Saturday, January 1, 2011

A Look Back at 2010

I'm a little behind. Everyone else did theirs in the past week, but here we go anyway.

What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Visited Thanksgiving Point, removed huge bathroom mirrors from the wall (that was kind of scary), laid flooring, visited a corn maze, made butternut squash soup.




Margaret - rolled over, sat up, ate solid food, crawled, climbed stairs, walked, spoke, learned signs, played with toys.




Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I've never made resolutions before this coming year. I hope we'll keep to our new attempt at self-sufficiency and build on it in coming years.

Did anyone close to you add children to their families?
Two of my sisters-in-law had babies, as did our previous foster son's adoptive parents.

Did anyone close to you die?
No.

What countries did you visit?
The three most recent are:
Bayern with The Goose Girl
France with The Rose Bride
China with Bound

What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
Another baby (unlikely), bees (also unlikely), sleep (ha!).

What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
2010 in general was a memorable year. No one day pops out.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Learning to knit, having a good nursing relationship despite lack of support.

Margaret - sleeping (mostly) through the night in her own room.

What was your biggest failure?
I'm sure there were plenty, but none spring to mind. I tried my best.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was surprisingly healthy this year. Just one sore throat/cold near the end.

Margaret - same cold.

What was the best thing you bought?
Signing Time DVDs.  We're not really interested in the parlor trick of "baby sign" so much as encouraging a bilingual education in ASL.  These DVDs are far better than most I've found at reinforcing what we're teaching at home while not dumbing down the signs or reducing to manually coded English.

Margaret - Wee Squeak shoes.  She loves those things.

Where did most of your money go?
Clothes and toys for Margaret, home renovation supplies, gasoline (it's fun living rurally).

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Margaret communicating, our minivan, celebrating the holidays with a little one finally aware of her surroundings.

What song will always remind you of 2010?
Leah's Farm

Compared to this time last year, are you:
-happier or sadder? Happier, no question.
-thinner or fatter? Thinner. This time last year, I was just a few months postpartum.  I also had a bad weight loss experience with anti-anxiety meds.
-richer or poorer? About the same.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Painting the interior of our house, crafting, reading. There's never enough time, is there?

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Mindless internet surfing.  Cutting out Facebook and message boards has been great.

How will you be spending this New Years Eve?
For the first time ever, we're going out. We've been invited to a neighbor's for board games. *Edit*  We went, and it was a blast.  Margaret stayed up until midnight without a single meltdown.  We ate, played Apples to Apples, Nertz, and Wii, and watched the last 12 seconds of Dick Clark's countdown.  Then we came home, opened a bottle of Martinelli's, and ate Tim Tams while watching The Office.

What was your favorite TV program?
Unique to 2010? Lost.

What was the best book you read?
Baby Catcher

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Ralph's World

What did you want and get?
Our minivan, knitting supplies, some fun toys for Margaret.

What was your favorite film of this year?
Unique to 2010? Hmm. I don't watch many movies. I liked Toy Story 3 and Up.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 23. When I was a little girl, I was sure 23 would be the best year of my life. It was pretty great, indeed. I don't remember what we did for my birthday. I know Fritz and my dad started painting the house exterior that day as my birthday gift.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
2010 was plenty satisfying in its own right.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Uhm, "Mother of a Toddler"?

What kept you sane?
Tap Words on my iPod.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Josh Holloway and Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Not really political, but I became even more passionate about play-based learning for children. I devoured many a book and blog on Montessori, Waldorf-Steiner, tinkering, etc.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
Just because it's what you've always done, doesn't mean it's what you should always do.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"I love Margaret, she loves me
We love daddy, yes siree
He loves us, and so you see
We are a happy family."



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