New Years 2011
Since I update this thing so very often (read: as little as possible), I feel that doing a recap of this year like I did in 2010 would be a good idea. See how I did at keeping my New Years goals.
Goal 1 for 2011 was: Lose some weight.
Eh. Not really achieved. My main goal there was to get active again. Which I have! Yay! The vest helped a LOT during the summer. I could go out of the house! I would move when I was out of the house! I only felt like I was dying half the time! I did lose some weight because I got active again, but not nearly enough. A step in the right direction is always a good thing though.
Goal 2 for 2011: Finish on average one book a week.
Smashed the CRAP out of this one. I tried to use Shelfari for most of this, but there are (of course) some books that just aren't on this site. Just by the site alone, I read 60 books this year. If I add up all the books that weren't on there (published and not published) it is much closer to 100 books (probably around 120). So yup, totally met this goal. I rock.
Goal 3 for 2011: To be able to inject myself with my meds.
My idea for this was modest. To inject myself a couple of times and be able to do this on the random nights darksky23 isn't able to. Another goal smashed to bits. I inject myself every night and have since May. Big ass deal for me. Even hidden, needles scare me. Granted some nights I still get nervous, but most it's just clean, load, inject, clean up. All in under a minute. I. Totally. Rock.
Goal 4 for 2011: Finish at least one of the three stories I'm writing.
I hold no illusions to how quickly I DON'T write. I'm horrible about making time for my creative hobbies. I've even started slacking on my knitting and crocheting. Bad me. BUT, I did reach this goal. It was set far too low. And I added three more started stories. D'oh! I don't really consider this goal achieved, but if I base it on what I wrote down... I did. But still... I suck.
Goal 5 for 2011: Update this stupid journal more than once a month.
Well that one bit the dust not even a full month into 2011. What a horrible fail that was. Seriously.
10 Things That Happened In 2011
Ten things? I did a list of ten things last year? Nope, not doing that many this year.
10 5 Things That Happened In 2011
(Slacking? Why yes, yes I am.)
5. I got a new cell phone! Okay okay, for most normal people this wouldn't make a list or even considered. It's my list so there! Bleh! But maybe an explanation. First, my old cell phone was about eight years old. It was held together with a rubber band. It made calls and did this new fangled thing called texting. The end of May comes around and it's darksky23 and my anniversary (five years! Woot!). She said she needed to go to the mall to the Apple store. She had an iPhone 3GS and said she wanted to go see our friend Laurel who worked there. It seems kosher and didn't think anything about it. I pull into a spot and we're walking to the store when she drops it on me. She and Laurel conspired to get me there because I was getting an iPhone 4! What? Huh? A new phone? But why, my old cell phone works just fine... just takes a while to use because I have to do and undo the rubber band. Nope, they were not going to make excuses and shamed me into letting darksky23 get me a new cell phone. I love my iPhone now and use it a lot. I can make calls, I can text, and do all those new internet things and play games. I'm still very thrilled with it. (On an interesting note, darksky23 also got a new phone... the 4s. She loves Siri. I'm going to have keep an eye on that girl.)
4. Season tickets to the Augusta GreenJackets. This was a great thing we did together. We went to most games (some games darksky23 refused to let me go because it was so hot) and we had a WONDERFUL time doing this together. But I must say, I have created a monster, she now loves baseball and football. I can now watch it on tv and she likes it, in fact she looks for it on tv now. The GreenJackets made it to the playoffs but we lost in the first round. Awww.
3. Hey look I'm a grown up now! I bought my very first car. It is a white 2012 Hyundai Elantra. I'm now in debt up to my eyeballs BUT, there is a good reason for it. And wow, I have a car! It had about ten miles on it when I drove it off the lot. That's a dang sight better than my last car, it had about 175,000 miles on it when I got it (and then put a lot of miles of my own on it). I'm still in love with my car. I hug it.
2. I can give myself my own shots! I can give myself my own shots! I can give myself my own shoooOOOooootssssss! I know it was a goal, but I honestly didn't expect this much success in it. I don't need darksky23 there at all to do it anymore. I don't need opera to calm me down. I don't need thirty, or twenty, or ten, or even five minutes to get up the courage to inject a sharp pointy object into my flesh. But I still need to have an alarm on my phone to remind me about my shot. That's something that has gone down the drain. My memory. It was never all that great to begin with, there were jokes back home about how bad it is. But it seems to have taken a very un-ladylike nosedive into the basement. We have established some routines for me so I can remember things... and got a wallet with a chain that is attached to my belt loop. I lost my wallet for six months this year with darksky23's ATM card inside. Not good. (Though I did eventually find it... in the house...) Hence the chain and the routines (and yet, I still walked out of the house without my wallet the other day). But I have a wonderful fiancee who reminds me of things I need and a great friend (hi Laurel!) that will do the same thing. I still forget to eat but I'm working on it (with the brow beating of friends).
