32g: final wrap-up

alright, a final wrap-up on my list of goals for this past year. :)

1. finish The One With 31 book: done! i do love having that book binding machine. it makes keeping a goal book so easy. :)

2. create a book to track my 32 goals: done! "create" and "finish" are two different things, right? i need to get some photos into the book, and update a couple of last-minute successes. and add a cover. and bind it. but it's started ... that counts, right?

3. watch all netflix-available Vincent D'Onofrio movies: bwhahaha! nope! netflix had 41 vincent d'onofrio movies available. i watched ... drum roll please ... 12. that's right, 12. and i'm okay with that. as it turns out, a lot of his movies from the 80's and early 90's? not so impressive. there are a few newer ones i still wouldn't mind seeing. but i think i'll keep d'onofrio as my law & order hero, and leave my movie obsessions to johnny deep and alan alda.

4. watch half of marlana's movies: nope, didn't do this one, either. i watched three of marlana's movies, and i enjoyed two of them. movie-watching just wasn't my strong suit this year.

5. finish watching all netflix-available episodes of The Office: now this one i accomplished. twice. ;)

6. watch Law & Order: Trial by Jury: nope, never even had a single disc of the show delivered to the house.

7. post items on etsy: nope, and this one still scares me.

8. plant vegetables: done, done, done! i had tomatoes, cucumbers, a variety of greens, carrots, jalapenos, bell peppers and radishes that all grew successfully. less successful were the green beans, watermelon and squash. but all in all, not a bad year in the garden.

9. play every game in the house: oh, most definitely not. when the year started i identified 54 games. of those, i played 12.and that doesn't take into the account the news i've gotten. i'm looking to move this spring, though, and i may pare down some of my game collection. nothing major, but the ones i haven't played in years (if ever). just a thought.

10. decorate my bedroom: well, no. i mean, there is a stripe of white foamcore running around the room - but i'm pretty sure that's not really considered a decoration.

11. cut my fabric stash in half: definitely not. i worked on exactly ONE sewing project this year, and it's not done, yet.

12. finish a quilt front or back: this one i accomplished. i finished the front for my t-shirt quilt! okay, i guess that means i worked on two sewing projects this year, as i wasn't counting my half-finished quilts in the previous goal. but, still.

13. cut my yarn stash in half: hahahahaha. okay, here's the thing. as i started projects with the yarn i already had - i needed to buy more to finish those projects. and then i needed to buy more because i was having so much fun crocheting. i did a LOT of crocheting this year. and i don't even slightly regret not accomplishing this goal. i had so much fun adding to the stash to work on projects that i don't even care. :)

14. complete a pattern from ravelry: i heart ravelry. :) i'm not sure i could count how many of their free patterns i was inspired by this year. so much fun.

15. finish the tree scarf: done! apparently a neighbor stopped marlana to tell her he liked it. in the course of the conversation she learned the fellow who runs our homeowners' association is a crotchety old man who complains about everything. but so far, no request for us to remove the tree scarf. yay!

16. make some jewelry: nope, don't think so. i did make some beaded spiders, though, which helped use up some of the beads. and enjoying working with the beads was really more the point than what i made with them anyway.

17. save money for a stand mixer: yeah, not so much. i had a decent stash for awhile, but it all got used on other wants & needs. i've started a new stash with some christmas money. hopefully i can get a stand mixer before getting distracted and spending that money on a food processor or pizza or something. ;)

18. try six recipes from Baked Explorations: done! i made a devil's food cake, angel frosting, grasshopper bars, a chocolate cake, almond buttercream frosting and a chocolate glaze. yes, that only amounted to three different desserts - but i still say it counts. :) they were tasty, that much i know.

19. use my madeleine pan: nope.

20. use my tart pan: yes! for a very tasty pumpkin custard. mmmmmm.

21. make injera: nope.

22. use my ice cream maker: yes! i made a very tasty cake batter ice cream.

23. make pierogi: nope.

24. succeed at meringues: nope. but, in fairness, i didn't fail at them either. i simply didn't try. ;)

25. eat pizza at Bazbeaux: yup! marlana and i went to celebrate my birthday last january. tasty pizza and a muffaletta to go. yum!

26. end the year weighing less than i do now: yes! from last year's birthday to this year's birthday i lost 28.7 pounds. part of that was really gradual and slow as i paid no attention for the first 7 or 8 months. but most of it has come off since september, when i decided to focus on losing some weight before taking a trip to LA. currently, i'm not so motivated anymore - except that i really don't want to regain what i lost. and i just booked a trip to new york city ... so maybe that'll help, too. ;)

27. regrow/replace Bill: yup, bill's dead. and the only thing his pot turned into was an ash tray at thanksgiving. now it's just sitting empty in the garage. looking lonely.

28. paint Bill's pot: oh. guess i should have talked about his pot turning into an ash tray here. oh well. ;)

29. read an autobiography/memoir: i just can't focus on reading. i want to read. but i want to do other things more, and i think that's fair.

30. fast from the internet for three consecutive days, twice: wow. this is almost as funny as watching all the vincent d'onofrio movies. no. i did not fast from the internet. are you kidding me?

31. send mail to my nieces: i sent alicia a card, but not sami jo. good thing she's too little to care, eh?

32. make christmas cards AND send them: done! it was a very limited edition, however, so don't feel bad if you didn't get one. even though they were awesome. ;)

and no, i haven't finalized this year's list, yet. but we'll talk more about that later.

new year's eve

i don't have an image that properly portrays the goodness that was my new year's eve. we'll come back to that in a moment.

i usually spend new year's eve with my family. laure's family joins my family for an evening of games and food, culminating in sparklers at midnight. it sounds low key, probably. that's because it is. we have a relaxed evening and a lot of fun. this year, however, i had to work on new year's eve and new year's day. living 2.5 hours away, that made being with the family impossible. so, what to do? make an evening of fun in indy, of course.

back to the inadequate photos. i don't know what an adequate photo from last night would be. catching that errant piece of pizza mid flight on its way out of the oven and onto the floor? us laughing like school kids as we went into kroger for no reason other than to buy 20 grapes? weighing and counting the grapes because we only needed 20? (thankfully, we did get some extras since once we got home we realized that we actually needed 24.) watching brian's awesome new year's video? multiple times? sitting around for hours watching youtube videos and listening to snippets of random songs? realizing at 2am that we never opened the champagne at midnight? finally crashing about 90 minutes before i had to be up for work?

we had a great night. and i leave you with the video. i know i'm partial because i took some of the photos, i'm in some of the photos, and i happen to think brian's an amazing artist. but watch it, and try to tell me it's not amazing, okay? ;) may you take the time to reflect on where life has taken you this past year, and may your new year be filled with happiness, peace and joy.