My Year in Review: 2002

I really split my years Christmas - Christmas, rather than January - January. ( Last Christmas )

( January )

( February )

( March )

( April )

( May )

( June )

( July )

( August )

( September )

( October )

( November )

( December )

( This Christmas )

It was an ups-and-down year, ending on some high notes and a warm fuzzy feeling.

The 100 Things About Me Meme: Part 1

1. Sometimes I think that what I want to be is more important than what I am.
2. I sometimes get very confused over how I can feel so very Irish and yet feel so foreign when I go home.
3. I have a lower tolerance for what I perceive as vulgarity and what other people perceive as slightly bawdy humour than is acceptable to the people with whom I work.
4. My name is very very old and I'm very very proud of it.
5. I want to relearn to paint.
6. I want to learn calligraphy.
7. I want to sculpt again. I haven't done much of it but some of what I did was good.
8. I want to learn to sew properly.
9. I want a sewing machine.
10. I am very afraid that my RSI will prevent me from learning any of these to any great degree.
11. I enjoy dancing, which I do with my legs. My legs have never had RSI.
12. I want my children to know that they are part English, part Irish and part Swedish. I want them to speak all three languages, at least a little.
13. I want to speak all three languages myself
14. In some respects I am very shy. This is one reason I have not learned Swedish yet.
15. I am getting married this year.
16. I have been engaged since 10 October 2000, officially. I think we actually got engaged the Sunday before that.
17. The most important conversation I have ever had in my life happened in a Wimpy burger place in Watney Market.
18. There is one email only of which I keep copies. I have two paper copies and some electronic copies on three different computers and on a Visor. I show it to special people sometimes.
19. Last time I tried to speak to my father, it was to tell him that I was engaged to be married. He said "I'm not interested," and stood up and walked away with his back to me.
20. People are constantly amazed that he's not invited to my wedding, and I am constantly amazed by this.
21. I have developed a veritable passion for warm winter skirts and have obtained two which are absolutely wonderful in every way. And, by the way, they make me look great.
22. When I have nightmares, I have someone to wake me up and make me drink something before going back to sleep.
23. I am a prude in that I intensely dislike being wholly or partially undressed in public. It makes me feel profoundly unsafe.
24. Abandoned beaches, forests and prairies don't feel public.
25. I have no religious affiliations of which I am aware. I suspect I have more Christianity in me than I know of.
26. I enjoy religious music, especially choral music. I like it best if it is not in English.
27. Handel's Messiah is the only exception I can think of.
28. Twice I sang Faure's Requiem in a choir, all the way through. Once was a rehearsal, once was a performance.
29. Someday I intend to join a choir again. I have a sinking feeling that it will be a poor one.
30. I didn't know I liked cats until I owned a part-share in one. I knew I liked kittens.
31. Once I was woken by a ten-week-old kitten dive-bombing my ear.
32. I apologised to her for screaming, which had startled her.
33. I don't understand my cats.

100 things about me: Part 2

34. If I have had my hair trimmed more than an inch in the past six months, I feel like it's "short". The fact that it's usually hanging somewhere between my shoulder blades and my waist doesn't affect this much.
35. Sometimes I dye my hair reddish with henna. I aim for the colour it used to be when I had free time to spend outdoors.
36. I get very jealous when I perceive other people as working less than I do, especially if I have to pick up their slack.
37. I try to apologise when I believe I have done wrong by action or inaction. I don't apologise unless I believe that.
38. I am usually very reliable, but this is probably more true at work than in social situations.
39. The burden of guilt placed on me by having to earn money is very great. I am aware that most people do not feel this burden. I believe that a great many people do not actually earn their salaries.
40. I feel guilty for not giving more of my untaxed income to the jobless and homeless.
41. I am a pinko hippie commie treehugging organic-food-buying fluffmonster. And so's my mother.
42. My mother is possibly the most wonderful person on Earth. I haven't met everyone yet, though, so there might be someone out there who is better.
43. I know a bunch of people who run her a close second.
44. It is wonderful to be friends with my sisters.
45. I am one of five sisters. We have no brothers. I don't miss them.
46. My mother never ever ever told me to be ladylike. Sometimes she told me to behave like a civilised Christian. She is agnostic but believes in civility.
47. I like purple and blue. I used to like purple a whole lot more. Now it represents a particular phase of adolescence to me, and I wear it to remember that phase. I am trying to imbue it with new meaning.
48. I have wanted a pair of black silk trousers since I was 14.
49. I look great in harem pants.
50. Sometimes I wonder whether I am as honest as I like to think I am.
51. My bedroom walls are yellow. So is the kitchen and the bathroom. I find it helps to cheer me up in the winter.
52. My biggest fear is hunger.
53. My second biggest fear is homelessness.
54. I would endure hunger to stave off homelessness for a short time.
55. I have a great pantry and buy some really good food.
56. I have always wanted to own a house with a library.
57. Now I do. It even has a sheepskin rug.
58. My conscience doesn't let me buy first-hand books at full price. It has to be a bargain or a gift.
59. I got a gift voucher for Christmas and bought three books.
60. I own three small torches especially for reading. And a miner's lamp.
61. I hate handbags and prefer pockets and beltloops.
62. My good skirts don't have beltloops much.
63. This doesn't bother me.
64. I often do things because other people think I should.
65. I rarely do things which I believe to be wrong at the behest of other people.
66. I have a photograph on my desk of a boy I knew 8 or 9 years ago. His name is Mike Mettler and I think he might be in California somewhere.