1. I. Got. A. Job. Ack! I now work at the local mall and HOLY SMOKES SOMEONE TOOK A CHANCE ON ME! This is huge. I've been trying to get work since I moved out here. I applied and applied and applied... but on paper I look like a shmuck. I wouldn't have taken a chance on me. Then I got sick so a year was spent trying to just make it through the day without wanting (too much) to throw myself under a bus then getting used to the meds and see if they would work. (Besides, the bus system around here sucks and I probably would have died from exposure before a dang bus rolled around.) But yay a job! This is why I needed to get a car. I used to work out on the floor selling things but I now work in the back in inventory. I LOVE it there. I liked the selling of things, but I love all the nit picky, running around, things that come with working inventory. On top of it all, I love the people I work with. Before this job I had only a few friends in the area (and only one, besides darksky23, that I hung out with with any regularity). Now I have a lot more friends! Friends I hang out with! Interestingly enough, this has helped with my illness. I no longer feel so isolated, I have people I can talk and hang with, I have something to look forward to, I feel like I'm contributing to the household. I'm not at home just cleaning house with my own pity party. I enjoy my alone time, but only if it's something that happens every once in a while. I do love my job, I love what I do, and I love the people I work with.
Ten Goals For The Coming Year
(See? I made up for that piddly short list.)
10. Update this journal about twice a month. Last time I made the mistake at saying "update more." If I only updated three times in one year, updating four times is more. Now I have a more defined goal. Once every two weeks is a doable goal. Achievable, even a slightly trained goldfish could do it. (Yeah, total fail. Drats.)
9. Read seventy-five books. Last year it was a book a week, now for a harder goal. I think seventy-five books is a good goal. I want to push myself with a couple of my goals, and this is one that I feel like would be a push without being a weight around my neck. My next goal is set up to help with this one.
8. For every book I get, in any format (audio/ebook/paper/smoke signals/whatever), I have to read two. This is going to be a vary hard goal. I have an Audible account and a love for the library. And I got a Colour Nook for Christmas from my Dad (which I LOVE). I've already decided some books are going to be worth two books (like Gone With The Wind and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). I'm making the audio cut off for that at 25hours and page wise around 700-900. I'll be happy if it turns out I read 1.5 books for every book I get. Books gifted to me don't count, that just wouldn't be fair. But those gifted books will count to the two books to every one book.
7. Spin two skeins of yarn. I had to give this up on and off because of my left arm and hand. They have some permanent nerve damage from my last big attack over a year ago cause I tried to (stupidly, very stupidly) ignore the pain. So when I'm over tired, not eating right, too warm, or even stressed, it's my left arm and hand that start hurting. This year, I'm not going to let it stop me. I've let it stop me for these past couple of years from doing something I love. Time to push myself on this. I am going to win.
6. Learn how to illusion knit or colour knitting. I'm leaning more to illusion knitting since it looks so cool and something I can learn. Between the internet and friends, I can get this done. And it's about time I took back the hobbies I loved so much.
5. Cook twice a week. I'm not going over board and say cook five or six days a week. I know myself. I get really tired to where I can't pick up my feet very high and some days I know I need to sleep and recover. So the second part of this is only eating out twice a week. Some weeks I know it will be more simply because of darksky23 and my schedule can not be conducive to grocery shopping and we do need to eat, and some weeks I'm sure we won't eat out at all. The main goal of this is to have food cooked or at least easily prepared for most of the week. But that means also giving up some of that control to darksky23 and letting her help me. I hate asking for help.
4. Finish three of my shorter stories or get one and half done of my longer ones. I have seven stories started or outlined. This is not acceptable. I used to write a lot more and I keep letting other things get in the way of it. It's frustrating. I can be outlining or using my dictation program while knitting.
3. Finish painting the dinning room, kitchen, hall, and guest room. I killed myself and got the living room done in like two weeks. But that was the problem, I worked too hard and couldn't get the rest of the house finished. And, again, I need to let darksky23 help me. I hate hate hate asking for help.
2. Clean out the den. My crap has been there since I moved in. Time to change that. In fact, this "clean the den" goal is more of a de-clutter the house thing. Time to clean out closets, Goodwill things we don't need, and just use our space better. When something comes in (besides food) something needs to leave. Keep the crap down.
1. Get even more active and lose forty pounds. I think a year is a good length of time for this. My basic goal is to get back to the weight I was before I got sick and get more active. I know there are going to be drawbacks for the weeks where I'm so tired or have a flare up. But I'm so going to get this goal. I want to feel better about myself. I hate looking into the mirror. It's time to change that.
So there we go. My goals for the new year. I think I might name 2012 as "The Year To Get Shit Done!" Hell yeah! Wooohooo! Time to go bring in the new year and go to sleep. Work tomorrow. (Secretly: yay work!)
