Meet the new year, same as the old year

I don't know how the hell all you people get your yearly review posts up before New Year's Eve - aren't you busy cleaning up from Christmas and watching bad movies and reading a million books, hoovering up the potato chip crumbs from the bottoms of the bags and staying in your pajamas until the last possible minute before getting dressed to go next door on New Year's Eve?  No?  Besides, isn't it a tiny bit irresponsible to review a year when it hasn't fully finished?  What if something happened in that last twenty-four hours that changed EVERYTHING?  Won't YOU all look silly having to tack on postscripts to your prematurely done posts then?  


I'm stealing Hannah's format for this post because, well, I liked it.  If she'd waited a couple of days to post it, I wouldn't have been able to - ha HA!


1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?  Ziplining, along with various other traipsing around among tree-tops stuff at the Laflèche Caves in Quebec.  It was invigorating.  I only screamed a little.  Also, I read a post at Bolo (Blogging Out Loud Ottawa).  It was invigorating.  I only screamed a little.


2.  Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?  I don't make resolutions as such, not big grandiose ones, because I think they set people up for failure.  I did start blogging and start my library tech courses in January though, so I guess you'd say I just try to do things that keep me moving forward (or moving at all).  


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?  A good friend's sister.  I held the baby when she was 11 days old.  A lot of my friends have no interest in the newborns any more, or only to say "god, I'm so glad it's not me".  I still love the babies.  I also met my nephew in Edmonton at Easter when he was four months old.  I try not to think about this so much because it reminds me how sad I am that we don't live close to my brother-in-law and his family.

4.  Did anyone close to you die?  Obviously not too close, since I'm having a 'let me stop and think' reaction.  Matt's grandparents, who we've seen a lot since we moved to Ottawa, moved to a retirement home about a year ago, and his grandfather is in pretty serious decline, but we saw them over the holiday and he was in fine form again - he's ninety and it's still going to be a horrible shock when he dies.    


5. What countries did you visit?  Just the ones on our first Disney cruise last January - Mexico, the U.S., the Bahamas.  I've been to Italy and Austria with Matt on business trips, but the last one was when Eve was in nursery school, so... five years ago. We're going to St. Lucia next week.  I'm dreading it - I'm an anxious traveler.  It'll be great, right?


6.  What would you like to have in 2012 that you didn't have in 2011?  A little more energy, maybe?  At least in the winter months.  The summer was awesome, but last winter was hard, endless and filled with sickness and despair.  I hope I use my coping tools better this year if that happens - I know there are people who are willing to help, it just gets hard to remember how to ask.


7. What date(s) from 2011 will remain etched in your memory and why? I suck at dates.  I remember Pam dropping off cupcakes at my front door when I couldn't get out of bed; I remember Eve saying that swimming with the stingrays made it "the best day of my entire life"; I remember Angus's baseball team winning the Provincial finals and the none of us could stop smiling; I remember Zarah introducing me to Leverage; I remember the one time this year Angus brought his dishes up from the basement without being asked (okay that date I really SHOULD have circled).


8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  Probably reading out loud at BOLO - considering I had to choose a post, submit it within the deadline, and then actually go and get up and talk in front of people - you must understand, I would be sick to my stomach for DAYS before any assignment that involved public speaking in high school and university, and I would do ANYTHING to get out of it, so volunteering to blog OUT LOUD was definitely out of character.  It was a total rush.  I also drove all over the province all by myself (as in, I was the only adult) with Eve, but that was probably more my GPS's achievement than mine (and I want to give her FULL CREDIT and declare my love for her in front of god and everyone - I would give up my dishwasher before I would give up my GPS.)

Pam, me and Zarah at BOLO.


9. What was your biggest failure?  Healthy eating and exercise, like every year.  I try to make plans for improving without self-flagellating too much.  Also, household organization and de-cluttering.  Ye gods and little fishes, the crap, it multiplies.


