I seem to have come up with a year in review formula that works for me, so I'll continue with it.
My big event of the year was, of course, buying a condominium. Otherwise referred to as becoming part of the landed poor. I'm reasonably satisfied with it, though I really do have to get around to hanging the rest of the pictures. Moving was also a good opportunity to replace my mattress, my sofa, and my computer so it was a pretty expensive year.
I read 245 books. Almost 3/4 of those were rereads, which often resulted in the decision to bring the book in question to the used book store. Some of the authors whose work I reread were Richard Barth, P.D. James, William X. Kienzle, and Josephine Tey. I am pleased to say that The Daughter of Time stands up well to rereading. My favorite book of the year was Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys
I got rid of 355 books and have maybe another 30 ready to go if I ever find time to get to do a used bookstore run again. I have no idea how many books I acquired. I also got rid of a bunch of household odds and ends via Freecycle. I'm most proud of giving away fabric squares and a quilt batting, as a sign that I really won't ever make a quilt.
I did 18 Volksmarch events, which is one less than last year. But I did finish my 100 event book (and 1000 km book). I added three state capitals (Springfield, IL, Jefferson City, MO, and Columbus, OH) and three more states (Delaware, Michigan, and Tennessee, though I had actually done a walk in TN before I had the state book to record it in). The special programs I'm working on and my progress towards them are 50 states (24/50), 51 capitals (14/51), American Revolution (8/15 so no progress this year), U.S. Presidents (14/15), Spirit of Walking / Cemetery stroll (6/40), Walking the USA A-Z (25/26, with only Z to go and yes, I did X without using the wild card by going to Xenia, Ohio), American Authors / Literary Landmarks (9/15), Walking Europe in the United States (9/20), Riverwalk America (8/20), Railroad Heritage (14/25) and College Campus (18/20).
Not surprisingly, I traveled. Actually, I had relatively little business travel, with trips to Los Angeles, San Jose, and Albuquerque. And Moscow. I took advantage of the latter (to present a paper at a conference) to spend a weekend in Vienna on the way back, with a day trip to Bratislava, Slovak Republic. My personal domestic travels were to New York (twice, for theatre going, once alone and one with my mother), Detroit (to go to a baseball game), Ohio (Columbus, Urbana and Xenia for Volksmarch and Cincinnati for a baseball game), Chicago (Wrigley Field!), Knoxville (to get the Volksmarch "K" event), Houston, and Saint Louis (for the National Storytelling Conference, but I flew in early, went to a baseball game and drove to two state capitals and a few other assorted places, too.) My big vacations (in addition to the one I built around the St. Louis trip) were to Chile and Easter Island and to Newfoundland and Labrador. I also went to Madrid for a long weekend.
The highlight of the storytelling year was getting to go to the Southern California Storyswapping Festival in late March, which was conveniently the weekend before I needed to be in L.A. for a work-related conference. I also went to a bunch of storyswaps. I performed at storytelling events for Halloween and Tellabration, as well as doing the Kensington Row Story Salon. I would have told at Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts, but we got rained out. I also went to the Virginia Storytelling Alliance gathering and, as mentioned above, the National Storytelling Conference. The most fun I had at the latter was a late night one to three minute story swap, at which I lost a competition for total time by about 12 seconds.
As far as being entertained, I saw The Apple Tree (Roundabout Theatre), 110 in the Shade (Roundabout Theatre) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway. Other theatre events were Carnival! (Kennedy Center), Family Secrets (Theatre J), Princess Ida (Arden Singers, in Delaware), and Avenue Q (touring company at the National Theatre). Performers I saw in concert included Pierre Bensusan (who is, by the way, my favorite living musician), The Tone Rangers (twice), and The Sinai Mountain Boys. I saw 8 movies in theatres and only 5 on airplanes, which is an atypical ratio for me. The movies I liked the most were Music and Lyrics, The Pursuit of Happyness (despite seeing it on a plane), In the Shadow of the Moon and Juno. I also went to the circus in Moscow.
I completed two Life List items, both via vacations mentioned above. I made progress on several more, including 3 more capital Volksmarch events, 1 more Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, 4 more major league ballparks, 6 more books from the Haycraft-Queen mystery list, and surprisingly little more of the Bible since it took me most of the year to plod through Jeremiah. (I did also read Lamentations , which is far less tedious.)
If anybody is still reading this, I hope it exhausts you less than it does me. No wonder I still haven't written the Labrador travelogue ... or hung up most of the pictures in my condo. My major goals for the coming year are:
All in all, it's been a busy year. My biggest disappointment is that I didn't get to spend a lot of time with Robert. But any year that includes the Red Sox winning the World Series has to count as a good one.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel