Year end meme
Dec. 31st, 2004 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerr1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
Started karate! Rented a dumpster to throw stuff away! And cut my hair really short!
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolutions were to work on exercising and losing weight, to stop swearing, and to stop one other bad habit that is so disgusting that I don't even want to tell you what it is. I was the queen of exercise this year, but I gained weight, which I find immensely depressing. I didn't manage to stop swearing or the other habit. I'll be renewing all three resolutions this year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
Stayed within the US this year.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Freedom from debt. More discipline about writing. And a different administration, by gum.
7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Can't really pinpoint any particular date.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Reaching Mount Doom on the Eowyn Challenge. Not, alas, anything on the book.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Not getting much of anything done on the book.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Shingles and lice. And Delia got really, really sick this year, although we never discovered what it was.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
RotK: EE. And maybe the screened enclosure to go over our picnic table the next time we go camping.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
For myself, I'm really proud of how faithfully I exercised. And Rob, for going along with the rent-the-dumpster and clean-the-house plan, which I know was really hard for him.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
George W. Bush and all his cronies. I HATE what they are doing to my country.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Housing, daycare and health insurance were the biggies. Just day to day expenses, really.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The Lord of the Rings symphony concert we went to in Chicago.
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Nothing quite springs to mind, really.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? A little happier, I think.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter, alas. But maybe it's muscle mass.
iii. richer or poorer? Most of the year definitely poorer, although Rob and I each got a mini-windfall at the end of the year.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Just generally enjoying myself. Eating out at restaurants, traveling, buying new clothes. I felt frustratingly purse-pinched most of the year.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spending time at my job. No way around that, alas.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Spent it having dinner at various relatives' houses.
21. How will you be spending New Years?
With my family, doing a photo scavenger hunt, seeing "The Incredibles," eating Chinese and playing White Elephant game! This has been a family tradition in my family for nigh on forty years:
The White Elephant game Rules:
Everyone brings a mathom or two, gift wrapped, and they are all piled in the center of the circle. (This is your chance to get rid of those salt and pepper holders you never used, or the Praying Jesus plate Aunt Matilda gave you for your wedding, or the VCR remote holder shaped like a stuffed goose or . . . ) Several pairs of dice are passed around. If you roll a 7 or 11, you take a gift from the center of the pile; if you roll doubles, that means you roll again.
When all the gifts are gone, everyone unwraps and shows off their loot. Then a timer is set for five minutes. Dice are rolled and passed. If you get 7 or 11 you can either grab someone else's gift, or unload your gift onto somebody else. Doubles rolls again. And you're stuck with whatever you have when the timer goes off.
It gets to be a uproariously laughing screamfest. We discovered years ago that if you have very young children playing, some gifts should be included that are calculated to please them: matchbox cars, or little dolls. We all remember the year when my nephew David eagerly unwrapped his box, only to find my brother's skanky old tennis shoe, and he burst into tears, and it took quite a while to calm him down.
We have a rule that you have to leave with whatever you won, but there is a long time-honored tradition of trying to hide your white elephants at the hosts house so that you don't have to take them with you. Another vivid memory: one of my uncles hiding an old bowling ball behind the drapes. We discovered it and managed to lob it into the back seat of his car, just as he drove away. He stopped the car and lobbed it back onto our lawn.
We mailed it to him, COD.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
I fell in love with truffle honey this year.
23. How many one-night stands?
None. Unless you count the time I woke up to find truffle honey smeared all over my pillow. Heh. Just kidding.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
I did actually start watching a television program for the first time in ten years. Jack and Bobby.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Well, I hate George W. Bush so much more now that it seems that the hatred that I had for him last year doesn't even compare.
26. What was the best book you read?
Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Sting's album A Brand New Day, perhaps.
28. What did you want and get?
Best of all, the ice palace necklace! And the 50th Anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings and the new re-issue of The Silmarillion.
29. What did you want and not get?
These and these.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I liked ROTK: EE, The Incredibles, Spiderman 2, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?<
I turned 44 this year. I spent it at a coffeehouse being interviewed by a local newspaper along with other local women sf/fantasy writers. Here is the article. Rob gave me new speakers for the computer.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money and time to do what I want to do. And the feeling that the book was really rolling, so much so that I have the confidence that I will actually finish it. AND A DIFFERENT RESULT ON THE ELECTION.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Are you kidding? I'm a mom. It's gotta be machine washable, baby. Also, I'm very short-waisted, so I look for things that lengthen my body line, like long coats and dusters. I also look pretty good in my karate gi.
I still haven't gotten my leather jacket.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minnehaha said that if I did it might be kinda dangerous.
34. What kept you sane?
Baths and Friday nights out.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Oh god, it's so embarrassing because he's like, half my age. I'm not going to humiliate myself by publically admitting it.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election and gay civil rights.
37. Who did you miss?
DAMMIT I WISH THATkijjohnson LIVED CLOSER!
38. Who was the best new person you met?
I actually got to meetsleigh, which was kinda neat. And he was totally cool about letting me weep all over his shoulder because of the results of the election.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
A heating pad and a sheepskin pad is the most comforting thing when you've got shingles. Two tight knee bands when you do your front leg front kicks.
