A Year of What Now?

I'm reading a lot of posts from people detailing everything they got done this year. I feel like I spent the entire year being bombarded by germs and fending off ever increasingly bad injuries.

I spent the first half of the year coughing so much I passed out frequently. It took several doctor visits, trips to urgent care, a hospital visit, a nebulizer and some steroids to finally knock it back under control.

Then my hair fell out and only stopped about three weeks ago, after more than two thirds of it came out, clogging up half the appliances in the house, like the vacuum and the laundry equipment.

Two weeks ago I took my Akita to the vet, along with my ginger cat, and he got so excited he sprained my wrist. It's not even that he pulled really hard - my hand must have been at a funny angle. The next day I popped the tip of my pinkie finger out of the socket, on the opposite hand.

This was ridiculous enough but then on Christmas Eve I fell in the bathroom and dislocated my left shoulder and banged up my knee pretty severely. I am hobbling around and my leg has a massive bruise. I also had to get a cortisone shot in my shoulder, to calm down "extreme inflammation" in the rotator cuff and the bicep. The bicep was a surprise as I didn't realize it was injured.

My insomnia kicked up into high gear. Instead of falling asleep around one, I fall asleep around four many nights. Even worse there are several nights each month where I never go to sleep at all, which effectively keeps me in the house as I won't drive if I haven't gotten a decent amount of sleep. If it weren't for naps after work I'd be a mess.

So here's hoping 2011 brings less pain and coughing and more sleeping.

Things I accomplished -

Bought a house.

Took in some homeless kids when their parents lost their home. This is an ongoing situation but the kids are back with their parents and hopefully things will be okay.

Adopted a kitten that came from a hoarding situation and mostly have been successful in taming him. He was never really wild but he wasn't terribly interested in people, just wandered around looking goofy. Now he comes to me and actively wants to be petted and he purrs, which is nice. He also likes to be on my bed and watch our pet rats. If I scratch his head at the same time he's in heaven.

Adopted an Akita from animal control. Chris taught him to tolerate the cats, although he does try to chase them back over to their side of the house, he's gotten to where they can drink out of his water bowl without him freaking out. He's a great dog but we have to watch him for toy, treat and food aggression. Not that he has a problem with us taking these things from us but he hates it if I offer the cats one of his treats. They don't want the treats or his slobbery tennis balls but he has to accept that they get to have them if they want. Akitas can be quite aggressive and territorial so we work on these things daily.

Wrote a script in April that I really like.

Had a splendid NaNoWriMo and wrote another ten thousand words of the manuscript during December.

Sent a query letter to an agent, which is not a big deal but is for me as I tend to overthink these things and never get around to doing them.

I just sent out another short story to a publisher I really like. I was hesitant to send to them as they have a long wait time and I don't like my work tied up but finally decided it was worth it.

I looked at tons of art this year. I don't think a day went by that I didn't look at at least one piece online, often from an artist new to me. I follow some museums on twitter and have been exposed to loads of new work.

Wrote another year's worth of my weekly entertainment column.

Kept up my saving money website, although that's been a little haphazard lately.

And finally I survived the loss of yet another computer, this time with a fried hard drive. Resolution for 2011 - find an awesome backup system.

Happy New Year to everyone and may the new year bring nothing but joys and blessings.