Goal 1 for 2011 was: Lose some weight.
Eh. Not really achieved. My main goal there was to get active again. Which I have! Yay! The vest helped a LOT during the summer. I could go out of the house! I would move when I was out of the house! I only felt like I was dying half the time! I did lose some weight because I got active again, but not nearly enough. A step in the right direction is always a good thing though.
Goal 2 for 2011: Finish on average one book a week.
Smashed the CRAP out of this one. I tried to use Shelfari for most of this, but there are (of course) some books that just aren't on this site. Just by the site alone, I read 60 books this year. If I add up all the books that weren't on there (published and not published) it is much closer to 100 books (probably around 120). So yup, totally met this goal. I rock.
Goal 3 for 2011: To be able to inject myself with my meds.
My idea for this was modest. To inject myself a couple of times and be able to do this on the random nights darksky23 isn't able to. Another goal smashed to bits. I inject myself every night and have since May. Big ass deal for me. Even hidden, needles scare me. Granted some nights I still get nervous, but most it's just clean, load, inject, clean up. All in under a minute. I. Totally. Rock.
Goal 4 for 2011: Finish at least one of the three stories I'm writing.
I hold no illusions to how quickly I DON'T write. I'm horrible about making time for my creative hobbies. I've even started slacking on my knitting and crocheting. Bad me. BUT, I did reach this goal. It was set far too low. And I added three more started stories. D'oh! I don't really consider this goal achieved, but if I base it on what I wrote down... I did. But still... I suck.
Goal 5 for 2011: Update this stupid journal more than once a month.
Well that one bit the dust not even a full month into 2011. What a horrible fail that was. Seriously.
10 Things That Happened In 2011
Ten things? I did a list of ten things last year? Nope, not doing that many this year.
10 5 Things That Happened In 2011
(Slacking? Why yes, yes I am.)
5. I got a new cell phone! Okay okay, for most normal people this wouldn't make a list or even considered. It's my list so there! Bleh! But maybe an explanation. First, my old cell phone was about eight years old. It was held together with a rubber band. It made calls and did this new fangled thing called texting. The end of May comes around and it's darksky23 and my anniversary (five years! Woot!). She said she needed to go to the mall to the Apple store. She had an iPhone 3GS and said she wanted to go see our friend Laurel who worked there. It seems kosher and didn't think anything about it. I pull into a spot and we're walking to the store when she drops it on me. She and Laurel conspired to get me there because I was getting an iPhone 4! What? Huh? A new phone? But why, my old cell phone works just fine... just takes a while to use because I have to do and undo the rubber band. Nope, they were not going to make excuses and shamed me into letting darksky23 get me a new cell phone. I love my iPhone now and use it a lot. I can make calls, I can text, and do all those new internet things and play games. I'm still very thrilled with it. (On an interesting note, darksky23 also got a new phone... the 4s. She loves Siri. I'm going to have keep an eye on that girl.)
4. Season tickets to the Augusta GreenJackets. This was a great thing we did together. We went to most games (some games darksky23 refused to let me go because it was so hot) and we had a WONDERFUL time doing this together. But I must say, I have created a monster, she now loves baseball and football. I can now watch it on tv and she likes it, in fact she looks for it on tv now. The GreenJackets made it to the playoffs but we lost in the first round. Awww.
3. Hey look I'm a grown up now! I bought my very first car. It is a white 2012 Hyundai Elantra. I'm now in debt up to my eyeballs BUT, there is a good reason for it. And wow, I have a car! It had about ten miles on it when I drove it off the lot. That's a dang sight better than my last car, it had about 175,000 miles on it when I got it (and then put a lot of miles of my own on it). I'm still in love with my car. I hug it.
2. I can give myself my own shots! I can give myself my own shots! I can give myself my own shoooOOOooootssssss! I know it was a goal, but I honestly didn't expect this much success in it. I don't need darksky23 there at all to do it anymore. I don't need opera to calm me down. I don't need thirty, or twenty, or ten, or even five minutes to get up the courage to inject a sharp pointy object into my flesh. But I still need to have an alarm on my phone to remind me about my shot. That's something that has gone down the drain. My memory. It was never all that great to begin with, there were jokes back home about how bad it is. But it seems to have taken a very un-ladylike nosedive into the basement. We have established some routines for me so I can remember things... and got a wallet with a chain that is attached to my belt loop. I lost my wallet for six months this year with darksky23's ATM card inside. Not good. (Though I did eventually find it... in the house...) Hence the chain and the routines (and yet, I still walked out of the house without my wallet the other day). But I have a wonderful fiancee who reminds me of things I need and a great friend (hi Laurel!) that will do the same thing. I still forget to eat but I'm working on it (with the brow beating of friends).
