I wanted to do a recap of the year and so took this questionnaire from NonSoccermom's blog. Since this is the blog for both of us I tried to answer from K's perspective for some but its pretty much all about me :)
1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before? Carol – went snorkeling (K went too, but had already been as a kid); Kevin –worked as a TA, he enjoyed it (he likes grading!) but it was rough making the 130 mile round trip 4 days a week, thank goodness for his aunt and uncle who had recently moved up there and let him stay with them when needed, he stayed one or two nights a week many weeks.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I kept some of mine and was a fail on others, and K doesn’t really believe in them so I can’t really say what he did or didn’t do.
Here were my resolutions for 2011 and notes on how I did:
1) find quick, easy, healthy meals to cook and get a good group of 'go to' meals we can rotate to have a good mix of meals we did try out some new recipes, and found a few we liked, but don’t really have a better set of ‘go-to’ recipes, will continue to work on this in 2012 – I probably need to make it more specific, try a new recipe once every other week, that should be doable..I’ve got enough cookbooks and usually end up on the internet.
2) lose 10 lbs by Laura's birthday (May) failed miserably, I am slightly lighter than I was a year ago, but not anywhere near where I wanted to be.
3) work out consistently with weights -- I'm pretty good at fitting in cardio, but not weights see above and I think this would help with #2 as would making the meals in #1 healthy ones
4) read 12 books (one a month seems like a doable goal) achieved! Being part of a book club helped me with book ideas.
5) don't look at phone when I'm driving (including text messages) I was better at this, but it is still tempting, but so dangerous to do – I’ll just think of all the stories I see when I am tempted, literally ‘it can wait’
We started talking about 2012, again K doesn’t really do resolutions but I’ll do some for both of us based on what we’ve been talking about recently:
Stick with our budget - we’ve done pretty well at being on one income this year, but we have had to dip into our savings occasionally, and will again due to some car repairs being made now. I know that is what the ‘emergency fund’ is for but also know that we dipped into it for some other more regular expenses and would feel better if we weren’t doing so. If anything I’d like to work on adding to savings in 2012.
Travel somewhere neither of us have ever been – currently discussing Boston (anyone ever been?) Traveling took a back seat in 2011 since K was back in school. He will be for the first half of 2012 and his fall schedule is sort of up in the air since *hopefully* he’ll be teaching, but we both love to travel and missed it this year. Going along with the first resolution, we’ll need to save for it.
A repeat from 2011: find quick, easy, healthy meals to cook and get a good group of 'go to' meals we can rotate to have a good mix of meals, to do this we’ll try a new recipe at least once every other week (if anyone has suggestions send them over to me!)
Make fitness a regular part of our day – I still work out, but don’t usually want to and have been lax on it lately, we talk about doing a daily walk after dinner but it falls by the wayside pretty quickly. All of us (Smokey included) would benefit, and with K home all but one evening a week in the spring it should be much more attainable.
That is plenty..
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, several college friends, and I need to go meet Mr Liam!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank goodness (knock wood)
5. What countries did you visit?
Mexico as part of our cruise
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Extra money? But really, I am so glad that K will be home every night in 2012. It was hard having him gone several nights a week for most of the fall. I don’t know how people who travel all the time for work do it, or even harder must be soldiers and their families since they are deployed for months at a time.
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Hmmm, honestly I can’t think of any. K would probably say the day the Texans won the division and clinched their first playoff appearance, Dec 11 (I had to look it up). I remember that day (I was out Christmas shopping when it happened hehe), but the day that sticks in my head is when my brother and his wife moved back stateside, they’d spent 6 months living in Nicaragua. I am so glad to have them back safe and sound.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Being elected VP of my professional organization is quite an accomplishment, and has kept me very busy planning the conference to take place in 2012. Its coming up fast! For K, completing his semester as a TA and maintaining a 4.0 is pretty impressive. I know there were times he didn’t want to make the drive and I didn’t realize what a big part I’d played in having him apply for the position. He succeeded and learned a lot about teaching along the way.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Probably in the cooking department, I did make a few good meals for myself when K was gone but we both did a fair amount of take-out this year.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Thank goodness no!
