flagellation. ie, try one bite of everything offered (which led to a whole new level of foodieness). The past few years' goals have a similar vibe though - a desire for more connection with more people. I think I've done well in the more people department (people from all over, not just one group or age range), but not so well in the deeper connections. Although I have to say that I've got a couple of bright spots on that horizon. A couple of grown up women and a man, all completely outside of work, and all my age or a bit older. That age bit is the strangest because I'm forever making friends way outside of my age range. As a kid, all my friends were adults until I was a teen, and the last few years I've been taking a page from DH and collecting much younger friends (it's a fannish thing mostly). But anyway, I've also become closer with some extended family, so maybe I should be putting that particular goal in the win column after all. However, relationships take work and constant vigilance, so it's not like I will ever say "I'm done!"

I'm also going to try to do something active everyday. I have an actual selection of activities available now: Wii, dancing, yoga, walking (with and without dogs or companions), and in the summer I want to add back canoeing (it's been TWO years since I've been on the water!). Last year I had spurts of activity and stretches of not, but I did add something entirely new (East Coast Swing), and I'm looking forward to taking a couple more dance classes. I might manage an actual yoga class as well.  [community profile] sun_salutation  is a lovely community and has helped keep yoga in my awareness, and encouraged me to keep at it, but I need to stretch myself (no pun intended). Plus it would be nice to have something to share with the community myself.

For work, I want to get better at finishing things, closing projects, knowing I'm DONE with something so I can really move on.

Financially I need to get my house in order. I've been poking at this for a couple of years, and done some good things, but also have let some bad habits creep in. I'm going to take care of that. I have no excuses for what I've let happen. I am really blessed with good fortune, a good job, and the ability to do better than just pay my bills. So I should be acting a little more adult about that--I should show my appreciation for my blessings by being a bit more responsible and careful with them.  My milestone tattoo was to be a reminder of a particular achievement, but I'm also going to use it as a reminder of this insight. Oooh! I've never posted a pic here. I'll have to fix that.

 

The rest of today is going to be divided between more chores (I split the kitchen with DH, and have half the laundry underway), checkbook and bills, football (go Cocks! go Badgers!).

I also need to get iTunes onto my personal computer, transfer a bunch of the girl's music to her computer, transfer a bunch of pics from her computer, work out her tuition reimbursement for the first semester, and rework my bill payment schedule to align better with my income receipt schedule.  All that may not happen today, but it's got to happen before Jan 15.  That's when the girl goes back to school.