1. I. Got. A. Job. Ack! I now work at the local mall and HOLY SMOKES SOMEONE TOOK A CHANCE ON ME! This is huge. I've been trying to get work since I moved out here. I applied and applied and applied... but on paper I look like a shmuck. I wouldn't have taken a chance on me. Then I got sick so a year was spent trying to just make it through the day without wanting (too much) to throw myself under a bus then getting used to the meds and see if they would work. (Besides, the bus system around here sucks and I probably would have died from exposure before a dang bus rolled around.) But yay a job! This is why I needed to get a car. I used to work out on the floor selling things but I now work in the back in inventory. I LOVE it there. I liked the selling of things, but I love all the nit picky, running around, things that come with working inventory. On top of it all, I love the people I work with. Before this job I had only a few friends in the area (and only one, besides darksky23, that I hung out with with any regularity). Now I have a lot more friends! Friends I hang out with! Interestingly enough, this has helped with my illness. I no longer feel so isolated, I have people I can talk and hang with, I have something to look forward to, I feel like I'm contributing to the household. I'm not at home just cleaning house with my own pity party. I enjoy my alone time, but only if it's something that happens every once in a while. I do love my job, I love what I do, and I love the people I work with.
Ten Goals For The Coming Year
(See? I made up for that piddly short list.)
10. Update this journal about twice a month. Last time I made the mistake at saying "update more." If I only updated three times in one year, updating four times is more. Now I have a more defined goal. Once every two weeks is a doable goal. Achievable, even a slightly trained goldfish could do it. (Yeah, total fail. Drats.)
9. Read seventy-five books. Last year it was a book a week, now for a harder goal. I think seventy-five books is a good goal. I want to push myself with a couple of my goals, and this is one that I feel like would be a push without being a weight around my neck. My next goal is set up to help with this one.
8. For every book I get, in any format (audio/ebook/paper/smoke signals/whatever), I have to read two. This is going to be a vary hard goal. I have an Audible account and a love for the library. And I got a Colour Nook for Christmas from my Dad (which I LOVE). I've already decided some books are going to be worth two books (like Gone With The Wind and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). I'm making the audio cut off for that at 25hours and page wise around 700-900. I'll be happy if it turns out I read 1.5 books for every book I get. Books gifted to me don't count, that just wouldn't be fair. But those gifted books will count to the two books to every one book.
7. Spin two skeins of yarn. I had to give this up on and off because of my left arm and hand. They have some permanent nerve damage from my last big attack over a year ago cause I tried to (stupidly, very stupidly) ignore the pain. So when I'm over tired, not eating right, too warm, or even stressed, it's my left arm and hand that start hurting. This year, I'm not going to let it stop me. I've let it stop me for these past couple of years from doing something I love. Time to push myself on this. I am going to win.
6. Learn how to illusion knit or colour knitting. I'm leaning more to illusion knitting since it looks so cool and something I can learn. Between the internet and friends, I can get this done. And it's about time I took back the hobbies I loved so much.
5. Cook twice a week. I'm not going over board and say cook five or six days a week. I know myself. I get really tired to where I can't pick up my feet very high and some days I know I need to sleep and recover. So the second part of this is only eating out twice a week. Some weeks I know it will be more simply because of darksky23 and my schedule can not be conducive to grocery shopping and we do need to eat, and some weeks I'm sure we won't eat out at all. The main goal of this is to have food cooked or at least easily prepared for most of the week. But that means also giving up some of that control to darksky23 and letting her help me. I hate asking for help.
4. Finish three of my shorter stories or get one and half done of my longer ones. I have seven stories started or outlined. This is not acceptable. I used to write a lot more and I keep letting other things get in the way of it. It's frustrating. I can be outlining or using my dictation program while knitting.
3. Finish painting the dinning room, kitchen, hall, and guest room. I killed myself and got the living room done in like two weeks. But that was the problem, I worked too hard and couldn't get the rest of the house finished. And, again, I need to let darksky23 help me. I hate hate hate asking for help.
2. Clean out the den. My crap has been there since I moved in. Time to change that. In fact, this "clean the den" goal is more of a de-clutter the house thing. Time to clean out closets, Goodwill things we don't need, and just use our space better. When something comes in (besides food) something needs to leave. Keep the crap down.
1. Get even more active and lose forty pounds. I think a year is a good length of time for this. My basic goal is to get back to the weight I was before I got sick and get more active. I know there are going to be drawbacks for the weeks where I'm so tired or have a flare up. But I'm so going to get this goal. I want to feel better about myself. I hate looking into the mirror. It's time to change that.
So there we go. My goals for the new year. I think I might name 2012 as "The Year To Get Shit Done!" Hell yeah! Wooohooo! Time to go bring in the new year and go to sleep. Work tomorrow. (Secretly: yay work!)