My Year in Review: 2002

[ailbhe]

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

Last Christmas: Our first Christmas in our new house, shared with Niamh (my younger sister and future bridesmaid) and Janice (not my sister and my future chief bridesmaid and our neighbour). Delightful in every way. I was unemployed and so had time to do shopping, make my own wreath, wrap gifts, cook...

January: I started my Open University course, got the cat castrated, had my first dream about Rose (just a pretty ordinary dream!), discovered Julia Stiles and CassieClaire (The Very Secret Diaries). We also seriously started putting our books in a database. SimCity for Linux nearly ate my life.

February: I discovered Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, went to alt.polycon, came out as poly-friendly to my mother and a few other people, and had people over to watch a whole season of Babylon 5 in a weekend.

March: I got a new job. I went to an Andy Warhol exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.

April:

I celebrated my anniversary with Rob; 3 years since the Saturday he sent The Email. Work was appallingly stressful, more so because someone was often off sick.

May: We bought more furniture from IKEA. Work sucked.

June: Niamh, my sister, visited for the Jubilee Weekend (get a Monarchy; every 50 years, you get an extra day off work!). We had the kittens spayed. Rob got punched in the head while walking down the street. I was very ill for a few days.

July: My sister gave birth to a baby boy, Oscar. My other sister turned 21. I went to Summer School for my Open University course, and I loved it and hated it.

August: We attended the Discworld Convention, which could have been more fun if we had known fewer people who were actually running it, and set a date for our wedding - 05 July 2002. We also found and booked a venue and let all the bridesmaids and parents know.

September: As an exercise in positive thinking, I started to list 5 good things that happened every day. I also started to draw up lists for the wedding and write the ceremony. I installed OpenOffice to do this. It is good enough. I was having a lousy time at work. I also started Ballroom Dancing lessons.

October: My boss got sacked and I realised I would have to apply for his old job. They brought in a temporary new person to tide things over, who was pretty good. Everyone cried and got very upset when they sacked my old boss; we loved him. I sent in my final Open University assignment for my first course. I went to Liz and David's commitment ceremony and met Rose and some other people.

November: I made some fairly serious decisions about my name, and made them publically. I also got sick for a whole week. I turned 24. I was interviewed for the job of the boss who was sacked in October. Also, we went to IKEA and bought furniture and tableware; now we can serve dinner on matching plates. For up to 12 people! My mother agreed to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, and told me that she hadn't wanted to change her name on marriage either.

December: I got the job, and work immediately started to improve - well, after a series of 11-hour days and some exhaustion. I did a good deal of Christmas shopping, we decided where we want to go for our honeymoon, and my sister came for Christmas.

This Christmas: My sister came, and on the day, Rob's family and Janice and her parents came. It was marvellous and exhausting. My mother sent me a solstice card with some great stuff about Celtic astrology on it.

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

Comments

[darthfi.livejournal.com]

I met CassieClaire on Monday night. And got very very very very drunk indeed.