50 End-of-the-Year Questions

(from an Yahoo e-list)

> What are your resolutions/good intentions for the New Year?

I have several. I will write about them in a separate entry.

> What happened in your life that you never expected to happen?

I suffered from intense depression.

> What is one thing you did that you have never done before?

Hmmmm. I did mostly the same old things all year. Perhaps that was why I was depressed!

> What were your biggest achievements?

Writing almost every day.

> What were your biggest challenges?

Writing almost every day. Getting the kid to eat without an argument.

> What is your biggest regret?

Not spending enough time with my kid because I was too drained at the end of the day.

> When were you happiest?

Happiness? What's that?

> Who was your best friend?

Don't have one.

> Who surprised you this year? In what way?

No one really. Everyone behaved the way I figured they would.

> Who did you admire most this year?

????

> Who were you in love with?

My immediate family

> What was the most important lesson you learned?

Time heals all wounds.

> What was your favorite TV show?

"Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica"

> What was your favorite film?

"Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" (only because I can't think of any other movies we saw in the theatre this year)

> What was your favorite book?

"The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

> What was your favorite food?

We ate a lot of pizza this year.

> What was your favorite song?

"Better Days" by the Goo-Goo Dolls

> What were your favorite phrases?

???

> What did you do for your Birthday?

Nothing. I had to attend a cousin-in-law's bridal shower.

> Which was your favorite Holiday?

Christmas

> What was the best gift you gave?

Santa brought DD a Baby Bratz Doll and its horse.

> What was the best gift you received?

something quite unexpected

> What did someone say to you that surprised you?

????

> What was your hobby?

I worked quite a bit on a Lady Mime cross stitch picture, but did not get it finished yet.

> What new discoveries did you make?

That I am okay.

> What was your guilty pleasure for the year?

going to the library

> What did you do on an average day?

Gah, work.

> What was your fashion like?

Same stuff I've worn for years

> What was your career/job like?

same

> Did you make more/less/same amount than the previous year?

same

> What new skills did you learn this year?

none

> What do you think was your most valuable contribution?

I contributed to some charities.

> What lesson(s) did you learn about yourself?

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

> What were the most significant events of the past year?

Katrina

> What were you afraid of?

You name it. I don't know where my courage went.

> What was your most memorable journey?

to St. Louis on vacation with my sister and her kids

> Which did you do more of? Smile or cry?

neither. I was angry a lot.

> Did you make any new friends?

Not really.

> Did you lose any old friends?

No.

> Did you have any births/deaths in your family?

My cousin had a baby boy in November.

> Did you fall in love/out of love?

No.

> What is your newest tech item?

???

> What was your most extravagant purchase?

getting my car fixed early in the year--$750

> What should you have done more of?

played with DD

> What should you have done less of?

feeling angry; arguing

> What made the biggest difference in your life?

nothing. My life is the same as it's always been.

> What gave you joy?

??????

> What made you sad?

You name it.

> What is your motto for the year?

2005: Glad I'm Still Alive (I think)
2006: A New Hope

Xmas Recovery

First, the gifts:

• Kodak Z740
• BG: Season 1
• LOTR: FOTR
• "The Power of Intention" by Wayne Dyer
• 2 chocolate oranges
• a hand-bound engraved journal
• a paperback book cover
• miscellaneous other little things

I am spoiled.

Artists We Lost in '05

They will be missed.

12 Days of Christmas--Procrastinator Style

Day 1: Find tree and decorations. Decorate tree. Get in argument with DH about Christmas lights. DH stomps off to hang lights outside while I stew inside and continue putting up more decorations. DD gets in the way.

Day 2: Go Christmas shopping. Fight crowds. Get hot and tired. Spend too much money, especially charges on credit cards. Drive home. Feel huge shoppers' remorse. Start wrapping. Hide gifts from DD.

Day 3: Continue wrapping.

Day 4: Make out Christmas cards. Look for stamps. Decide to go to post office later in the week to buy Christmas-themed stamps. Decide that certain friends need a letter tucked inside the card, and hold off on writing letters.

Day 5: Decide what I might want to bake for the holiday parties. Go out and buy a couple more gifts, while wondering if I bought enough stuff. Continue wrapping.

Day 6: Think about writing letters to friends.

Day 7: Argue with DH about what gifts I bought for people. DD gets out of school and drives me nutty.

Day 8: Think about writing letters to friends. Go to family holiday party. Eat way too much.

Day 9: Sit down to write letters to friends. Take cards to post office. Mail everything.

