Dec
28
If you’re enjoying some much-deserved downtime right about now, may I intrude upon your peace and quiet with a laborious blog questionnaire? Hey, I figure if I have to suffer through it (thanks to my ill-advised adoption of this thing as a yearly ritual: behold, my thrilling end-of-year thoughts on 2004, 2005, and 2006), you should too. I mean, only if you want to. (DO IT, DO IT NOW.)
I’ll post my answers in the next few days, and if you give me the link to your own responses (via the comments or by email) I’ll link to your entry as well. Here are the questions:
1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
5. What countries did you visit?
6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
9. What was your biggest failure?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
11. What was the best thing you bought?
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
14. Where did most of your money go?
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
b) thinner or fatter?
c) richer or poorer?
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
20. How did you spend Christmas?
21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
22. What was your favorite TV program?
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
24. What was the best book you read?
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
26. What did you want and get?
27. What did you want and not get?
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
32. What kept you sane?
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
35. Who did you miss?
36. Who was the best new person you met?
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Oh boy! Won’t this be exciting?
No?
Fine. How about a floating toddler instead, then:
Dec
22
This is always a stressful time of year for me at work, because the one and only industry exhibition Workplace participates in is stupidly, hatefully, sucktastically scheduled for early January, making tradeshow preparations a major feature of my overall Relaxing Holiday Experience. Will the CDs be finished on time, have the brochures been finalized, how many ponderous internal discussions over the pros and cons of various t-shirt manufacturers can I listen to before my head simply explodes in a festive spray of Christmas cheer, etc.
I’ve been feeling sort of Grinchy about the holidays this year as a result of Tradeshow Clusterfuck 2007, looming freelance deadlines, the vague fear that Smalltopus will make a sudden and unexpected appearance and I still haven’t gotten the nursery ready, and what I have come to think of as Third Trimester Malaise (where your sheer girth and physical discomfort transform most activities into Herculean-sounding battles of will and effort, even if it’s something like, “Get up off the couch and go pee”), however, I think I’m getting back into the swing of things. I made JB drive us around earlier to look at the lights on houses in our neighborhood (Riley: “KIMASS LIGHTS! YAY!”), I listened to the lovely and wistful Aimee Mann, I guzzled a peppermint white chocolate mocha, I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special with Riley; I’m starting to feel the spirit of the season. I mean, if a godless heathen is allowed to say so.
JB’s parents arrive tomorrow and will stay through the middle of the week, and JB’s brother is scheduled to make an appearance at least for Christmas eve and morning. I’m planning a holiday menu of baked ham, scalloped potatoes, this green bean dish from Ree over at Pioneer Woman—which dude, I know, it doesn’t sound good, but believe me it IS—and about a million black olives, because truthfully they are my favorite part of any holiday meal.
Next weekend we’re going to visit my side of the family in Port Angeles, where we’ll have another little holiday celebration and Riley will likely run amok and terrorize the household pets and attempt to climb my aunt’s beautiful vintage carousel horse.
So, my goals for this week: try and chill the hell out about (stupid) Macworld, dial back a bit on blog-writing, and stuff my already-enormous belly full of many unhealthy snacks. Lofty! Yet attainable, I hope.
If you’ll pardon me sapping out for a minute, I am extraordinarily thankful for all of the support and kindness you’ve shown me this year, my internet friends. From my family to yours, I hope you have a perfectly wonderful holiday, if you’re celebrating, and a wonderful, relaxing week regardless.
Also! I’d love to know what your plans are, so if you get a minute, share: what are you doing, where are you going, what will you be eating?
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