Saturday, January 07, 2023

the wrap up

 Kelly does this every year, and Roger does too, I guess I will also:

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't ever make resolutions. I did joke on Twitter that "I'm not making resolutions for 2023; it's circumstances' turn to improve"

I suppose I WILL try to cook a bit more instead of defaulting to things that are quick but perhaps not as good for me. I've been dealing with some minor digestive issues which make me wonder if I've developed yet another food intolerance, and it seems with cooked-mostly-from-scratch I have fewer issue, so I wonder if there's some preservative that isn't sitting right.

I also want to try to use up some more of my stash; make a conscious effort to knit more and sew more.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes! My newest colleague, who has become a work-friend, had a daughter the past spring. This makes child #3 for her and her husband. (She commented - and I find this a little sad, but good about our department - "Gee, when I told people here I was pregnant everyone was like "Wow, congratulations!" or "That's nice to hear" but when I was in grad school [at a large, R1 school] everyone acted like my career was over when I was pregnant with my first child")

Did anyone close to you die?

The years all run together now so I don't remember if it was 2022 or 2021 when Ted and Bill from church died. An old family friend, Charmaine, also died, I know she died this year. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting - a couple people I vaguely knew from the university, a couple folks' from my mom's church including one woman she'd been pretty good friends with

What countries did you visit?

None - I think the only STATES I even went to were Texas and Illinois.

What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?

More motivation, more of a sense of succeeding at things. More of a sense of feeling kind of at home in my own skin again.

 

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I suppose it would be arranging the logistics and payment for all the house renovations, and having them done without totally losing my stuff over it. 

What was your biggest failure?

I didn't get more research done, and I did far less prep for systematic botany than I wanted to

What was the best thing you bought?

Ugh, I don't know. I tried to limit spending in the second half of the year after the renovations. Maybe all the metal shelving to hold my fabric? Probably that. Because now I can see what I have.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

The people who managed to "keep on keepin' on" (as a long-departed and much-loved member of my mom's church often said) despite everything. I don't quite include myself in that because I didn't keep on as well as I might have liked.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The people who can never see beyond their own noses, their own desires, and who do things like berate nurses or shop workers or who grab and hold and hoard far beyond what they can use.

Where did most of your money go?

 Hahahaha. Home repair and renovation. I spent more on it than I originally paid for the place. But I have a new roof, and freshly-restored and painted siding, and a new kitchen floor, and a repaired ceiling in my sewing room (and no mice getting in, and I also painted said sewing room)

What did you get really excited about?

Probably the biggest thing was painting and reorganizing my sewing room, including reorganizing ALL my craft books so I can find things now.

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Happier: the mouse problem has been fixed, the house repairs are behind me, I made it another year without a covid infection and I managed to get the bivalent booster and I was actually "heard" about something at work recently.

Thinner or fatter?

About the same? Which is okay given that I'm not a fan of ascetic eating so if I can eat in the way that makes me fairly happy but also not gain enough weight to make my doctor concerned, I"m okay with it. I'll never be thin, and in fact if I lost a lot of weight quickly that would probably signal some major health problem. I'd rather be fat and healthy (based on all my blood numbers and how I feel most of the time) than thin and sick.

Richer or poorer?

Poorer (my savings account and then some went to pay for the renovations) but still, by global standards, I'm pretty rich: I can afford enough healthful food to eat, and I can keep the lights on and the place warm and the water running and buy some books or yarn from time to time.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Knitting and working on quilt tops. And hanging out with friends, though that's harder to do now than pre-2020.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying, second-guessing myself, having to tell people who asked for outrageous things "no" (I wish they wouldn't ask and would save me the pain)

How did you spend Christmas?

At my mom's house, with her. We actually didn't leave the house between Wednesday and Monday of that week because we got about 5" of snow and it was BITTERLY cold. (The snow probably would have been okay to drive in, except her street never gets plowed, and some of the bigger streets probably weren't given the holiday, but the cold made going out and risking being stranded if the car wouldn't start somewhere not worth doing. We had enough food laid in - she has a chest freezer and we did a big shopping trip the Wednesday before the snow came - and the power stayed on, so we were fine. I admit I was a little cabin feverish by Monday but it was ultimately okay)

I watched a LOT of Christmas movies on TV, including "Arthur Christmas" a couple times and "Home Alone" a couple times...