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?  Just the interminable, nagging airway issues last winter - sinus infection that went to a respiratory infection that didn't leave until the snow melted, twice.  And some spectacular bruises from ziplining, but those just made me feel badass.


11.  What was the best thing you bought?  The stuff to redo the kids' rooms, and my Dad's labour (which was bought exceedingly cheaply, even though it was a really nice bottle of scotch) - pictures soon.


12.  Whose behaviour merited celebration?   Almost everyone I know, at some point.  My kids just keep growing better - sweet, considerate, funny and enjoyable to be around.  And my friends are awesome.  Even when they're drunk and being asses.


13.  Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Hannah's clients!


14.  Where did most of your money go?  Books and vodka.  Just kidding.  Food and St. Lucia.  And books.  And ebay, for cute clothes for Eve while Matt was away and I was engaging in retaliatory internet shopping.


15.  What did you get really, really, really excited about?  New Fred Vargas book.  Baseball Provincials and Angus's pitching record.  Visiting Zarah in the fall.  Girls' cottage week-end.  My Mom planting my front flower bed for my birthday.  My sister-in-law telling me she loved the Fred Vargas book I gave them last Christmas, when I was worried they didn't like it and were too embarrassed to tell me.  Finding the Giant Remote-Controlled Balloon Shark with FREE SHIPPING for Angus for Christmas.  


16.  What song(s) will always remind you of 2011?  I'm Sexy and I Know it.  


17.  Compared to this time last year you are...  um, happy and grateful that I spent Christmas with people I love and anxious about our upcoming trip, so pretty much the same.


18. What do you wish you'd done more of?  Walking.  Decluttering.  Organizing.  Swimming.  Fooling around with my husband.


19. What do you wish you'd done less of?  Coughing.  Sleeping.  Hurting.  Feeling guilty and ashamed for not feeling better. 


20. Did you fall in love in 2011?  Well, I'm married, but...hel-LO, Eliot from Leverage.


21. How many one-night stands?  only that one with The Hunger Games.


22. What was your favourite TV program?  Have you not being paying attention?


23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate at this time last year?  I try not to hate, although if anyone mentions Penn State, it's tough.


24. What was the best book you read?  I think I'll leave this for my book review year-end/beginning post.


25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  I don't make great musical discoveries.  Other people make great musical discoveries, and then I'm generally too much of a philistine to properly appreciate them.  


26. What did you want and get? A little closer to my library tech diploma


27. What was your favourite film of the year?    I can never remember all the movies I've seen, but I LOVED Hugo, Arthur Christmas, The Muppets, Bridesmaids and 50/50,  really liked Inception and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and HATED Smurfs and Spy Kids 91/2 or whatever the hell number it was - curse you, rainy summer day.


28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I was 41, and I honestly can't remember.  My friends took me out for dinner (Pho Thi Fusion) and a movie (Bridesmaids), at some point in the week.


29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Oh come on - that's a chump's game.


30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?  Early Old Navy refugee.


31.  What kept you sane?  Pam, Zarah, my other friends and blog readers and a bunch of people I've never met that kept me, among other things, from having to bail on driving Angus and five other boys to a volleyball tournament because I couldn't stop crying.  Also, various assorted pharmaceuticals probably helped a little. 


32. What celebrity/public figure did you fancy?  Can't think of any.  Other than...hel-LO Eliot from Leverage.


33. What political issue stirred you the most?  Proroguing.  And a bunch of other ones that I won't go into because I'm still trying to stay sane and Pam's probably asleep right now.


34. Who did you miss?  My sister and her family, my brothers-in-law and their families, all my friends who live far away and all the people I've met on the internet that I would love to drink margaritas with on a regular basis.  Stupid geography. 


35. Who was the best new person you met? Hel-LO, Eliot from Leverage.


36. Tell us a valuable lesson you learned in 2011.  You can agree to go ziplining when you're drunk, but you should probably actually zipline sober.  


37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.  C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me.  

Happy New Year.