Started karate! Rented a dumpster to throw stuff away! And cut my hair really short!
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolutions were to work on exercising and losing weight, to stop swearing, and to stop one other bad habit that is so disgusting that I don't even want to tell you what it is. I was the queen of exercise this year, but I gained weight, which I find immensely depressing. I didn't manage to stop swearing or the other habit. I'll be renewing all three resolutions this year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
Stayed within the US this year.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Freedom from debt. More discipline about writing. And a different administration, by gum.
7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Can't really pinpoint any particular date.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Reaching Mount Doom on the Eowyn Challenge. Not, alas, anything on the book.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Not getting much of anything done on the book.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Shingles and lice. And Delia got really, really sick this year, although we never discovered what it was.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
RotK: EE. And maybe the screened enclosure to go over our picnic table the next time we go camping.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
For myself, I'm really proud of how faithfully I exercised. And Rob, for going along with the rent-the-dumpster and clean-the-house plan, which I know was really hard for him.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
George W. Bush and all his cronies. I HATE what they are doing to my country.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Housing, daycare and health insurance were the biggies. Just day to day expenses, really.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The Lord of the Rings symphony concert we went to in Chicago.
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Nothing quite springs to mind, really.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? A little happier, I think.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter, alas. But maybe it's muscle mass.
iii. richer or poorer? Most of the year definitely poorer, although Rob and I each got a mini-windfall at the end of the year.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Just generally enjoying myself. Eating out at restaurants, traveling, buying new clothes. I felt frustratingly purse-pinched most of the year.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spending time at my job. No way around that, alas.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Spent it having dinner at various relatives' houses.
21. How will you be spending New Years?
With my family, doing a photo scavenger hunt, seeing "The Incredibles," eating Chinese and playing White Elephant game! This has been a family tradition in my family for nigh on forty years:
The White Elephant game Rules:
Everyone brings a mathom or two, gift wrapped, and they are all piled in the center of the circle. (This is your chance to get rid of those salt and pepper holders you never used, or the Praying Jesus plate Aunt Matilda gave you for your wedding, or the VCR remote holder shaped like a stuffed goose or . . . ) Several pairs of dice are passed around. If you roll a 7 or 11, you take a gift from the center of the pile; if you roll doubles, that means you roll again.
When all the gifts are gone, everyone unwraps and shows off their loot. Then a timer is set for five minutes. Dice are rolled and passed. If you get 7 or 11 you can either grab someone else's gift, or unload your gift onto somebody else. Doubles rolls again. And you're stuck with whatever you have when the timer goes off.
It gets to be a uproariously laughing screamfest. We discovered years ago that if you have very young children playing, some gifts should be included that are calculated to please them: matchbox cars, or little dolls. We all remember the year when my nephew David eagerly unwrapped his box, only to find my brother's skanky old tennis shoe, and he burst into tears, and it took quite a while to calm him down.
We have a rule that you have to leave with whatever you won, but there is a long time-honored tradition of trying to hide your white elephants at the hosts house so that you don't have to take them with you. Another vivid memory: one of my uncles hiding an old bowling ball behind the drapes. We discovered it and managed to lob it into the back seat of his car, just as he drove away. He stopped the car and lobbed it back onto our lawn.
We mailed it to him, COD.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
I fell in love with truffle honey this year.
23. How many one-night stands?
None. Unless you count the time I woke up to find truffle honey smeared all over my pillow. Heh. Just kidding.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
I did actually start watching a television program for the first time in ten years. Jack and Bobby.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Well, I hate George W. Bush so much more now that it seems that the hatred that I had for him last year doesn't even compare.
26. What was the best book you read?
Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Sting's album A Brand New Day, perhaps.
28. What did you want and get?
Best of all, the ice palace necklace! And the 50th Anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings and the new re-issue of The Silmarillion.
29. What did you want and not get?
These and these.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I liked ROTK: EE, The Incredibles, Spiderman 2, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?<
I turned 44 this year. I spent it at a coffeehouse being interviewed by a local newspaper along with other local women sf/fantasy writers. Here is the article. Rob gave me new speakers for the computer.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money and time to do what I want to do. And the feeling that the book was really rolling, so much so that I have the confidence that I will actually finish it. AND A DIFFERENT RESULT ON THE ELECTION.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Are you kidding? I'm a mom. It's gotta be machine washable, baby. Also, I'm very short-waisted, so I look for things that lengthen my body line, like long coats and dusters. I also look pretty good in my karate gi.
I still haven't gotten my leather jacket.
minnehaha said that if I did it might be kinda dangerous.34. What kept you sane?
Baths and Friday nights out.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Oh god, it's so embarrassing because he's like, half my age. I'm not going to humiliate myself by publically admitting it.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election and gay civil rights.
37. Who did you miss?
DAMMIT I WISH THAT
kijjohnson LIVED CLOSER!38. Who was the best new person you met?
I actually got to meet
sleigh, which was kinda neat. And he was totally cool about letting me weep all over his shoulder because of the results of the election.39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
A heating pad and a sheepskin pad is the most comforting thing when you've got shingles. Two tight knee bands when you do your front leg front kicks.