El Nuevo Año

As you may recall from my New Year's post last January, 2013 was not really a banner year for me. Our car died, we got kicked out of our beloved apartment, I gained a lot of weight, I was miserable with my weird, creepy fertility doctor whose mere presence in my life I totally resented. I also forgot to mention that in 2013 I got Mono. MONO. On top of having enormous, swollen lymph nodes and being dead-tired all the time, everyone teased me about making out with high schoolers and getting "the kissing disease." (In their defense, I would have teased me too.) Basically, I was thrilled when 2013 was over and I was determined that 2014 would be better (even though all the bad things that happened in 2013 were totally out of my control).

On January 11th of last year, I wrote a post listing my hypothetical new year's resolutions for 2014 (hypothetical because I don't believe in new years resolutions):

Travel more
Read more books
Be happy with my job
Lose weight
Have a baby
Blog more

What I did not know at the time is that I would get pregnant that very week. I'm a believer in jumping right in.

Here's how the other resolutions stacked up in the following year:

Travel more
I didn't really travel much 2014, per se. In fact, I really only took two trips in 2014: one to Colorado to show off my pregnant belly and one to Texas for the last five weeks of the year. But since Tim and I made all of our preparations to move to Mexico in 2014, I'm going to consider this one accomplished.

Read more books
My reading goal for 2014 was 50 books. I actually read only 33. But I'm going to go ahead and say that I get a pass on this one, as I was exhausted from creating another human.

Be happy with my job
I can honestly say that I met this goal. Although I've had other jobs I enjoy, this is only maybe the second one I've ever had where I never contemplated calling in sick just because I really didn't feel like going (the first one was when I worked at a movie theater - there really is no better job on earth than that, which is saying a lot since that job requires you to clean bathrooms). There were days I didn't feel like putting on pants and shoes, but never days when I really didn't want to be there. I actually really enjoy the company of my coworkers and really, really enjoy my work.

Lose weight
That went right out the window. See below.

Have a baby
Success! How sweet it is!

Blog more
This one was rather a spectacular failure. In addition to posting very little about my life, I also completely stopped writing book reviews. Fair warning for 2015: Ciudad Juarez is not really a place full of exciting cultural sights and experiences, so there might not be a lot to report on that front. However, I'm really going to make an effort to write about other things.

Without further ado, here are the things I'd like to do in 2015:

Visit my family more often: This is probably the closest we'll be to our families for a long time. There are no excuses.
Read more books: Duh
Lose weight: Also duh. I gained 35 lbs when I was pregnant and lost 21 of it pretty much right away. It would be lovely to at least get back to my (still overweight - ugh) pre-pregnancy weight.
Blog more: See, getting started already!
Ask people more questions about themselves: I'm terrible at this. In the Foreign Service community, there is a LOT (a loooooooottttt) of small talk. "Where are you from? Is this your first post? Do you have kids? What did you think of your time in Denmark? Which compound do you live in?" etc. etc. etc. I have a tendency to get stuck in a "me-loop" where I just let others ask all the questions while I go on and on about me. It's a really, truly, terrible habit. So that's my goal - be interested in other people. Oh, and remember their names.

2014 is over, long live 2015!!