2007, Year-End Meme

[radegund]

I've been composing this post in my head for ages now, as I sit up in bed in the small hours listening to Fiachra's breathing and trying to guess whether he's sufficiently conked out to risk putting him down so I can go to sleep. So I'm damn well going to write it, before it gets away from me entirely.

In summary: 2007 began well and ended pretty excellently, but there were some unexpectedly ropey bits in the middle.

[ 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 ]

1. Where did you ring in 2007?
At a party in an old friend's new house, surrounded by many other old friends. (K very kindly babysat for us.)

2. What did you do in 2007 that you thought you would never do never thought you would do?
I've rephrased this question, because I just don't go around thinking "OMG I'd never do that" very much. Even with the new phrasing, I'm finding it hard to come up with something. 2007 seems to have been a pretty unsurprising year for me.

I suppose I was somewhat surprised to find myself on quite an elaborately specified diet (to wit, low-GI, as part of the nutrition study I participated in) - it's really not my style, and I found it quite hard at first. Oh, and there was the bit where I stood up to an unprofessional contractor and negotiated a reduction in the final bill. That felt strange, but good.

3. What else did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Worked part-time, visited Canada, saw a whale and an iceberg, climbed to the top of Blarney Castle (but didn't kiss the stone), gave birth at home, paid going rates for high-quality home-improvements (like, with receipts and everything), really clicked with a psychotherapist and felt I was making serious progress on the demon-squashing front.

4. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Well. Let us review last year's resolutions:

Goals for 2007 include decluttering, finishing the Stunning Debut, making a concerted attempt to find a literary agent, reading more than I have in the past few years, finding a sustainable work/life balance, putting order on our books, feeding my knitting and sewing selves, insulating the house, NOT embarking on any home improvements after August (you listening, niallm?), and learning to go to bed in time.

So. Decluttering: a lot done, more to do. Stunning Debut: second and third drafts finished (yay!), fourth draft half-finished. I'm hoping this is the version that I'll be able to send out into the big world. Literary agent: not yet - not going near that before I have a shipshape draft. Reading: yes! I don't keep a close track, but I'm pretty sure I read multiples more in 2007 than I had in 2005 or 2006. Work/life balance: working on it. Books: made huge strides, then stalled (we need more shelves, OBVIOUSLY). Knitting and sewing: not bad, not great. Insulation: done! No home projects after August: ... um. With the hollow laughing. (The windows-and-doors people turned up at our door an hour and a half after Fiachra was born; we sent them away until the following week. We had a painter frantically finishing on the Sunday before Christmas. Oh well. At least it wasn't us doing the work.) Bed in time: not even slightly.

But in all fairness, I made those resolutions before I got pregnant...

Goals for 2008 include spending lots of time playing with with my two fabulous sons, finishing the living-room curtains (argh, argh, it is now almost two years since I bought the material), extending the house, decluttering, rearranging things so that getting access to the sewing machine no longer incurs enormous hassle, broadening my circle of Dublin friends, keeping in better touch with old friends who no longer live here, increasing the number of meals that the entire meal-eating sector of this household will eat, and ... wait for it ... FINISHING THAT THERE NOVEL.

5. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
The novel, and it gone out of my hands. (But I'm oddly chilled about it.) A conscionable kitchen.

6. How did you earn your keep?
Working in my permanent job (copyeditor for an academic publisher), but in a one-year part-time arrangement.

7. Where did you travel?
Co. Kerry in April (Killarney and the Dingle Peninsula), Reading in April/May, Co. Kerry again in June (Dingle Peninsula), Newfoundland in July (to participate in a choral festival), Co. Kerry again in August (Listowel), Co. Cork, for a change, in September (Blarney), Co. Wexford in October (Blackwater).

8. Did anybody close to you have a baby?
Me! My Fiachra! Furthermore, cangetmad had Sam in April. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, two old friends of Niall's also gave birth (to Ruth in June and Emily in November), as did both of gibtsdochnicht's sisters (within a couple of days of each other and of Fiachra's birth).

9. Did anybody close to you get married?
I believe I was at only one wedding this year: that of a choir member, at which we were singing. I was very sorry not to be able to go to cangetmad and the Girlie's partnershipping in September. We were also invited to my sister's friend's wedding in Calcutta on Christmas Day, but everybody knew we wouldn't be able to go. (Meanwhile, there was a family wedding to which we weren't invited, apparently because the bride doesn't like me.)

