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Thursday, December 31, 2009
Goodbye, 2009.
1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
I learned to use (and love, possibly in an obsessive and unhealthy manner) a pressure canner. I bought a college parking pass, which made me feel ridiculously pleased and it's now a family joke. I hand-loaded ammunition. I played Airsoft. (I... think that was this year?) I exercised voluntarily every day for seven weeks or so. Then I stopped. But I'm going to start again, I swear. I took someone's senior pictures. (Not well, I'm afraid.) I took my daughter roller-skating, which is SO MUCH FUN OH MY GOSH.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember if I made any last year. This year, I'm resolving to update our checkbook and reconcile it with online banking every single night, and to relax a little bit during the school semester so that I don't neglect my marriage. (Or cut out social networking for those 18 weeks. Ha ha! Like that will happen.)
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Susan lives far from me but she is VERY close to my heart, and she had baby number six this summer. Go Supermom! (She really is amazing.) Also, a whole TON of my online friends had babies; sheesh, people! Also, there are several new babies in my circle of real-life acquaintance (most of whom I still only see over the innernets because I am a hermit).
4. Did anyone close to you die?
He wasn't close to me anymore, really. We were friends in high school. OK, he was my boyfriend in high school, or one of them, but long after that brief state of affairs came to an end, his family and my family were friends, and his sister was in my wedding. He killed himself in August. I think about his family every day.
5. What countries did you visit?
Um, I went to Arizona...
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Time to read novels. Bifocals. Self-discipline (I say this every year).
7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't always remember to associate events with dates, but our trip to Arizona in March was immensely memorable and delightful.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Hmm. Maybe the perfect score in College Algebra? (I wish I could lay that semester apologetically and yet triumphantly at the feet of my perennially disappointed high-school algebra/trig/precalculus teacher.) Or maybe a garden where more than 50% of the things I planted produced edible results? An uncanny number of Twitter posts that were EXACTLY 140 characters long?
9. What was your biggest failure?
I still haven't learned never to raise my voice when I'm upset with my kids, although I'm better than I was.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major. Nothing even very minor, actually.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
PRESSURE CANNER FTW. Also, this laptop is nice, but seriously, you should SEE this canner. Chickens! We love our chickens. And just this last week we bought a digital piano (used; we're not that flush) which has made me very, very happy all the way from my smile to deep down in my piano-missing soul.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My husband's. He is... oh, he is just the most wonderful man, and don't take this wrong but he's been growing so much. He's so patient with me and the kids, and loving and affectionate and thoughtful and generous, and getting more so all the time. He's grown more mellow where he needed to and stayed solid and intense where it's fitting and I just can't get over how good he is to me and our family and his friends and strangers and... hey look! she can be REALLY SAPPY when she wants to!
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Mine, more often than I wish it had. Also politicians'. And my friend's ex-husband's.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, bills, Christmas, ugh.
15. What did you get really excited about?
Our trip to Arizona. My kids' birthdays. Algebra class. What.
16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
It's always hard to answer this question until the year's been over for a decade or so. Maybe that Taylor Swift one about how he belongs with her; Claire loves it. Or the Piano Lesson from *The Music Man*, which joined Claire's and my little repertoire of songs we like to sing in bathrooms. (Hey, don't knock it. You're all alone in there and the acoustics are fabulous! Go for it! You're never going to see those people in the adjoining office again anyway!) Ooh, and there was also Regina Spektor's new album, and Imogen Heap's "Glittering Clouds" which was pretty much my driving soundtrack for the spring semester.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:?
thinner or fatter: MAYBE marginally thinner.
happier or sadder: Happier.
Richer or poorer: Slightly richer, thanks to refinancing and paying extra on our mortgage.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Playing with my kids, hanging out with them doing stuff they like, going for drives, being spontaneous.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Staring at this damn wonderful machine.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
The day itself we were at my parents'. The weather was beautiful and we went for a walk after dinner, which is generally my favorite part of Christmas when it happens, and the thing I remember most from the family gathering. We also had separate small celebrations with T's parents and with his sister's family. I have to confess that I kind of like spreading it out like this; not only does it make it last longer, but it's far more relaxing.
21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
I continued falling, as you can see above.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
Cash Cab! It will always remind me of the Arizona trip.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don't think I hate anyone. Even people I really sincerely dislike -- and there are few -- I don't hate. That takes too much energy and does nobody any good.
24. What was the best book you read?
That's hard to say. Most of what I read were textbooks, and I have forgotten most of the few novels I had time for. Right now I am really loving Meredith Willson's memoirs. Oh wait! There was a children's book, about a girl with an autistic brother, called Rules, which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Whew. I feel better.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Musically, this has been the year in which I discovered that I, um, kind of like techno. I'm not an aficionado, I just like what I like and some of what I like is synthesized and beat-driven and excellent for working out or dancing or cleaning the kitchen or raving, not that I rave. Mock me if you will. I can take it.
26. What did you want and get?
A laptop. A pressure canner. A digital piano. Chickens. A puppy. Tons and tons of love. I am one lucky lady.
27. What did you want and not get?
A waist.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I almost never watch movies in the year in which they are released. Maybe "Up."
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
There was kind of this whole birthday-week thing going on, really. It was amazing. (I TOLD you he was affectionate and generous! TOLD YOU!) We went for drives and we walked down Christmas Tree Lane. We ate dinner out, we played games in the evenings, we watched movies while I knitted; in short, I was pampered shamefully. (I turned 35.)
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Well, come now, immeasurably? What if there's something that would have made it quantifiably more satisfying? Can I not share that?
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
HA HA HA.
32. What kept you sane?
My family. The fact that my children now clean up after themselves (mostly).
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't get into this stuff, really. I am a boring old matronly biddy.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The massive, purposeless federal spending and what it will mean to us and our children and their children in terms of loss of liberty.
35. Whom did you miss?
I really wish I could see my friends who live far away more often. I have not laid eyes on Susan in person for over FIVE YEARS now, for example.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh, hi, yes, that's a great way to make all the other new people I met feel just fabulous about themselves. (Um, did I meet any new people, actually? Oh yes, at school. My biology instructor was pretty awesome...) I reconnected with some wonderful people, though. yay!
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
That keeping busy is good (much better than being lazy, which I used to really truly be), but there's such a thing as overdoing it, and also that I need better time management. I can't spare the time to spend a few minutes alone with my husband after the kids are in bed, but I can keep up with 300 people on Facebook? What does that SAY about me? Something needs to be rearranged here.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I am so not good at this song-lyric thing. First of all, things rarely fit that well -- maybe because songs about people who are happy and well-adjusted and who live quiet lives mostly at home with their families and their gardens and their schoolbooks and their farty dogs and their chickens don't get much airplay. Secondly, I tend to forget about songs that fit even if I do discover them. And thirdly, I forgot what I was going to say just now so I'll put a quote here and it is this:
"One for whom the pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes." -- Pär Lagerkvist
That quote doesn't just sum up my year, it pretty much sums up my life.
Comments
For songs about a quiet life, one of my all-time favorites is Bbo Franke's Thanksgiving Eve. (I'm not a fan of Franke as a singer much, but e has some of the best lyrics ever - you might like them. I was going to copy them here but I'll give you a link instead so you can see others: http://www.bobfranke.com/lyrics.htm
Posted by: dichroic at January 2, 2010 03:42 AM