Did you fall in love in 2022?

No. Lack of opportunity. 

How many one-night stands?

See above, but also, I am not the kind of person who would be given to that sort of thing.

What was your favorite TV program?

I really came to like "Ghosts." I was skeptical going in - I always am about those "we grabbed this idea from a British program and Americanized it" - but they did pretty well, the ensemble cast is entertaining and the whole "we see dead people" thing is not as creepy or weird as I thought it might be (remember I've lost about fifteen people I cared about in the past five years, so anything too macabre like that doesn't appeal right now)

 I also like the show on after it - "So Help Me Tod" - which is kind of a law-procedural/comedy that works better than it should (Or, as I said earlier: maybe I'm just so hungry for slightly lighter shows, with a plot and interesting characters, that is NOT a re-run, that it just seems good to me?)

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

As I've said before, I try not to hate. Some people make it difficult. I do hate certain behaviors, as I commented above.

What was the best book you read?

The two memorable ones were "Anne of Green Gables" and "The Color of Magic," both of which I enjoyed.  I also enjoyed "The Running of the Deer" (which I wrote about back in December)

What was your greatest musical discovery?

I don't know that this was a NEW discovery (I already knew a little bit about her) but it's really nice to see Florence Price's compositions getting more airtime on the classical stations.

What did you want and get?

 A new roof, a fixed kitchen floor, a better looking house. Two sets of Koigu mini-skeins in different color combinations (but coordinating) for shawls. To finish a long-term project (Will show that later)

What did you want and not get?

an actual end to the pandemic, in the sense of there being no new concerning variants and a sharp decline in people dying/in the hospital. 

What were your favorite films of this year?

Haven't been to a movie in the theater since.....well, long before 2020. And I don't have streaming services. So I don't know here. I still like a lot of the Christmas movie fair, I've seen a few things on TCM I enjoyed, but nothing that really stood out.

What did you do on your birthday?

I filled the pulpit at church! The minister had to be out of town (as I remember: family emergency) and he asked me, as Head Elder, to do a sermon. There was lunch after church and they had a surprise birthday cake for me which was both very good and was also an extremely nice gesture. 

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?

Same as always: a little bit earth mama, a little bit down-at-the-heels preppie - kind of your standard female professor who dresses up a little more than jeans-and-t-shirt. Maybe actually "Henrietta Lowell" from "A New Leaf" is kind of close to my personal style.

What kept you sane?

My knitting, reading things NOT work-related, having commiseration sessions with my newest colleague, Zoom knitting group, being able to get out of town once in a while.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

"Fancy" in the British sense? I dunno. There are several "my age or slightly older" British actors that I sort of would fancy, in the sense of "well if he weren't already coupled up, and he were attracted to me as well...." (David Tennant is one who springs to mind)

I dunno, I don't go in as much for actor-crushes as I did when younger.

What political issue stirred you the most?

Oh hard pass on this. I care more about humanitarian issues, which I guess border on political: people having access to clean safe water and enough food and the vaccines to fight bad diseases being widely distributed and education, especially for women in countries where they traditionally had few potential careers open...

Who did you miss?

Too many to name. Most of them, people who passed on, but a former colleague who retired and then moved away - I'm surprised how much I miss them.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022:

Take time to recharge. You are not just your job. And it's probably okay (and I am still learning this) to not be outstanding at your job if it means being so means you have to cut out parts of other things that make you, you.

If you take selfies, post your six favorite ones:

It's getting late and I've not eaten dinner yet today, gonna take a pass on this, at least for now.

If you have a blog or other online writing forum, share some of your favorite work from this year:

ditto. And I don't think my writing was all that good this year. Maybe this year I will have new insights and write better.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

A new-to-me song (but from the 1960s) that came across my Pandora stream: Ralph McTell's "Streets of London," specifically the chorus:

"So, how can you tell me you're lonely

And say for you that the sun don't shine?
 Let me take you by the hand
 And lead you through the streets of London
 I'll show you something to make you change your mind"
 
In other words: my life is pretty good, actually, by comparison, and I should spend less time feeling sorry for myself because it's not "gooder" than it is; I know I tend to romanticize things and expect more than I actually should from things, people, and events.

   


 

2 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

gooder. a good word.

Kelly Sedinger said...

Lovely answers!