Let's hope it's a good one! We need a break. (And I hope anyone who reads this doesn't mind having that song stuck in their head.)
2021 was definitely a very mixed bag of highs and lows for the world and me personally. The winter storm in February was definitely a low point, although I came out of it alive and without property damage, so I fared a lot better than many. But on the upside - I finally bought a new car! And that leads me into a re-cap of how I did on the 2021 goals.
I did okay on my health goals for the most part and did keep up with walking and blood pressure measurements until I started going back into the office 4 days a week (I kept working from home on Friday - which I love!) and then I lost some of the exercise routine, but then I was getting in a fair amount of walking by going in to work. I went in for my regular physical and my numbers are not all that different from the year before, so I'll take it. I even managed to lose some weight - until the holidays hit. Same story as always.
On the financial front, I actually managed to accomplish everything I had hoped to. I had a rough plan that once I had a loan and credit card paid off by the late spring, I would apply for one last consolidation loan and get all of my remaining revolving credit card debt off the cards, which I was able to do. Since I now, finally, understand more about how these things work, I knew that getting rid of that revolving debt would give me a stellar credit score, so I knew I would be able to get a good deal on a car loan and finally get a new wehicle. And the plan actually worked! While I still have the personal loan for a few years, and now a car payment, no longer having that weight of the credit card debt that I've been hauling around for so long feels pretty amazing. Not to mention the peace of mind of not having any surprise expensive car repairs in the next few years!
For the various entertainment goals, I did pretty well there too! I did manage to watch a 'new to me' movie every week, including finally getting back into the Alamo Drafthouse (thank you vaccine science!!) and I hit my Goodreads goal for the year. I didn't read as many comics as I would have liked, but I did clear out my YouTube backlog. And I did have a couple of in-person happy hours again, which was great! I ended up not getting out to McDonald Observatory since they moved the summer board meeting to October and it was scaled back, so I just monitored the virtual portion from home. And I was able to keep doing quite a bit of stitchy and crafty things, although that fell off a bit once I was back in the office regularly.
Goals for 2022!
Trying to decide what my goals are for 2022 is interesting, because I also have A Major Birthday coming this year, so that does give me pause a bit. Mostly on the health goals, at least. For that arena, I'm going to do Dry January, since I think this year I do need a break from the wine and cider. (I really got into cider in 2021.) And I want to get back into walking on the days that I'm not physically going into the office since I kind of fell off on that in the latter half of 2021. Although the record heat in the fall and early winter didn't help. And I want to generically say "eat healthier" since I often focus on weight loss, but really I just need to cut back on the pizza. Once I started going back into the office 4 days a week, I started getting take-out more often, which isn't all that bad in and of itself - I just need to be a bit better about making healthier choices more often. But not always, since we all need to treat ourselves from time to time. :)
For my entertainment goals - I set my Goodreads goal just a little lower this year since I now have a big podcast backlog to tackle because I went a little nuts with subscribing to them last year. Part of it were all the lists of "podcasts not to miss" that came out near the end of the year that turned me on to some that looked interesting. And part of it was finding a bunch of new "word nerd" shows that sounded like fun. Thankfully a number of these are limited and not on-going, but some are long-running and have a big back catalog - and I'm a completionist! And I could say basically the exact same thing with TV shows, although I don't have as many long-running things to watch back seasons of - mostly just things to keep up with or to binge the latest seasons of. And I could kind of say the same for comics as well, but that is almost all 'back catalog' of and not many new things to keep up with. But I'm really going to try to tackle some of those old runs in my stash, even though it will probably prompt me to pick up new things in the process. A few years ago I realized the brilliance of Marvel giving away all of those #1 issues on Comixology many years ago - if you like the first issue of a 4 or 6 issue series (or arc), you're likely to go buy the rest or subscribe to Unlimited.
One last set of goals I have is to declutter - both my physical and digital spaces. I've already started a bit, but there is still a long way to go. Maybe I'll finally get more of my 2015 vacation photos of England on Flickr!
Alright 2022 - let's see what you've got in store for us! And may you be a bit more gentle than your siblings 2020 and 2021.
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