Year in review, year in preview: 2015/2016
This one goes to eleven!
Ten Eleven things I did in 2015:
Procreative:
- Successfully carry a pregnancy to term (40 weeks plus 6 days). First pregnancies often run long, but I had no way of guessing what to expect. I worked right up to the day before, but for the last month-plus I spent every workday going "Okay, in case I'm not here tomorrow..."
- Successfully birth a child without recourse to emergency C-section. It was touch-and-go there for a while -- they thought C-section was a serious possibility -- and parts of my body will never be the same again, but by God, I did it. I swear I started writing up a narrative account of Aria's birth; maybe I will finish it by the time she's six months old (if it hasn't all settled into a complete blur by then).
Creative (and work/financial, being closely related):
- Reach my first anniversary at my awesome job.
- Stay afloat financially despite $4k (deductible) in childbirth-related medical expenses and taking off 8 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. (Starting to regain ground from 2014, which included a wedding, a cross-country move, a 6-week roadtrip vacation, some non-covered medical expenses, AND paying cash for a car, all on top of 6 months of unemployment. Yowza. And we won't even talk about the freefalling stock market at the moment.)
- Gross over $300 in Etsy sales (which doesn't sound like much, but is more than half of what I did in freelance work this year).
- Open a Zazzle storefront. I still haven't earned enough money from them to reach their $50 threshold for actually issuing payment (which I think is incredibly scammy of them), but I have high hopes for 2016.
Religious:
- Start leading Friday night services at my "new" synagogue (you know, the one we've belonged to for almost 2 years now). They only have them once a month (and in practice it's about every 5 weeks, so not even once a month), but after we attended once or twice they asked me if I would lead, and so now I get to play cantor again.
- Host our own Passover seder (second night only: Saturday evening, April 4). Nine people -- me, etrace and seven more of our closest non-Jewish friends and family. But I'm happy to say that everyone really enjoyed it.
Social/recreational:
- Went contra dancing! It turns out there is a local group in my hometown. I went one time in February (2/21/15) and never made it back since, but... someday, I hope.
- Went into Chicago twice to meet up with visiting Boston friends (Mr & Mrs. la_vie_en_rosie in February, and desireearmfeldt in April).
- Finally made the one-hour drive to my cousin's house in Plainfield, IL, where I hadn't visited since approximately 2007. We went for Christmas Eve dinner so everyone could fawn over the baby. It made me really happy.
Ten Eleven things I would like to do in 2016:
Family:
- Successfully nurture Aria's growth from a 5-month-old to a 17-month-old. (Holy cow, does that sound like an incredible leap. Already, she won't be our tiny little baby much longer! Waaah!)
- Be as kind, loving, and responsible (prioritized in roughly that order) a partner to etrace as I can be.
Financial:
- Continue to save money as aggressively as possible.
- Motivate some kind of change in the nephew-J, willfully-underemployed, living-on-our-couch-rent-free situation.
Creative:
- Expand my Zazzle (and CafePress) portfolios, in order to maximize passive income and (as the marketers say) build my brand. The biggest issue with this is, of course, time -- it takes a good two-hour block of baby-free computer time to really make noticeable progress on website stuff, to say nothing of creating more art.
- Write journal entries (my own, not counting the baby book) at least once a month. The only way to capture these sands through the hourglass. Plus, it would help me keep in better touch with all of you, gentle readers.
Body/self-care:
- Get more physically active. The truth is, I gained about 40 pounds with this pregnancy (from 195 to 235-ish), dropped 25 of them within the first 2 weeks (back down to 210), but then, mysteriously, almost 15 of those pounds have crept back on in the ensuing 5 months. It's not that huge a deal for my self-esteem, but my body really doesn't feel good or right. Plus there's the fact that I had been winnowing my clothes down to a set of things I really loved, 25 pounds ago, and would like to be able to wear them again someday. :-P And I am worried that this upward trend is going to continue indefinitely if I'm not careful. I was happy to learn that there's a $10-a-month gym right near us, anytime I feel like it's something I can commit to. But exercise, too, is an issue of baby-free time.
- Relatedly: Improve eating habits. There are probably another 10 subgoals in here (eliminate sugar, eat more vegetables, drink more water, etc etc) but I'm not going to overrun this list with them. Most of this is really just about habit, and how to support myself in making better choices.
Experiential:
- Take Aria to visit my mom in California.
- Go to shul on Saturday morning at least once. I'd like to say twice; I'd like to say I will read Torah there sometime; but let's not get crazy.
- Go to the Dunes and/or the nearby waterpark at least once.
N.B.: Cross-posted from Dreamwidth; click to view or comment on original post.
