2016 in review
Dec. 31st, 2016 10:44 am2016 has been pretty good for me. I know some people had a sucky one and I hope I have been supportive wherever possible. For me, this year has been one of the better ones, the highlight being Graham finally moving to Canada and gaining residency status. Nobody close to me died this year, though I have a feeling 2017 might not be so kind. I have one aunt who is visibly failing and that will be difficult whenever it happens.
I always make a goal to do/try/see new things. Some years are a stretch and all I can say is that maybe I visited a town I hadn't been to before but this year had a couple of cool firsts, we went whale watching and to a local sci-fi fantasy convention, Hal-con. Whale watching was overwhelming. The boats do not putter close to the whales, they have to stay at a specific distance and they do, cutting their engines so they float there while the people on board can watch but if the whales are curious and decide to come up to the boat to check things out, they have no control over that and we were very lucky in that respect. Hal-con was good fun and I think the next time we will go for the whole weekend and spread out the events. There were other things that were new, mainly new places visited including a cafe here in Halifax where you can sit and play board games!
Work was ok this year, nothing really exciting but nothing really bad either. I think 2017 might be interesting with the chance of using some new training we got last year. My coworker has just left so I do hope that isn't going to cause too much extra stress. I've already told my manager that if they expect me to do it all, they'll be looking for 2 positions to fill instead of one. They do know I can retire any time.
We are planning to go on a trip in November to celebrate G.'s birthday (a milestone) and our belated honeymoon. We'll be visiting Vancouver and Victoria which are not new to me but new to him and then flying to Hawaii from there for 4 or 5 days. That's the real honeymoon part. I've got Aeroplan miles for the east to west coast flights and the husband of my best friend has offered to get us tickets at a discount for Hawaii so that's excellent news if he can manage it. With the money saved there, Maybe we can book a hotel a little above the budget we'd planned. The Tall Ships will be here in the summer which is an event I always love.
( Year in review, by month )
And in my reading life, I usually try to read at least 90 books. This year I upped the goal to 95 and went past that though to be fair, a handful at least were novellas and very short books including a couple of graphic novels which I can burn through in one sitting. Having said that, I've never read graphic novels before so that's another first. I'm going to try out an audio book this year, too as part of a challenge on Goodreads in a group I follow for fans of Canadian Literature. I don't know how successful that will be since my attention tends to drift listening to things like that. I guess audio books aren't a first actually, because I have downloaded a couple of books and radio plays in the past and that's how I know my attention drifts. I will have to make more of an effort. I've also started borrowing ebooks from the library, something I had been planning to do for years even though I'm still buying books, too! At year's end I have three books on the go and I won't finish them by tonight. Still, I think I'll still count them in 2016 books since I've read over half of at least two of them already and a good third of the other one.
And to wrap up my book list...
I read quite a few Christmas themed books as part of a Goodreads challenge and tried to make sure most of them were a bit different than the usual feel-good sentimental stuff.
( 2016 books )
I always make a goal to do/try/see new things. Some years are a stretch and all I can say is that maybe I visited a town I hadn't been to before but this year had a couple of cool firsts, we went whale watching and to a local sci-fi fantasy convention, Hal-con. Whale watching was overwhelming. The boats do not putter close to the whales, they have to stay at a specific distance and they do, cutting their engines so they float there while the people on board can watch but if the whales are curious and decide to come up to the boat to check things out, they have no control over that and we were very lucky in that respect. Hal-con was good fun and I think the next time we will go for the whole weekend and spread out the events. There were other things that were new, mainly new places visited including a cafe here in Halifax where you can sit and play board games!
Work was ok this year, nothing really exciting but nothing really bad either. I think 2017 might be interesting with the chance of using some new training we got last year. My coworker has just left so I do hope that isn't going to cause too much extra stress. I've already told my manager that if they expect me to do it all, they'll be looking for 2 positions to fill instead of one. They do know I can retire any time.
We are planning to go on a trip in November to celebrate G.'s birthday (a milestone) and our belated honeymoon. We'll be visiting Vancouver and Victoria which are not new to me but new to him and then flying to Hawaii from there for 4 or 5 days. That's the real honeymoon part. I've got Aeroplan miles for the east to west coast flights and the husband of my best friend has offered to get us tickets at a discount for Hawaii so that's excellent news if he can manage it. With the money saved there, Maybe we can book a hotel a little above the budget we'd planned. The Tall Ships will be here in the summer which is an event I always love.
( Year in review, by month )
And in my reading life, I usually try to read at least 90 books. This year I upped the goal to 95 and went past that though to be fair, a handful at least were novellas and very short books including a couple of graphic novels which I can burn through in one sitting. Having said that, I've never read graphic novels before so that's another first. I'm going to try out an audio book this year, too as part of a challenge on Goodreads in a group I follow for fans of Canadian Literature. I don't know how successful that will be since my attention tends to drift listening to things like that. I guess audio books aren't a first actually, because I have downloaded a couple of books and radio plays in the past and that's how I know my attention drifts. I will have to make more of an effort. I've also started borrowing ebooks from the library, something I had been planning to do for years even though I'm still buying books, too! At year's end I have three books on the go and I won't finish them by tonight. Still, I think I'll still count them in 2016 books since I've read over half of at least two of them already and a good third of the other one.
And to wrap up my book list...
I read quite a few Christmas themed books as part of a Goodreads challenge and tried to make sure most of them were a bit different than the usual feel-good sentimental stuff.
( 2016 books )