We got TJs in Atlanta about 18 months ago. (neener, neener)
Good luck with your very eventful 2009, Austin. Remember that this is a great place for advice and comfort.
Every year we watch the Charlie Brown special, do the Snoopy dance, wish everybody a Merry Christmukkah, and thank our Secret Santas in the good riddance thread. Which is this one, in case you were wondering. Oh, and 2008? Don't think we've forgotten about you.
We got TJs in Atlanta about 18 months ago. (neener, neener)
Good luck with your very eventful 2009, Austin. Remember that this is a great place for advice and comfort.
We have Whole Foods and TJs!
We have two of each plus some awesome farmers' markets! (I love grocery store one upmanship!)
I keep starting to write about 2008 and getting completely over-whelmed. Maybe I'll start out with the not-so-great things and go from there. Mostly because I like to end things on a positive note.
I haven't managed to do a thing about getting my finances in order or create a budget for myself so that I'm not constantly surprised when I run out of cash for the month. I'm lucky that I have my job, it appears to be fairly secure (as far as one can know those things) and it pays well. Which makes me feel guilty about me not being better at getting my financial shit straight. Related to that is that I have things around my house that seriously need to get fixed that I just can't manage to take care of right now due to money.
I've pretty much failed to effectively train for the marathon I'm doing next weekend. I think I'm mostly okay with that (other things just took priority) and I'm going to try to have fun and just do as much as I can without injuring myself. Of course, not finishing it means that I'm going to really have to do one this year. So I can say I've done it! I'm bullheaded that way.
Also, I've gotten really chubby in the last couple of months. Or chubbier. I blame birth control and beer! I need to get on a better plan this month and stick to it.
My animals are aging but the cats have done pretty well this year. Poor Frank the dog has gotten really old this last year. He's gotten kind of incontinent and I have to carry him down stairs. But he's still getting around and enjoying his food so there's that.
Okay, those are my main gripes with the year for myself. Friends have suffered hardships of various kinds and I'm hoping for a better 2009 for everybody.
As for good things, well, 2008 was a bumper year for babies in my life. I got a new niece and nephew (super cute and awesome of course!!!) and two of my close friends had beautiful baby girls this spring.
I got a gorgeous new kitchen that makes cooking an utter joy! It's so bright and happy and convenient! I love it!!!
Job is not thrilling but is going okay, they seem to like me a lot, and my work nemesis was fired in December.
My band recorded and released our 2nd album and I kinda love it! This is probably our last hurrah and that's something I'm still coming to terms with (I love singing and performing and I don't know what I'll do when the band disbands yet) but it's been a really good run.
The thing that most rocked my world, though, is that, crazily enough, I've seemed to have met the love of my life. I'd pretty much gotten used to the idea that I'd be alone forever but I guess not. He's pretty freaking awesome. Because things can't be easy, I guess, he's also 1/2 way across the country so 2008 has meant a lot of traveling back and forth between here & Chicago and trying to figure out how we're going to be together.
I think that means 2009 has some big, big changes in store for me. I'm kind of freaked out about it right now but cautiously excited too (and really excited in some ways).
Hope you all have beautiful new years.
2008 was kind of a holding-pattern year for me. Good changes in the last few years (new job, lost weight, more exercise) continued, but I didn't really take on any new challenges. I wrote some, mostly fanfiction, and once again failed to work on any original stuff. It's not that I had a bad year, but I didn't really push forward. Maybe it's time to change that.
But in other ways it was a great year, because my family expanded by two: I have a newborn niece and a newborn nephew, and they're both darling.
2009 promises to be more tricky: my job situation is a little uncertain and my aging parents are looking to relocate to the Bay Area. Since I'm the only unmarried local offspring, I suspect I'll be spending a lot of my time and energy dealing with that, which is likely to be stressful and emotionally draining. (Parents shouldn't get old, darn it!)
I'd like to take on more challenges in 2009: get more exercise, do more climbing, maybe do some agility or rally with the dog, get some work done on my house, and actually buckle down and work on the space opera which is composting on my hard drive. And travel, either to Africa or South America, assuming the job situation allows for that.
Best of luck in the New Year to all you Buffistas. You deserve it.
2007 recap: My dad had a sore neck which devolved into nerve problems with led to hospitalization. It took the doctors a long time to figure out what he had wrong. We were all freaked out because my grandmother died of a rare cancer and some of dad's symptoms mimicked her disease.
The doctors finally determined (after CAT, PET, MRI, surgical biopsy) that he had a Staph infection in the bones of his neck. By the time I managed to visit, my dad was released from sleeping at the hospital and just went M-F every day for PT.
I'm happy to report that he was able to start back to work in January and as of now he has almost fully recovered. There's still some weirdness in his hand, but he's able to help mom with Home Improvement stuff. Here he was in 2007 doing yardwork.