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My stand mixer? I can’t really think of big purchases, oh except for some new tires for both vehicles, safety is very important!
12. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage payment, gas for K's truck, and car payments, but one vehicle is paid off, woohoo! And I’ve told K that I don’t want to have 2 car payments at the same time again if we can avoid it. We plan to hold onto both cars for a long time, and I really think buying used may be the way to go
13. What did you get really excited about?
Going on the cruise and truly getting to unplug was pretty exciting, and fell right as K finished his first year of grad school, which was perfect.
14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
I am lacking in the current music department, but probably that damn Friday song! Oh, and “Bulls on Parade” since the Texans defense adopted it as their own. I could’ve sworn that song was one I listened to in the car with my brother going to school in the morning but looked it up and it didn’t come out to 1996, after he graduated. Hmmm, guess it was some other song. Every once in a while I hear a song that takes me back to sitting in his Honda civic riding to school…he had much heavier taste in music (still does)
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
– happier or sadder? Happier, my job is still going well and seeing K in a field he enjoys is really rewarding
– thinner or fatter? Slightly thinner.
– richer or poorer? Poorer, going to one income we’ve taken a hit, but seeing K happier is worth it and we’re in good shape
16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
traveling, spending time together
17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
I think K would say driving…
18. How did you spend Christmas?
At our house, we hosted my side of the family (first time ever), then a quick trip to San Antonio
19. What was your favorite TV program?
Homeland, it was late in the year, but a great show and we totally happened on it by accident. I’d called the cable company to get a special to bring down our bill and it went down by adding more movie channels (go figure), so starting that day we got showtime and that was the premiere weekend for the show, I think we watched it first because Claire Danes was in it. We both enjoy it. We also enjoyed Game of Thrones and I still love my shows Big Bang Theory, Good Wife
20. What were your favorite books of the year?
K’s reading consisted almost completely of books for school, so this is completely from Carol’s perspective. I loved the Hunger Games trilogy, it is a quick read and very addicting. I even reread the first one for my book club. Other books I enjoyed:
Pillars of the Earth but don’t watch the tv mini-series, terrible!
Game of Thrones, K has been trying to get me to read this series for years, but it took a show coming on for me to finally give it a shot, reading book #2 now and K finally has time over the break to read the new one #5
21. What was your favorite music from this year?
Hmm, I am terrible about music, so none really.
22. What were your favorite films of the year?
Looking at our Netflix queue (we barely ever go to the movies), it looks like True Grit was our top-rated movie for the year, oh and we did get to the theatre to see Contagion – made me paranoid about getting sick, but a good movie. I wish I could say the last Harry Potter was up there, but we finally got around to seeing it and weren’t impressed.
23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
We had a party for Kevin’s birthday in June, and used our ice cream maker to make peanut butter ice cream, together with chocolate cake it was fabulous. It was fun to have everyone over. He turned 36.
It was a swap from earlier years when my birthday has been made a bigger deal, and a welcome one. For mine we went out to eat and for drinks in Rice Village, my sister joined us and it was just what I wanted. I turned 33.
24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Can’t really think of anything, a personal yacht? All in all, 2011 was very good to us.
25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Comfortable and no-iron as much as possible. We each need to up our wardrobes a little bit, but it works for now.
26. What kept you sane?
We kept each other sane this year, me with work and him with school were very busy and hectic. Nights out with family and friends did too.
27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Life is not a competition.
We had some great good food and drinks and did a good job (I think) of not eating at chain restaurants (always a goal when we travel). The first night we ate at an Italian place called Paesano's, and the second night we each had some delicious seafood at boudro's. It worked to our advantage to be a party of two, as there were waits at both places, and I think everywhere with so many people in town for the game. 
