Miscellaneous

2021 – The year that was a decade

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Is it just me, or does every year now feel like a decade? I sat down to try and begin a blog about 2021 and I got so overwhelmed I put it off for 2 weeks. I don’t want to bore you with all of the ups and downs – after all, we kind of went through them together. Remember allll the way back at the beginning of 2021 when the vaccines (that’s right, more than one! We had options!) were proved effective and safe? And we thought “wow, this pandemic is going to end! FINALLY!” And then fast-forward to a “decade” later, at the end of 2021, when we had yet another variant and went back to checking positivity percentages every day. Yea, that part kind of sucked. But the good part about living a decade within a single year is, we had some pockets of time that were great!

I usually do a year recap in the form of a bullet journal goals check in. Bad news, I kind of gave up on my bullet journal in June. Oops. Good news, the reason I gave up on it was because I was doing too many fun things and couldn’t keep up! More bad news, I started another bullet journal because I guess I’m a masochist.

Anyway, I was able to achieve a lot of my 2021 bullet journal goals, despite the fact that we lived on the cusp of anxiety attack every day of the year.

Health

Mental health? Precarious. Physical health: not too shabby!

I was able to complete 260 Peloton cycling classes, which was 60 more than my goal. Also, I completed 100 strength classes and 100 stretching classes on Peloton. Not to mention, I joined Orangetheory and I got 10,000 steps/day all but 9 days of the entire year. Remember those mental health walks from 2020? I’m still going on them. I walked a total of 4,986,793 steps.

 Also, I achieved my goal of only ordering in food once or twice a week. I know that may seem easy, but in New York, not so much.

Here’s what I didn’t achieve:

  • Going to a dermatologist. I tried, but when I got there I discovered they didn’t take my insurance despite their assurances on the phone. Then I gave up because I was pissed.
  • Drinking water every day before coffee. We have limited joys now, coffee is one of them. I threw this goal down the drain in February.

Work

Honestly, I didn’t write down any work goals. And work has been… CRAZY. My main goals were to get through every week without screaming at any coworkers or shooting myself. I sort of succeeded.

Social Media

Well guys, I failed you again. Every year I try to publish 2 blogs/month and every year I fail. I posted 13 all year. I am going to try and do better! I also failed at getting 5,000 followers on my braiding Instagram, despite going viral for the NYC Marathon. I have been hovering JUST under 4,000 for 3 years now. *shrug*. This next year I’m focusing more on TikTok, but more on that in my next post.

Finance

Crazily, this is the main place where I achieved all of my goals. Despite my major return to international travel, I was able to max out my Roth IRA, reach my goal in my 403B, AND get to a net worth of 60K! This is huge considering the amount of student debt I am still carrying around. Not having to pay any student loans for the entire year definitely helped my finances.

Relationship

I’m still in one, so yay! He tells me he loves me every day, even after I yell at him 900 times for leaving his dishes in the sink. We didn’t go on one date/excursion per month, but Covid made that difficult at times. We almost made it, though! We did some at-home baking with a zoom class, we traveled to Aruba and France together, and best yet, we set a wedding date!! It’s soon. Yikes. Maybe I’ll write more about this, maybe I won’t. So far, I’m the worst future bride I’ve ever met.

Other

These miscellaneous goals were hit or miss. I DID see 3 Broadway shows. Impressive, considering Broadway wasn’t even open all year. I didn’t achieve 3 things on my NYC Bucket List. In fact, I didn’t even complete one of them. I tried to see the Nutcracker but the show was cancelled two days before because of Omicron. I did travel to three new countries (four if you count Monaco). I tried to call a friend once a month, but I really hate talking on the phone. I braided clients for a musical festival, a wedding, Halloween, and two races. Not too shabby considering I spent most of the year avoiding strangers’ faces.

2021 was a wild ride. It felt like 60% of the time, my butt was melded with my couch, and 40% of the time I was out of the country. We moved apartments, we went snorkeling and ATV-ing, Chris ordered from Amazon 100 million times, I did my nails 55 times, and collectively we got 6 new credit cards. 2022 is guaranteed to be a crazy year, too. We already have 4 weddings in the next 5 months, and we are hoping to start trying to have a baby (what?!?). Next week I’ll let you know what my 2022 goals are. Do you have any suggestions?