This year was mostly a holding year for me as well. The only thing I set out to accomplish was to get off my butt exercise-wise. I manged to finish two triathlons and a 10k run. It's been interesting and challenging. It's hard to find the time to train, and it's also hard when I feel incompetent. I have hard time letting my brain be satisfied with the doing; I'm usually disappointed with how slow I am. I'm working on that.
For 2009 my goals are:
Hopefully I'll discover motivation strong enough to overcome my procrastinatory impulses.
Taunty taunters. I don't think they are even planning to come to S Florida.
This. Except substitute N. Florida. Best we can do is we finally got a Whole Foods and I have a new Fresh Market to look forward to at some point this year.
Um, we have WalMart now? But we have Rainbow Foods, which is a wonderful non-chain store, and I challenge anyone to come up with a prettier place to live. And the wildlife is great. I can sometimes see mountain goats or, in the other direction, whales, from my office windows. And, we have award-winning theater. IJS.
So, in 2008, I got laid off (of a job I'd only had for 4 months, and had moved cross country for). Got completely fucked over by unemployment (so I ended up only getting 1 week of it). Had a girl play a LOT of mind games on me.
Tried to make friends in a new city. Got a new job. Found out my new job would only be lasting but so long. Didn't have to work all that hard at new job, though. Found new girl. Had new girl only last six weeks cause she was kinda useless. Wasn't surprised by that, but was by the short duration and the superuselessness during the breakup. Hmph.
Had mindgames girl be even more eeeeevil once I found new new girl. That bullshit continues, which sucks. New new girl is better, and has now lasted four months.
New friends in new city are getting pretty tight, some of them. Though I could still use a bestie. And sometimes I still want MORE FRIENDS.
The job project is ending in a month, and they still haven't told me what I'll be doing. Which means that even IF they have something, it might totally suck. But even if it's somethign shitty, given this economy, I may have to suck it up. Am not looking forward to either option.
Girl, much as she is fun, is not a long term option either. Would like some forward momentum on that front as well, universe.
So, 2009, can you at the bare minimum try not to suck as much on the job front as 2007 and 2008 did for me? I'd like to not be looking for a job this year, like I did those years, because I was laid off. Please. I'd like to be happy in my job this year, and not looking for a job.
And if you could make other awesome things happen too? (Like, say, the lotto ticket in my back pocket be a winner....heck, while I'm asking...) That'd be sweet, thanks.
[It is a highly enjoyable activity to read this thread.]
Buffistae
I love that. It seems like I must have seen it before, but I don't remember doing so. I think I must promptly steal it.
You make an interesting point about Facebook, javachick. I see what you mean. I think I both like and don't like that about Facebook, but I agree that it's freeing to understand that because someone doesn't want to be my "friend" doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to be my friend. I think my own biggest problem there, though, is that people use names that I don't recognize. I know I should know people, from the people that they know, but I often can't quite connect the right name to the right person. So, if I ever respond in a different way than you expect, anyone, please remind me who you are!
Gotta stop this sleepy posting. I hope it's better than no posting at all. I hope.
It was an early attempt, while we were at WX, to pluralize Buffista, but because of the Spanish derivation of "ista", it was decided that the "ae" plural would be the second and less-correct usage in dictionary term-age. As it were. Deep into the BtVS experience as we were at the time.
I am not a social networker. I have the threads here where I keep up with people I care about, and I still have a few threads on TableTalk where I discuss specific subjects with a small circle of posters. And I have LJ, where I am as open and honest as I ever am online, and I have many circles of friends there whose interests I share, and some of those overlap.
I pretty conclusively cut ties with everyone I ever knew in high school. I've never attended a reunion--why would I want to? The half-dozen people with whom I was close, who cared about each other, I stay in touch with. I have no interest whatever in "reconnecting" with anyone else. There was a high fatality rate among my college peers, and the survivors I keep track of in the trades, or the school newsletter. If I were advancing my career, looking for a partner, or of a gregarious nature, facebook would be an enthusiasm. As it is, I regard it as a tool to keep track of people in case catastrophe and diaspora befall my other boards. I understand I'm the anomaly here, but not everybody needs to know that Caryn-Ann just left the nail salon and is having a smoothie at 1218 Oak. Do they?
It was an early attempt, while we were at WX, to pluralize Buffista, but because of the Spanish derivation of "ista", it was decided that the "ae" plural would be the second and less-correct usage in dictionary term-age. As it were.
Really? I totally don't remember that. (Which doesn't mean it didn't happen; if that were true, I'd start dis-remembering things out of existence. Like the Bush administration.) Although I remember Rebecca Lizard saying she liked "Buffistae," but her brain wouldn't let her use the incorrect Latin ending.
Was there an actual discussion about it? With sides taken, and arguments bandied about? And a pronouncement that This Is Not Right?
Wait. I'm talking about the Buffistas/ae. Of *course* there was.
Maybe a new, more etymologically offensive plural? Buffistaopolis? Buffistasplosion? Buffistaplural?