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I haven’t really been posting much besides book reviews for the latter half of this year.
Somewhere in late summer, I made the decision to drop almost all my tracking mechanisms. I stopped posting to Dreamwidth, I stopped writing in my diary, I stopped watching my calories. I stand by that decision - this year was a lot, especially with the book and the flood and all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t kind of mourn the records, or the extra couple pounds I’ve put on. I haven’t decided exactly how much I’m going to try to reinstate. And I’ll never catch up on all the things. But I did at least want to mark the year.
Things that sucked this year besides the obvious:
Damn, the first quarter was hard. ARR and remote learning did not go well. Job was not good. It was bad.
Things that I accomplished that I’m damn proud of, despite barely leaving my house in two years:
I’ve done a ton of learning this year, too, which has been frankly exhausting but should be helpful in the long run.
We did manage a little more in the way of doing stuff outside our house than previous years:
Beyond trying to fit back into my pants, I’m not even bothering to set goals for 2022. I will do my best to do some stuff. We’ll see what happens.
Somewhere in late summer, I made the decision to drop almost all my tracking mechanisms. I stopped posting to Dreamwidth, I stopped writing in my diary, I stopped watching my calories. I stand by that decision - this year was a lot, especially with the book and the flood and all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t kind of mourn the records, or the extra couple pounds I’ve put on. I haven’t decided exactly how much I’m going to try to reinstate. And I’ll never catch up on all the things. But I did at least want to mark the year.
Things that sucked this year besides the obvious:
Damn, the first quarter was hard. ARR and remote learning did not go well. Job was not good. It was bad.
- We’re still dealing with the repercussions of the flood. There’s a saga here that I will probably never write down at this point, which is kind of a pity. Currently, the basement is finished, but our backyard is a literal giant gaping hole we continue to figuratively pour money into. (You open our backdoor and can’t actually leave. It’s a four foot deep chasm full of pipes and now standing water.) We have solved some of the mystery pipes but gained additional mystery pipes, the city engineers are now involved, but it’s looking less likely that our next door neighbors will sue us. That level of drama.
- The HVAC still isn’t fixed. We have heat, but after the double crane disaster and the contractor firing us, the new contractor ordered a unit that got destroyed in a hailstorm (fortunately before it could be installed) and with the chip shortages, the new new HVAC unit is on backorder until at least Feb, which is too cold to install, so we’re looking at March at the earliest.
- It’s been a terrible month for elderly relatives. One grandmother ended up at the ER and then in rehab for a month for what basically turned out to be dehydration. And yet she continues to fight tooth and nail against stuff like “eat some damn breakfast.” The other had minor heart surgery two days ago and no one has told her yet that her 90-year-old sister fell off her stoop yesterday and broke her arm and fractured her hip. Thank god they’d signed the nursing home paperwork the day before, so we’ve got care lined up ready to go after she gets out of her own rehab. Everyone is doing as well as can be expected, given that that’s all terrible
- New job has some major issues. Boss is great, my team’s pretty good, I’m doing good work and people are happy. But the gap between the C-suite and product is concerning and the overall field is not maybe the best place to be, and I don’t love some of our business decisions.
Things that I accomplished that I’m damn proud of, despite barely leaving my house in two years:
- I got a new job.
- I got an agent.
- I self-published a book.
- The book’s not exactly setting the world on fire (and will most likely lose money overall, by a fair margin) but people liked it.
- There are some other very interesting business discussions in progress re: book that most likely won’t come to anything that I’m not ready to talk about on social media, but it’s been interesting.
- Same for career.
- Also got another short story published.
- My old company failed at its IPO, and then succeeded in IPOing a few months later at a lower valuation. It briefly looked like my options were going to be worth an impressive amount of money. But they couldn’t keep their act together (part of why I left!) and missed their projections and while I haven’t lost money, now that I’m out of lockup, these are going to be worth a lot less than we’d hoped over the summer. But still, should be a minor windfall.
- Got ARR’s ADHD diagnosis, and got him started on medication, and he’s been so much happier. And his teachers have been so delighted. He had a great end to last school year, and he’s done very well this first half. All the difference in the world.
- All three of us are fully vaxxed and boosted as much as we’re eligible, thank god.
I’ve done a ton of learning this year, too, which has been frankly exhausting but should be helpful in the long run.
- Workwise - helped rebrand a company, stand up a new website, launch a series of ABM campaigns, overhauled all the marketing materials, helped reposition in the market. Hired a ton of people, am actively managing multiple headcount. Started to learn Pardot, made the decision to drop that, onboarded and learned HubSpot, picked up the basics of Terminus, ZoomInfo, HiBob, Slack, Intercom, and Termly. More learning how to do stuff in Salesforce. Got a lot more experience in LinkedIn ads. Did trials on Hive and Monday before rebuilding the team calendar on Asana. Hired a translation firm, got more exposure to managing a design firm and a digital advertising firm (already had a fair amount of exposure to PR).
- Writing career-wise - moved into a new phase with sending out agented manuscripts, getting a proper pen name. Stood up a website, picking up Squarespace and Mailchimp in the process. Learned how to handle self-publishing, including hiring an editor and a graphic artist, learning the backend of Facebook and Amazon ads, learning Calibre, Draft2Digital, and Amazon KDP, plus all the ins and outs of additional ad spend, ISBNs, and all that nonsense.
- Learned way more about plumbing and contractors than I honestly wanted to know.
- Learned way more about ADHD than I honestly wanted to know.
- Learned way more about epidemiology than I honestly wanted to know (me and everyone else)
We did manage a little more in the way of doing stuff outside our house than previous years:
- Chuckro and I made it to Ocean Grove in the spring for a weekend.
- We also spent a weekend in Montauk for our 15 year wedding anniversary. (Yay 15 years of no murder! The last two years have been hell, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be trapped in it with than him.) We even got to go horseback riding.
- ARR and I did a weekend jaunt to the Poconos sans Chuckro for hiking and swimming and fruit picking.
- All three of us spent a weekend in a different section of the Poconos with a friend and her kids.
- We’ve managed a bunch of outdoor adventures: zoos, hikes, a sculpture garden, a bunch of botanic gardens. ARR got to go do a high ropes course without me, and I took him canoeing for the first time. We waded in creeks and played mini golf and went to the beach and spent a lot of time in the pool. We got to see all the grandparents a bunch. We’ve been ice skating, and seen holiday lights at Longwood Garden and the Bronx Zoo.
- In the two weeks in which ARR was fully vaxxed but before the latest spike, he got to go to two in-person birthday parties - one at the aquarium at the American Dream mall (which is a BONKERS place), one in a video game trailer where they had like 10 screens and all the video games a handful of third graders could want.
Beyond trying to fit back into my pants, I’m not even bothering to set goals for 2022. I will do my best to do some stuff. We’ll see what happens.
