and thank god for that! 2010 pretty much sucked. saxy made less than $10k last year, and if it weren't for my kids (especially kitten), we'd have been out on the street. i think i sold 3 short stories, none of which made more than $5 per sale. we lost the car, which turned transportation for the rest of the year into a nightmare. and we have to wait until we get our tax return before we can another, although that's not looking too good right now either (unless the irs does some readjustments like they did last year, we're getting less than $2000 back—just not enough income to get more). my laptop tanked after only a year of use (NEVER buying hp again since it's the SECOND hp laptop that has gone belly up on me) and has left me relying on everyone else's laptops (and that's gonna suck when the older girls move out), which will not get replaced this year as hoped unless some freakin' miracle happens. so, not only did 2010 suck massively, but it's already having a huge negative impact on 2011. 2010 was, basically, a year in which surviving was the priority (and that really reflects in the number of whysper entries i wrote: when survival is the main goal in life, there really isn't much to write about, and i'm sooooo tired of writing about how hard it's been for us).
*sigh*
however, not everything in 2010 was bad, and there's hope for 2011. we might be able to find a cheap but usable car for the amount we'll be getting on the tax return—something that will get us by until saxy has a full time job that just might allow us to get something better on payments. saxy will be finishing school and have his a.a. in culinary arts, and the decision at the moment is to get working somewhere regular and look into getting the b.a. a little at a time online. there's some concerns with that route, but right now we just need to get past the current term. and i did make quite a few of my goals for last year. here's what made it and what failed and what changes for 2011...
(oh, and if you've read all this on my lj or whatever, feel free to skip to the bottom. lol)
financial
for obvious reasons, this didn't fall into place at all last year. and until saxy has something regular, there's no point in making any for this year.
personal
exercising 5 days a week never quite got off the ground and baking and bentos were affected by the lack of moneys. i did manage to lose 20 pounds for the year and am very proud of that. it's not been easy, with everything going on.
2011: one thing i discovered at the end of last year was that i could do a sitting stretching routine at night, just before bed, and not feel so self-conscious about it. so here's the goals for this year...
» use the mayo clinic pyramid diet
» cr/stretch 5x/week
» morning/night time stretch 7x/week
» lose 24 pounds
» replace my glasses (which are over 10 years old)
» 1 new recipe/month
i've printed out my mayo diet and adjusted it for my needs (3 snacks in addition to 3 meals because of my ulcer, and adding 100 cals to account for an additional protein) and a general meal template created. the hard part will be making sure there's enough fruit and veggies on hand. not planning to start the core rhythms stuff until february or march because i need to make the stretch stuff a habit, and that takes at least 30 days. not quite sure when i'll replace the glasses (which will take $350-400, as far as i know—my eyesight is just that bad), and i'm just hoping the new recipe a month is financially sensitive enough to work.
reading
my goal was 18, my final count is 24 and 3/4. i finished the last book after midnight so it counts for 2011. lol. here's the 2010 list:
2011: goal is 24 books, of which i have most already picked out—several are continuations of other series, want to actually finish the shapechanger omnibuses, and i've chosen a few new authors with a couple of gift cards i received. i might actually manage more than 24, but we'll keep the goal at 24 for now.
writing
i really knocked it out of the park in terms of progress. my word count goal was 400k; my final count was 868,421 (of which about 300k was assassin's choice revisions). i finished the rough drafts of two novels on my list: quest for ehlarayn (the book that follows assassin's) and blood charms (my first urban fantasy). i've never managed two books in one year before, so that's pretty amazing to me. i also made my goals to submit something every month and to finish and submit assassin's choice. no nibbles yet, but there's been some interesting trends in the rejections that tells me i'm on the right track with my query, it's just that epic fantasy isn't all that big right now. honestly, that doesn't bother me. by the time epic is back on its way in, i'll have more than one book in the series done (which will be very helpful since these books take me at least two years to complete).
2011: because so much of 2010's count was from assassin's choice revisions, i'm not bumping my word count goal all that much. 2011 will be more about revisions since i have two finished rough drafts to work on, with the hope that one of them will be polished and submitted by the end of the year...
» 450k
» finish/polish/submit blood charms
» quest for ehlarayn to v3
» submit at least 1 short/month
» write 4 new shorts
it's possible some other new project will come up as well, but not pushing any new novel words until i get at least one of the two already listed done and going out the door. i've discovered that one of my problems as a writer is being too easily distracted by new projects. i end up with too much going on and get nothing done. so 2011 will be a bit of a challenge in focus. lol
other
i had two main things under other, and that was updating certain journals/websites, and that didn't happen, especially after i was forced to move one site and had to reinstall everything i use for it, and the other site was closed down with a move to a new platform i hate.
2011: 2011 will focus on pretty much the same things, but i've got some rebuilding/repair/moving to do before i can get started on that...
» finish the Alden.nu rebuild/repair
» update Lessons in Writing 1x/month (once rebuild is done)
» update Journeys once a week (once the rebuild/repair is done)
not listed, but also needing work: domynoes.com clean up and working on the older whysper files that are a bit of a mess. the problem with that, of course, will be the lack of my own laptop. the priority will always be writing, so we'll see how much i manage on this on this year.
so, yea, not a totally bad year. rocked it in writing; didn't do so well financially, but we survived. and now i'm just glad it's over and am hoping that this year will be better. the tax stuff doesn't look so good, but i think we've already had a good sign for this year:
saxy and i celebrated our 13th anniversary last night. we went out during the day for brunch (where i discovered i still don't like coffee and the ihop stuffed french toast is waaay too sweet), then he shopped for our dinner. and we had a good night. dinner was excellent, the movie we watched together was enjoyable, the younger kids were quiet and behaved themselves, and the older girls were out. it was a really nice night. i can't think of a better, less stress-free way to bring in the new year than snuggled against my husband. we have a roof over our head, food in our mouths, the utilities are currently covered. when you end a year that kicked your ass a hundred times over like that, it's a good sign.
so, buh-bye, 2010! don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. tired of you, don't want to deal with you any more. here's looking towards 2011 with hope. things won't start out easy, obviously, but things will get better.
~*~
word of the moment: anaphase
the stage of meiosis or mitosis when chromosomes move toward opposite ends of the nuclear spindle
