Yeah, that didn't happen.

 I had grand plans for how I was going to spend my days here in the new year. I had goals and I was going to slay each and every one of those goals!   We are now two weeks into the new year and I can say.....Yeah not doing so good on those goals!

Yes, I have had some wins in terms of my goals.  I have had two wins  The wins you ask?   Well let me tell you!   I had a goal to finish digitizing all of the pictures from my parents house.   I am happy to announce that I have completely digitized those pictures.  I do have to finish filing the pictures away in the storage boxes I got, but the pictures are digitized!   The second win is my weight.  The first week brought a loss of 1 pound and my second week of the year brought about a loss of 2 pounds.  Thus, I have lost 3 pounds thus far in 2025.   I am constantly fighting the urge to say (or in this case type) that my three pounds is paltry and weak.   I want big numbers.  (Don't we all?) Three just seems lame ,but I am tickled to have pieced together two weeks of weight loss.  And three pounds is still three pounds GONE.  It could have been worse.  I could have gained three! 

As for most of the other goals....the stuff like ten thousands steps a day, exercising three times a week, 64 ounces of water, tracking my food?   Yeah, they haven't happened.   Not yet.  I have actually exercised about 3 times.  I have gotten my water to a consistent 30-40 ounces.   I have tracked a few times.  And my steps have been higher than average, but still not to the 10k mark.  So not a total failure, because I can see progress.  But not quite where I want to be.  But that's ok, i'm moving in the right direction.  I'm building up!

Unemployment has been busier than I expected.  Two weeks have flown by!  It feels like just yesterday that I was finishing up my last day of that job.   In fairness, we had a holiday (New Years Day) and a snow day where Jason was off work..so they felt like weekends which made it go by faster. 

 I have gone down to my mom's house for 4 days now.  There I have met up with my brother and we have worked on cleaning and panting her house to ready it to sell.  I am not a good painter.  I know it.  Painting is also not my favorite thing in the world to do.  But that's ok, it needs to be done and we are getting it done. 

I have spent a fair amount of time on my computer looking for jobs.  I am only two weeks into this serious job hunt and it's disheartening!  I have a submitted a fair amount of applications.  I have also received a fair amount of rejections.  I will admit that some of the jobs that I have applied to are a stretch for me, but they sound so interesting.   I am applying to anything that is in my pay range that looks interesting.  I have applied to both remote jobs and on site jobs.  I am torn with the location.  I do love working at home.  It is so handy to be able to flip a load of laundry on a break or let the dog out at lunch.   However, I know that some face to face interaction with people is something good.   I was actually getting ready to start going to a zumba class in the evenings when my job situation exploded.  Literally, I had gone to the site and was looking into it on the day before I got the notification.  So I do have that still in the cards if I get a remote position.  But it's a 50-50 dealio.   I do think that the dog is voting for another remote position!   Although, she has done amazing on these days that I have been at my mom's for 8 plus hours (including travel time).

Most of my time I have been busy doing something.  Be it working on my computer, editing youtube videos, painting, cleaning, cooking.  I did spend one day, my first true day off (one where I was home and Jason was working) and spent the afternoon watching a movie.  I had started the day so strong...but then kinda fell apart and lounged from lunchtime onward.  But that is ok also.   Truth be told, this afternoon may be one of those days as I just picked up two books.  One an author that I have really enjoyed, Fiona Davis.  And the second book one that came recommended to me by my niece,  Bear Town.  The biggest problem is which to read first!!!

Unemployment and the new year have been kind to me thus far.  While I am frustrated at the low numbers in my weight loss and the futile job hunt, I am happy with my progress toward making my goals a reality.  I am happy with my steps forward.  I know that the best is yet to come and I"m going to do what I can to make it come!
 

19 years.....Really?

 Somehow in the hustle and bustle of life I missed a very big milestone.  It wasn't the dogs 'adopted' anniversary on January 6th, although we did celebrate that with her.   No, I am talking about January 5th.  What big milestone am I talking about?  Why I am talking about my 19th anniversary of starting this blog.  My blogiversary.  One one hand it seems like yesterday but on the other hand it seems like 12 lifetimes ago!  But January 5th of 2006 that is exactly what I did....I started a little 'online journal'.

In past years I have gone all out, some years were just funny.  Other years were kinda...well..... they were their own unique creations.  Some years I even did repeat anniversary posts!   But hey, lets go through the anniversary posts together.

2013 I didn't acknowledge my anniversary until I was 6 years into maintaining this blog. There were two really funny things about that post.  The first is that I had the date wrong.  Clearly when I look back, my first post was on January 5th....yet on January 6th of my sixth year I wrote a happy birthday/anniversary post.    The other thing that made me chuckle is that I spoke about how it seemed like such a short time but how in terms of the blogging community 6 years was a long time!   Boy, I had no clue that 19 years later I would still be around! 

2016  I didn't mention my blogiversary/birthday/anniversary again until 2016!   Once again, I got the date totally wrong and celebrated it on January 3rd.  (Seriously, was I mental or something?)   Hadn't been writing a whole lot of posts,  I talked about how 10 years didn't seem possible...and how I had written over 1800 posts.  But I used the anniversary post as a means to walk through my journey from highest to lowest.  From success to failure.  I held nothing back. I lost the weight in pictures and I regained the weight in pictures.  I talked about my failed marriage, my new love, running and just about everything in between.  It was a pretty descriptive post if I do say so myself!

2017  Well what do you know, I actually got the date right in 2017!   It was a post similar to this, just looking back over the years and looking forward to the future.   I was still proud of that 10  year anniversary post and referred back to it!

 2018 Look at that, another year where I celebrated on the correct day! This was actually a really interesting post.  I actually wrote a post about things I learned along the way!   Very good stuff.  I also included some stats about my blog...stuff like how many posts, etc.   

2019  Well, I got it wrong again.   This year I posted my blogiversary on January 4th.  In this post I was honest with my success followed by failure.  But I also blatantly stole the post from the 2017, ten year anniversary post and just updated it a wee little bit.  (I'm so lame!)

2020  Hey hey hey, will you look at that, I actually got the date...WRONG again! Yup, I celebrated on January 6th! Even more lame?  I literally copied the previous years post pretty much word for word!   Shame on me!

2021 I got the date right and it wasn't a blatant copy! (Watch out, it's gonna snow!!)   It was a similar post though where I just catch up on life and all of lifes changes and happenings....and more of my history.  I actually talked about how my blog came into existence!

2023   I missed celebrating in 2022 but I came in strong in 2023 with a post that talked about what this blog means to me. (On the correct day to boot!)  And yes, I still agree.....this blog was my salvation when I needed a place to put my thoughts down.  

2024 I started to laugh when I read the opening paragraph of this post.  I actually talked about my misconceptions about when this anniversary really was!   But, I got it right and posted it on the correct day!  The post was another one that was so heartfelt.  It was my thank you to the readers over the years who have supported me!   

2025 is here and I missed the date and I"m celebrating on the wrong day....AGAIN!   But it doesn't mater because 19 years is an amazing accomplishment.  I remain thankful to each and everyone that reads this.  I appreciate your support. I don't plan on stopping....so 20 here we come!

The Stats

Years that I celebrated my anniversary - 10

Years that I celebrated my anniversary on the correct day - 5

Number of posts  2647

Year with the most posts 2008   (334)

Year with the least posts 2022 (41)