Day 10: Think about doing laundry. Get phone call from my mother saying not to bake anything because she has baked up a storm. Bring a cheeseball instead. !

Day 11: Do eight loads of laundry, 7 loads of dishes, and start baking the Xmas goodies. Finish baking around midnight.

Day 12: Wake up to hurriedly unwrap gifts from Santa. Get ready and drive a half-hour to a family holiday party. Hurry through the day to make an appearance at yet another family party. Eat way too much. Go home and have Christmas all over again while we look at the stuff we opened in the morning.

And I didn't even know I won

I just discovered I won a contest to try out an online journaling email course. I can hardly wait! I need some new ideas to enliven my journal writing.

Holiday Baking

I'll be a baking fiend this upcoming weekend!

• chocolate chip cookies
• peanut butter cookies
• oatmeal cookies
• gingerbread
• Jell-O chocolate pudding fudge
• good cheer holiday crunch (reg. required, sorry)

The last two items are my "experimental" attempts this year. I usually try out a new recipe. Last year, I made gingerbread, and I tried to make peanut butter fudge, but alas, the fudge failed. I saw the Jell-O fudge recipe in an ad in "Better Homes and Gardens" magazine and thought I would try it. The holiday crunch was also in BHG. In addition to these goodies, DH plans to make some white chocolate-covered pretzels and chocolate-covered cashews.

Our families will be the lucky recipients.

Africa's Real Problem?

The Rock Star's Burden

Please read this op-ed article by Paul Theroux. It gives an insight into the so-called "African Crisis" more powerfully than listening to the numbing celebrity rhetoric.

New journal entries posted

Several new journal entries have been posted for the Holidailies challenge. Yeah, I'm behind in writing, but I do have my ideas jotted down.

***

It snowed again this morning, a terrible mixture of freezing rain and snow. The roads were down to one lane. I was doing okay until some dumbf**k in a Toyota Tercel decided to cut me off because the passing lane was not cleared off very well. Stupid f**ker. I couldn't just slam on my brakes. I honked at the moron instead.

I hate stupid people. I especially hate stupid people who think they own the road.

***

I watched the movie "The Notebook" last night. It starts James Garner and Gena Rowlands as an elderly couple. Noah (Garner) reads to Allie (Rowlands) from a notebook. It is the story of their lives together--but mostly about how they met and ended up with one another--about how their love was strong enough to withstand the test of time and distance. The story is told in flashbacks, interspersed with the present day. Unfortunately, now that they've grown old, Allie is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. She doesn't remember Noah or their life together. For one moment, near the end of the movie, Allie has a moment of clarity and she remembers everything. The moment is poignant and bittersweet. All too soon, she "disappears" again. Noah loves her so much, but he is powerless to combat the disease stealing her away from him. (I have a lot more to say about this movie. Look for an upcoming journal entry about it.)

More Movies

Well, since I was snowed in this weekend, here are the movies we rented and watched:

"Fantastic 4": Good movie. Very action-oriented. If you like comic-book style movies, you should like this movie. I read that there will be a sequel, with all the original actors except Julian Sands (Dr. Doom) reprising their roles.

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": Makes a better book series than a movie. (I checked this one out from the library. My advice is don't pay to rent it.) It's baffling.

"Kicking and Screaming": This is a predictable comedy starring Will Ferrell. He is a soccer coach for, of course, the losing team, and with Mike Ditka's help, manages to turn the team around. However, he is at odds with his dad (Robert Duvall), and of course, all turns out happy in the end. (Another library rental.)

"Stealth": I think I saw this before, only it was with Val Kilmer on Mars. Hehe. Basically, an AI plane goes haywire, learns to feel, and sacrifices itself for humans. Lots of T&A from Jessica Biel. Rent it only if you have nothing better to do.

Waiting

Four to six inches of snow are predicted to fall today. I am waiting for the blizzard to begin.

*Update: Well, yes, we received a ton of snow, just as predicted. I am leaving work a couple of hours early, but I still worry about getting home.

**Updated update: Made it home. It took an hour, when it normally takes 30 minutes. When the semi trucks passed me, I was snowblind. It was scary because I couldn't see until they were well past my car. The exits off the interstates were not very well cleared yet, and side streets weren't either. But I made it.

64 years ago

Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Speaking of WWII, I just finished reading a book by Bernhard Schlink called "The Reader." It's about this young man who has a relationship with a mysterious older woman. He is so in love with her (he's 15; she's in her 30s) that her past doesn't matter to him. At the end of the book, after many years pass, he is still trying to reconcile the woman he knew and loved with the woman she was before they knew one another, and with the woman she became. It was a quick read.

