Posts Tagged ‘review’
2011: Year in review
Last year Ben wrote a post which looked at the year that had gone by. It was a good opportunity to look back on the year, our achievements and our expectations for the coming year.
So this year I would like to write my own review:
The high-lights
- Survived being married for a whole year and a bit!
- Completed and passed WAAPA to an amazing standard
- Ben and I worked together on our first musical (I was in it and he worked the lights)
- Travelled to France and Switzerland, and survived!
Other successes
- Continued to save money by watching my spending (saved enough to spoil Ben with a trip to Japan for his birthday)
- Housing arrangements (Somehow we still have the two houses despite me only working casually)
- Made our first friends as a couple (Nicole and Stephen you are amazing!)
- Conversations on the increase (arguments are on the decline – still)
- I made some new friends and removed lots of the negativity from my life (Year of Happiness!)
- Started working for two new companies with varying results but on the whole very satisfied with my work arrangements
Stuff we hope to learn something from
- It is okay to change the plans
- Family is great.
- If you work hard it will always pay off in some form
Unmentionable things like
- Emma has now finished University and now has to take herself seriously as a singer
- Ben still works for a company that doesn’t deserve him
Well the silly season has ended and it is a new year, well it has been for over a week now but this is the first time I have had the motivation to write on here! A new year means new opportunities, new experiences and new expectations for the year. About this time last year I wrote out my expectations for the year. It was a list of things I wanted to achieve, not New Year’s resolutions more intentions. Things that I intend to do because I want to do them not because I feel on some level that I should. So the time has come to have some new expectations for myself for the year 2012.
Work on my singing and treat myself as a professional singer.
What does this mean?
It means I have to put in the effort if I want to turn out to be a successful singer of any kind. That means I will have to practice every day and practice in a meaningful way.
What will it look like?
Every day you will see me practising my singing. I will also work on my music theory and keyboard skills so I can improve as a musician. It will also mean that I will be working professionally as a singer. This year I will get my first professional contract.
Continue to work on my language studies, with a bit more focus than in the past.
What does this mean?
In the past I have gone to my French lessons and completed the bare minimum to stay up with the class. This year I want to study harder. I want to become more proficient as a speaker of French. I would also like to start Italian lessons during the year.
What will it look like?
Every day I will complete activities in French. I will also continue to attend classes at the Alliance Francais. If I have the opportunity to interact with French speakers I will speak French to them and not resort to English first.
Save money for the future, whether that be babies, moving house, travel or singing expenses.
What does this mean?
I would like to build up a small amount of money so that if we want to go travelling or I need to go to Melbourne for an audition than I don’t have to worry about it. I would also like to have some money saved to help support us in the event that we finally start having babies.
What will it look like?
I have opened a new account specifically for saving. It rewards me with extra interest each month that I don’t take money out but I do deposit money. I am going to aim to deposit $100 every Friday morning into the account.
Look after my body.
What does this mean?
I don’t always do the best things for my body. I eat junk including a lot of sugar. I would like to improve my health through watching what I eat. I would also like to lose some of my unwanted weight, some of which will be lost through change of diet the rest I hope to lose through exercising more efficiently.
What will it look like?
You will see me eating healthier food and exercising. I am going to try and follow the diet Ben went on last year. It wasn’t really a diet but more a change in the food I eat and when. It isn’t a difficult thing to follow if I truly want to look after my body.
Travel more.
What does this mean?
Without a doubt one of the best parts of 2011 was travelling with Ben to France. This year we already have a trip planned for Bali at the end of January and a trip to Japan for around April / May. I would love to travel as much as possible with Ben this year and maybe even by myself.
What will it look like?
I would love to do another big trip this year with Ben in addition to the two short trips of Bali and Japan. I will need to save money and look out for flight specials but I would hope that at the end of this year Ben and I will be experiencing our third trip of the year.
Spend meaningful time with Ben.
What does this mean?
Ben and I spend a lot of time together but I want to spend more meaningful time with Ben. I want to do things that are active and leave us both feeling better for it.
What will it look like?
We will continue to do the things we already do together like eating our meals together and watching silly shows on iView but we will also spend time out of the house, spending time with friends and family. Being kind to each other and enjoying each other’s company.
It feels a little weird writing “Weekly Review” without putting the number of weeks in brackets after it, but it’s time to move on and get back to living our lives!
So this week we have been back to King Edward Memorial Hospital to have the second ultra-sound scan for the second load of Misoprostol tablets. Just about everything is gone now, only a little bit of dark grey .. on a grey screen .. of grey dots could be seen.
I do have to mention that after being told that it’s not all over, we were pretty disappointed. Yeah, 50% of the women who take it the first time have complete success, and then 50% of those who take it again will not have to come back. Which leaves 25% of the original number of women wondering if they should have just gone for the surgery in the first place or, like us, looking at option two, just let it be for a while. It seems like months ago since New Year’s Eve, it really does. I expect it’s my brains method of healing, but it’s only been two and a half weeks.
On a side note, coming out of the second ultra-sound we learnt two things:
- If you’re making an appointment at the K.E.M.H. E.R. department (and I feel for you if you are) make it for 8:50am
- Ultra-sounds have to be completed by competent technicians (or at least people who are aware of the general structure/location of all the bits they are ultra-sounding) or you might end up with an ultra-sound of your rectum.
Yes. In the words of many women out there: That’s the wrong hole, darlin’.
Thankfully, Emma was saved by a savvy technician who, in exasperation, leapt in at the last moment to make a vital correction. (I wonder if she was a lesbian? I’m a boy, we think these things. Yes, all of us.)
That was the high-light and low-light of the week.
Oh! We’re getting married, but that was last weeks announcement, so I can’t make it again.
So; We’re STILL getting married.
Two and a half months pregnant! That’s just awesome. We aren’t counting by weeks any more, it’s months.
Most of this week was spent in logistics: The logistics of Emma moving in with Ben. Wardrobes have been measured, looked at, costed, changed, purchased and , finally, constructed. All hail the mights IKEA juggernaught. So there is a huge 2360 x 2000 x 580 megolith in what used to be the weird little corner of my bedroom.
I like it!
I also did a lot of looking around the internet for completely useless bits on information while tricking myself into thinking that this was perfectly legitimate research into important questions. And that’s not including the Yerba Maté post, either!
It’s been a bit of a long week, we both had head colds on Monday that lasted most of the week. Despite that wonderful excuse to do nothing but lay in bed, snuffling our way through boxes of tissues, we got a few important milestones out of the way.
I think we are getting more of a handle on the baby thing and what that is likely to involve for us both. We are also spending more time uncovering our own expectations and then talking about them. One of the best things to come out of the week is the way we have improved communication between us. It’s not perfect, we haven’t become a single cohesive unit fused up one side, but we HAVE made big inroads into understanding each other and that’s going to be such a vital skill when the baby arrives.
We’ve also begun to ask more questions of other people too, to find out what they did, or didn’t, do when they were having a baby. It’s amazing, to me, that so many different answer exist for the simplest of questions. I really thought that the You’re Having A Baby instructions would all be the same after such a long time. How wrong I was. It seems that the only universal rules are:
- Don’t drink
- Don’t smoke
- Don’t eat pre-prepared food
- Take 500mg Folic Acid a day
That hardly seems like a failsafe instruction manual to me, but I’m starting to see that being pregnant is a very personal and unique experience. Doesn’t seem to stop anyone from passing on their sage advice though. It’s quite funny; listening to the stories and wondering how much of it was because of the baby and how much because of the parents.