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Miscellaneous

NYE Party in the Living Room

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!! We were all looking forward to 2021, and I’m hopeful it will be better than last year. However, we were still stuck at home for New Year’s Eve. TBH I hate NYE. It’s always overhyped and ends up being worse than you imagined. It ends  in fights with your significant other, sloppy drunks, vomiting, fried food indulging, and beginning the new year with a hangover. Not my favorite. If you’ve been following for a while, you know I MUCH prefer Practice New Year’s Eve. It leaves my real NYE open to run races in the below-freezing temps. But none of that was happening this year. No parties, no races, etc. Personally, we didn’t do anything festive for Thanksgiving or Christmas. There was no turkey cooking, no tree in our living room or twinkling lights. I was canceled from the Macy’s Parade.

I wanted to do SOMETHING for New Year’s Eve. I started brainstorming my favorite parts of the holiday. Watching Rockin’ New Year’s Eve on tv (RIP Dick Clark) with friends, eating lots of hors-oeuvres that are fried (shoutout pigs in a blanket), drinking yummy drinks, kissing at midnight, wearing sequins and taking lots of photos. When I reflected on my favorite things, I realized the only thing we COULDN’T do was see friends. So, I set about to make the rest of those things happen.

First, a stop at Trader Joes for many, many fried frozen appetizers. Unfortunately, they were out of pigs in a blanket, but I got truffle flatbread, mozzarella sticks, buffalo chicken popovers, spanakopita, and LOTS of dips. Not to mention the makings of a charcuterie board. After about $70 in food, I figured it was probably enough for 2 people. Spoiler alert, we only ate about 20% of that food. But it was fun to have choices. And leftovers.

  • Pandemic Food Spread, never far from hand sanitizer
  • YUM. Warm spinach artichoke dip.
  • Just a sampling of the fried/baked goodness.

Next stop, Party City. I only came up with this idea last-minute, so I went to Party City on December 30th. It was pretty picked over. It seemed I was not the only person with this idea for an at-home party. I picked up a few things that were leftover, including a hat that was broken so they gave it to me for $2.50. SCORE. It was good as new with some hot glue gun magic. When I found an over-the-door streamer thingy, I knew it would make the perfect backdrop for my “photobooth.” They only had blowers in packages of 24 or more left, which gave me hope that people were not having large gatherings. I waited on the blowers with hopes that I could buy some off the street, in addition to more photobooth props, and I was right! The morning of December 31st, I was first at the table of vendors on the corner, so I got my first pick of pre-packaged and individually wrapped glasses, blowers, 2021 masks, poppers etc. I was almost ready. All I needed was an outfit.

  • Home-made Photobooth
  • Props for the photobooth & cheers

I wanted to take full advantage of our stay-at-home NYE and wear an outfit I’d never wear out. First, a dress that barely covered my bum. It was 100% sequins, which I’d totally wear out. But it was too short to dance comfortably in. Perfect for photos and couch-eating. Next, shoes. In New York, you always need shoes you can walk in. I have thrown away most of my heels. But I kept these crazy knee-high boots because I couldn’t part with them. They live in a bin deep in the recesses under my bed. They were the perfect addition to my outfit. It’s only 9 steps from my bedroom to the kitchen/photobooth. Don’t ask how I know this. I walk this route often. I could do 9 steps in these boots. Spoiler alert again, I switched into slippers at 10:30 pm.

  • Photobooth success!
  • Headwear! Featuring Chris’s hot-glued hat.
  • Trying to take normal photos
  • More props, 2021 glasses and a 2021 mask.
  • It’s harder to get a New Year’s Eve Kiss in a mask
  • Slippers.

And to top off my outfit: LIPSTICK!! If you live in New York, you know why this is in capital letters. I haven’t left my house without a mask in months. So, lipstick is not something in rotation. Makeup in general, but definitely lipstick. But it seemed like a festive addition to this not-opening-my-front-door outfit. Chris and I got ready separately so we could surprise each other with our outfits. He came out in a very snazzy suit freshly shaved.

We took a LOT of photos. I drank four berry Moscow mules and added as much vodka as I wanted. And spent $0 on booze. I sat on the couch, danced around, counted down, and got my midnight kiss. First (but not last) engaged New Year! How did you guys spend your evening? Did you dress up or stay in sweats? And most importantly… which of you guys bought all the TJ’s pigs in a blanket??

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