First New Year Meme

Account type: Paid Account, expiring 2004-10-15
Date created: 2001-10-07 04:58:51
Date updated: 2003-12-19 06:09:33, 1 week ago
Journal entries: 688
Comments: Posted: 2,373 - Received: 1,189

I've received approximately 1.7 comments per entry, and posted twice as many comments as I've received.

2003 in review

As before, I split my years Christmas-Christmas, rather than January - December.

Christmas 2002

Rob's parents and sister, my sister, Janice and her parents - 9 people for Christmas dinner. The biggest heap of gifts ever seen. Enough food for an army. A good time, as they say, was had by all and sundry, and I very nearly cooked myself, the kitchen got so hot.

January

I bought my first ever grown-up respectable coat. I met one of my substitute parents for lunch and renewed my friendship with her daughter; we'd sort of drifted apart. I had an appallingly stressful month at work, but I fulfilled my promises.

February

Columbia. My first trip to Sweden in winter - snow, tobogganning, winter daylight (the UK just does grey; Sweden does bright daylight), and wowing Rob's grandmother with my lovely clothes. Oh, and Rob cut my hair.

March

Work went badly again; I shouldn't have had a holiday in February. I did some driving lessons in a simulator. My fainting fits were bad enough to get blood tests and my doctor made noises about epilepsy; I was talking to HR about it and getting, well, a lot of verbal sympathy and no real changes. The Gulf war started, I think - or maybe it only became obvious that it would? We ordered wedding rings and started trying to complile a list of hotels for wedding guests. My friend's baby was born, weighing ten pounds.

April

Rob and I together 4 years. Decided to quit the evil job. Trip to Ireland to buy dress fabric and do wedding planning. Rob and the groomsmen tried on silly suits, and Rob and I started private waltzing lessons so that we could dance at the wedding. Oh, and I really discovered Wodehouse and started reading him in earnest.

May

I started the month by voting, which is always good. I did a lot of DIY and housework, and spent a good deal of time being sick at home, illin' out my notice. I thought a lot about marriage and what it meant to me, and made sure I'd told Rob all my darkest secrets so that he could back out now or forever hold his peace. I found a florist.

June

I went on The Hen Night Part One with Janice; almost a week in Dorset. The steam train from Corfe to Swanage was good. Jen joined us at Lulworth Cove for The Hen Night Part Two - dinner and card games in a pub, after a day of lying around in the sun reading books and drinking tea. I had an appalling cold in my head for a lot of the holiday, but Janice - god bless her little cotton socks - made me tea every single morning before I got up, and mixed me rehydrating drinks a couple of mornings, too. I don't think I fainted at all on the trip; I'd almost stopped fainting completely by then, though I sometimes had dizzy spells. My wisdom teeth started coming through, causing my gums to swell up and get infected. I obsessed about the wedding. I also had The Hen Night Part 3-4; lunch in Hyde Park with fizzy wine and Jen, and then an afternoon in the Porchester Spa with Jen, with steam baths and facials and saunas and plunge pools and all.

July

We got married, and had a honeymoon, and it was all indescribably fabulous!

August

My niece was born - my eldest sister's second baby. We confirmed that I was pregnant. I went on holiday to Aran with Janice, Emma and Jean-Francois, and stayed to attend the funeral of a man who was practically family. Lung cancer. Yuk. I bought some beads and started making things.

September

Morning sickness. There was probably something else too, but it didn't register.

October

We told parents and immediate family that I'm pregnant. Everyone was pleased. I did my Open University course exam and thereby ended my course. I started using the FLYlady plan to keep my housework under control.

November

My last birthday as a non-parent, and my only 25th birthday ever, went very well. I felt the baby kick for the first time. I went to visit my sister in her new house in Donegal.

December

We went to Barcelona for a weekend and to Dublin for Christmas. Christmas was reasonably quiet, though I overdid it a little and hurt myself mildly while scrubbing the bathroom as part of the pre-Christmas housework. Rob caught up on sleep and we ate a lot of food and chocolate. On 04 December, we saw the baby for the first time, via ultrasound - wow. It stuck its tongue out at Rob.

So yeah, I got sick, I quit my job, we got married and I got pregnant. The baby is the biggest thing ever, though; everything else has really paled into insignificance. I've also learned how to do housework, though not, I fear, how to do it regularly...

Doctors and retail therapy

I'm annoyed at doctors and red tape and my own delay in changing GPs and lots of other things. So I'm going to seek retail therapy. In Tescos.

No, really, it'll be good - I can buy all sorts of things to put in my new changing bag, like wet wipes and cotton wool and nappies (we have a money-off voucher) and Sudocreme and things. And if I get carried away I can buy a baby blanket too, because I still have room for one more baby blanket.

But really I'm going because we need the makings of trifle so that the people I've asked over to eat trifle will have trifle to eat, and so that I can eat trifle.

I put up my new year planner, which is very pretty and looks nice on the pine panelling in the dining room. I also coordinated my diaries again. Hrump. I have two house calendars and two paper diaries and one Visor and the online calendar; something's wrong.