I also watched "The Aviator" this week, the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as billionaire magnate Howard Hughes. DiCaprio was excellent in the role. The movie was interesting. I recommend it for people who love the Hollywood glamour days and for HH aficionados. A casual viewer might not like this film because it is a biopic, but I thought it was a fascinating glimpse, albeit fictionalized, into the life of a powerful--yet eccentric--American icon.

Sparkly

After Saturday night's snow/sleet/rain combination, my car was encased in a good inch of ice. I should have defrosted the thing yesterday, since I wasn't doing much else, but I didn't. So this morning, it took about fifteen minutes for DH and the heater to get enough of the ice removed so I could drive the car to work.

Glittery ice crystals that formed on the standing snow reflected the sun and I had to wear sunglasses to keep from being blinded. The temperature was 4 degrees today when I ventured out--yes, that's 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Roads were clear, but I nearly slipped and fell on the slick sidewalk outside the back door.

When I took a good look around, though, I decided that the sparkles were pretty, even if the weather was freezing.

A List

...of how I spend my time while DH is hunting...

[The first shotgun deer-hunting season was a week before Thanksgiving. DH did not get a deer, so he is back out there this weekennd (otherwise known as "second season"). Now, DH does not hunt just for a trophy. We do use the meat--mostly have it ground up into hamburger so DH can make jerky, or have it made into summer sausage. That is about the only way I can stand to eat it. He also bowhunts. Last year, he did not get a deer, and he hasn't got one this year yet, either.]

1. Read books in my to-be-read pile.
2. Go to the library with DD.
3. Do laundry.
4. Load up the dishes and run the dishwasher.
5. Play with DD. (We jumped in a pile of leaves and went on walks with the dogs.)
6. Listen to DD's incessant chattering until she drives me so nutty that I can't stand it any longer, and pray for DH to come home.
7. Watch kiddie cartoons with DD.
8. Go shopping for things I don't need.
9. Read.
10. Sleep, if I can manage to nap while DD is still talking.

Thank the gods it's only twice a year. (I should also add that I am not involved in any way, shape, or form with the process of cleaning the carcass or butchering the meat. I prefer to think that meat comes already packaged in the stores. Hehe.)

Xmas Holiday Specials

In case you missed "Rudolph" (it was on Wednesday night) and are pining for those (cheesy) holiday specials, the Family Channel will be airing classic Christmas cartoons on Saturday afternoon (Dec. 3), as well as all month. Be sure to catch "Nestor the Christmas Donkey." It's on at 2:30pm (CST).

Although this animated version of the donkey who helped Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem might be considered silly, I think it has a great message. I never saw it until last year, and it is now one of my favorites.

Gas

I noticed that gas prices jumped 22¢ overnight. I guess the dealers heard "snow" and raised prices accordingly. Yesterday, I paid $1.95 a gallon, but the town where I work had it cheaper for $1.87. Now this morning, it was still $1.95 in my hometown (it probably won't stay that way for long), but here where I work, the price was $2.09 a gallon.

WTF? Someone somewhere is making some big bucks.

First Snow

Well, Mother Nature gifted us with about two inches of the white stuff overnight. Magnus didn't quite know what to think of it. (According to his previous owner, he was born in January and they probably got him around March, so he probably didn't see much snow.) DD wanted to go out and play in it--at 6:30 am!

It was quite slick driving to work today. People get stupid when it's the first snowfall of the year. I passed by several cars that had slid off into the ditch as I drove to work on the interstate. I was sure to drive slow. It wasn't too bad until I pulled into the town where I work--the roads already had an icepack underneath. Ugh. And because of accidents on the main roads, the secondary roads had a lot more traffic, which made those routes more dangerous.

But I made it.


***Nano Update***

Well, unfortunately, November was not a good month for me. I missed the first few days of writing because my grandmother was visiting, and I was exhausted after the visits. To have a successful Nano, it's very important to get off to a good start. In the second week, I did manage to write about 15,000 words, about half of which were actually on my Nano idea. As soon as I can, I will post my ten reasons for not completing the Nano goal this year.

However, I did manage to do quite a bit of paper journaling, so shouldn't that count??? I just wish I wasn't so exhausted all the time.

______
[BTW, thanks for all the comments you readers have been sending my way lately. It makes me want to keep on keeping on, and keep on writing. Feel free to comment or email me anytime! :)]