Ten Eleven things I did in 2015:
Procreative:
- Successfully carry a pregnancy to term (40 weeks plus 6 days). First pregnancies often run long, but I had no way of guessing what to expect. I worked right up to the day before, but for the last month-plus I spent every workday going "Okay, in case I'm not here tomorrow..."
- Successfully birth a child without recourse to emergency C-section. It was touch-and-go there for a while -- they thought C-section was a serious possibility -- and parts of my body will never be the same again, but by God, I did it. I swear I started writing up a narrative account of Aria's birth; maybe I will finish it by the time she's six months old (if it hasn't all settled into a complete blur by then).
Creative (and work/financial, being closely related):
- Reach my first anniversary at my awesome job.
- Stay afloat financially despite $4k (deductible) in childbirth-related medical expenses and taking off 8 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. (Starting to regain ground from 2014, which included a wedding, a cross-country move, a 6-week roadtrip vacation, some non-covered medical expenses, AND paying cash for a car, all on top of 6 months of unemployment. Yowza. And we won't even talk about the freefalling stock market at the moment.)
- Gross over $300 in Etsy sales (which doesn't sound like much, but is more than half of what I did in freelance work this year).
- Open a Zazzle storefront. I still haven't earned enough money from them to reach their $50 threshold for actually issuing payment (which I think is incredibly scammy of them), but I have high hopes for 2016.
Religious:
- Start leading Friday night services at my "new" synagogue (you know, the one we've belonged to for almost 2 years now). They only have them once a month (and in practice it's about every 5 weeks, so not even once a month), but after we attended once or twice they asked me if I would lead, and so now I get to play cantor again.
- Host our own Passover seder (second night only: Saturday evening, April 4). Nine people -- me, etrace and seven more of our closest non-Jewish friends and family. But I'm happy to say that everyone really enjoyed it.
Social/recreational:
- Went contra dancing! It turns out there is a local group in my hometown. I went one time in February (2/21/15) and never made it back since, but... someday, I hope.
- Went into Chicago twice to meet up with visiting Boston friends (Mr & Mrs. la_vie_en_rosie in February, and desireearmfeldt in April).
- Finally made the one-hour drive to my cousin's house in Plainfield, IL, where I hadn't visited since approximately 2007. We went for Christmas Eve dinner so everyone could fawn over the baby. It made me really happy.
Ten Eleven things I would like to do in 2016:
Family:
- Successfully nurture Aria's growth from a 5-month-old to a 17-month-old. (Holy cow, does that sound like an incredible leap. Already, she won't be our tiny little baby much longer! Waaah!)
- Be as kind, loving, and responsible (prioritized in roughly that order) a partner to etrace as I can be.
Financial:
- Continue to save money as aggressively as possible.
- Motivate some kind of change in the nephew-J, willfully-underemployed, living-on-our-couch-rent-free situation.
Creative:
- Expand my Zazzle (and CafePress) portfolios, in order to maximize passive income and (as the marketers say) build my brand. The biggest issue with this is, of course, time -- it takes a good two-hour block of baby-free computer time to really make noticeable progress on website stuff, to say nothing of creating more art.
- Write journal entries (my own, not counting the baby book) at least once a month. The only way to capture these sands through the hourglass. Plus, it would help me keep in better touch with all of you, gentle readers.
Body/self-care:
- Get more physically active. The truth is, I gained about 40 pounds with this pregnancy (from 195 to 235-ish), dropped 25 of them within the first 2 weeks (back down to 210), but then, mysteriously, almost 15 of those pounds have crept back on in the ensuing 5 months. It's not that huge a deal for my self-esteem, but my body really doesn't feel good or right. Plus there's the fact that I had been winnowing my clothes down to a set of things I really loved, 25 pounds ago, and would like to be able to wear them again someday. :-P And I am worried that this upward trend is going to continue indefinitely if I'm not careful. I was happy to learn that there's a $10-a-month gym right near us, anytime I feel like it's something I can commit to. But exercise, too, is an issue of baby-free time.
- Relatedly: Improve eating habits. There are probably another 10 subgoals in here (eliminate sugar, eat more vegetables, drink more water, etc etc) but I'm not going to overrun this list with them. Most of this is really just about habit, and how to support myself in making better choices.
Experiential:
- Take Aria to visit my mom in California.
- Go to shul on Saturday morning at least once. I'd like to say twice; I'd like to say I will read Torah there sometime; but let's not get crazy.
- Go to the Dunes and/or the nearby waterpark at least once.
N.B.: Cross-posted from Dreamwidth; click to view or comment on original post.