10. Did anybody close to you die?
My grandmother's brother died in April.

11. How did you spend your birthday, and what age were you?
It being a Sunday, I went to my therapy session (the new therapist is that good). Then, following the pattern (hem hem) of the last couple of years, I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in the RDS. (That sounds quite unbirthdaylike, but people had come around to celebrate the previous evening.) I was 33, and much too pregnant to feel like doing anything elaborate.

12. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Dunno, really. Possibly project-managing the house stuff (new bathroom, windows and doors, attic insulation, sundry other small things). I certainly felt that I was doing a good job and learning from it.

13. What was your biggest failure?
Dunno, really. Not finishing the fourth draft of the Stunning Debut or the bay-window curtains, maybe. But hello, pregnant.

14. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Morning sickness. I also developed a dairy sensitivity, which messed up my day to a surprising extent for something so mild. I didn't suffer even a trivial birth injury - get me with my elastic perineum!

15. What were the best things you bought?
Bath! Tiles! Indian sandstone and reclaimed brick! Sheepwool insulation! Double-glazed units! Yes, I'm terribly house-and-garden. Sorry about that.

16. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Niall's. K's. My sister's. Kris the plumber's.

17. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
You recall the new psychotherapist I mentioned above? We've been doing a lot of work on certain episodes in my family's history. The early 90s, in particular, was a bit of a nadir.

On another axis entirely, the thought of the people responsible for this campaign ad for Rudy Giuliani ("Ready") makes me feel physically ill.

18. Where did most of your money go?
Not on the mortgage, for the first time since we moved in here. Rather, on the house and garden improvements.

19. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
BABY! And finishing my second draft.

20. What song will always remind you of 2007?
If I had to put money on it, I'd say the Thomas the Tank Engine theme tune. Oh well.

21. Compared to this time last year, are you
i. happier or sadder?
Much, much happier, and with the prospect of remaining so for the foreseeable future.

ii. thinner or fatter?
No idea. I'd guess about the same (but with a pregnancy in between).

iii. richer or poorer?
Richer, both in financial terms and in the ways that count.

22. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing. Spending time with the people who really know me.

23. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Experiencing panic attacks.

24. What did you want and get?
I repeat, BABY (and, incidentally, exactly the birth experience I wished for)! Insight. A plan.

25. What did you want and not get?
A finished novel. An extension. A haircut (I had one booked, and everything, as part of the abovementioned sister's friend's hen party on 8 December, but Fiachra arrived a week early).

26. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
5 December, Fiachra's birthday.

27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Every year I say blah blah novel blah. But this year, what with the pregnancy and all, there just wasn't the same sense of urgency and investment (plus, I did produce a complete draft). So I'll go with Fianna Fáil being kicked out of office.

28. How did you spend Christmas?
Our Christmas has been the same for years: Christmas Eve lunch in my parents' house with family friends; Christmas Eve dinner in my uncle's house; visit from K on Christmas morning; Christmas dinner in my parents' house. Minus my sister this year (she was one of the bridal party in Calcutta), but with added Fiachra.

29. What was your greatest musical discovery?
"Is Naofa Thú" by gibtsdochnicht.

30. What was your favorite TV programme?
My relationship with the TV was patchy. There were periods when I had several appointments with it every week, and periods when I more or less forgot it existed. I enjoyed QI, Gardener's World, and House.

31. What was the best book you read?
Toss-up between Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events (I'm not going to pick one out; I read books VII to XIII in 2007).

32. What was your favourite film of this year?
As usual, we watched almost no films. Just one in the cinema: Hot Fuzz, which I enjoyed hugely. Other than that, Brokeback Mountain and Little Miss Sunshine were probably the best we saw.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
I did get quite stirred up about the [Irish general] election, but my fervour subsided quickly after the event. I maintain a constant background rage over the ways in which gender is marketed in relation to children.

34. Whom did you miss?
La Glitz and La Bias when they quitted these shores; londonn7, pleidhce, erisian, gibtsdochnicht and all my other expat friends; my sister at Christmas.

35. Who was the best new person you met?
My fabulous Fiachra.

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
It is not necessary to pay for happiness with misery.

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Not a song, but I did gain new levels of understanding of Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse".