So January started really terribly with the worst flu I've ever had. Really, the absolute worst. I spent almost 10 days really, really sick and still think I probably had swine flu. I didn't go to the doctor, I couldn't leave my house, but Matt had it the year before so I know the symptoms well. Whatever it was, it was the worst way to start the new year. Then, we learned our only car needed $1,000 worth of work. Work we didn't do, by the way, because we didn't have the money. Our car is still running fine, for the most part, and though we have a little transmission trouble, it's not died yet. The silver lining was that I got a Kindle, which I love, love with all my heart and soul, so the month wasn't all bad.
In February, we had a major freeze. Everything froze for a week, I got a week off work, but we also didn't have water for four days because our pipes froze. No one in town had water after the first day or two, so we were glad we got some, but we still didn't have quite enough to get through four days without. No showers, which really sucked. Then, when that nightmare was over, the damn pipes burst and cost us more than $100 to fix. Then, as if all that wasn't bad enough, I found out someone had hacked my PayPal account and was taking out tons of small transactions, which was bleeding my PayPal account dry. I spent my anniversary, Valentine's Day, on the phone (at work) with PayPal trying to get it resolved--which I did, but my PayPal account was unavailable for weeks after that. Then, Matt's computer decided to act up. Awesome, stupid computer. Thankfully it was an easy fix. The silver lining in February was that Matt and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary.
Thankfully, March went by almost without incident, except that my new oven died. Not cool, and not a big problem since it was under warranty, but just adds one more thing to the list of scream-worthy offenses. When April came along, it made up an almost incident-less March in a big way. My ex-husband's grandmother passed away. Though I hadn't seen her in years, she meant a lot to me, and I was so sad to hear she'd passed. April is never a good month anyway, but this made it so much worse.
In May I dyed my hair the worst color of red known to man. The stupid color came out exactly like the damn box, which it never does. Good going, Kristyn, seriously. In June, I started having more problems with my already problematic cell phone. Namely, we couldn't get phone calls, our texts wouldn't always get there and the ones that did were late, we couldn't get data. T-Mobile has the absolute worst customer service I've ever seen. Also in June, the school library decided to be an ass and not let me check out books because even though I'm a student, I wasn't currently registered. Since I needed the books to work on my thesis, this was a particular problem, but one I found a work around for. The good news for May and June was that Matt graduated (finally!!), and I got my really beautiful class ring.
July and August weren't as bad as the rest of the year, except that it was really, really hot. We had a terrible summer, with drought conditions and excessive heat. It was nasty, but not something terrible for just me. I spent most of the summer just working on my thesis stuff and studying for my comps, which I passed decidedly. I did end up in the ER in August for a torn rotator cuff that everyone (mostly Matt and my mom) thought could be something more serious--that sucked. Oh, my blog also temporarily died and we started having problems with our DSL/phone service, which lasted another three months.
September was actually a pretty good month, except that I got pretty sick. My folks came out to Texas for a very short time to go through some of my grandmother's things. Matt and I went up to Plainview to see them, which was busy but was really nice. My mom gave me my grandmother's antique sewing machine, something I absolutely cherish. I was also back to work and actually teaching my very own College Composition (English 111) course. It was absolutely surreal. The end of September was terrible for us, since we had some job issues I'm not really going to discuss, making it impossible for us to save for our move, and further impossible because we had to spend our savings to stay afloat.
November was absolutely unremarkable, except that school kept me busy. December, however, not so much. Once school was over, something I was really thankful for, and everything was done I just spent this month taking some time for myself. Matt and I had a nice Christmas, but after that a mix of good and bad started to occur. I had a day of absolute clumsiness, which was just annoying. Then, my dishwasher died, which I'm so unhappy about since I can't afford to replace it. Then, last night, my damn heater died. We're going to replace the thermostat early next week, but there's no guarantee that's going to fix it. Thank goodness it's not that cold here, but as always, I'm cold so I'm unhappy. I figure that the only good of all that is that the dishwasher and heater died while it was still (barely) 2011. The silver lining this month was that we got a new puppy, Chewbi, who is driving us absolutely insane with his cuteness, and we're loving every minute of it... even if Ani does hate him so far.
Let's see, what else, I've been a terrible blogger this year. I don't think I've written even 50 posts all year, which is not good at all. I think next year I'm going to try to make more of an effort to write here. I do so love blogging, which constitutes taking time out for myself, in a big way, something I didn't do much of this year, even though it was part of my new year's resolutions.
Some good things did happen this year, most of which I tried to include above. Over the last month, I lost 15 lbs. and all I did was stop eating so many sweets... well, any sweets at all. My teeth have been really bothering me, but dentists are too expensive, so I've laid off most of the foods that hurt them. On the up-side, tooth pain has helped me to kick the sweets, something I thought I'd never be able to do, so that's good. I also got a new phone, an iPhone which I absolutely love, so that was good. Oh, and some of the best news of the year was a clean bill of health. That was awesome. I also consider another year of being childfree a major silver living! So the year wasn't all bad, just mostly!
So anyway, I'm off. Tomorrow, or the day after, I'll talk about my new year's resolutions from both last year and for the coming year, too. I hope your 2011 was better than mine. Also, if you managed to get through this whole post, thanks for hanging in there with me. If not, I don't blame you at all. Happy New Year's Eve to all.
