2008 Wrap-Up

There's still a few more days left in 2008, but since I had some downtime, why not do it on a the last Sunday of the year? So here's some things about 2008...

1. I played violin. A lot. There was my personal push to perform solo, which I did at the beginning of the year, and then my ensemble playing picked up in June and never let up until a couple weeks ago. In between October 17th and December 14th, I performed 20 times.

2. New York State budget time (in all its forms) has brought with it more than a ton of job uncertainty. I'm ending this year with the assumption that my current job will be dissolved by the end of June (end of our fiscal year), if not sooner.

3. Matt and I revamped our spending habits and some of how we handled our finances. We're going into 2009 in slightly better shape than we were a year ago at this point, but it's still not great.

4. Matt painted the living room and I made a room off our living room my office. The next room we hope to tackle is the dining room.

5. Amazingly, I lost weight somewhere in between June and October (6 pounds). I managed to keep most of it off so far despite all the good holiday food. I credit a lunchtime exercise class I took this Fall. Between April 2007 and now, I've lost about 13 pounds.

6. Collectively, Matt and I attended 3 weddings with him going to a fourth wedding without me due to a prior obligation. So far, we have 3 weddings we know we're definitely invited to in 2009.

As I've said in previous years, I'm not one for New Year's resolutions. I have ideas of what I hope to keep doing and what else I'd like to accomplish but I don't feel a need to write it down in a resolution format. One thing I do need to do a better job at is saying "no" more. I would have experienced a lot less stress in my life if I had said "no" more frequently this past year.