because aunt motherfucking becky said so.

according to aunt motherfucking becky, i'm apparently supposed to do things like this near new year's day.  i'll do it now, and i might even post something serious and introspective later.  

or not.  or maybe photos of my cats.  maybe.  we'll see.

1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?

worked for free.  as an intern.  i love the experience, but i really really miss the paycheck.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

i don't do resolutions.  i think it's setting myself up for failure.  

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

....it's hard to define 'close'.  family or close friends?  nope.  

4. Did anyone close to you die?

let's see... 2013.... nope, no one that close to me died.  

5. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?

a job in my chosen career field with a paycheck.

6. What countries did you visit?

new jersey.  wait.  i didn't leave the country this year.  

7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:

ummmmm...... hmph.  maybe the day i quit my well-paying desk job to make no money in my chosen field?  maybe the day i was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis?  maybe the first day i took chemotherapy.  that might be it.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

not going back to a paying desk job and staying in school.  

also, completing another year NOT seeing 'two girls, one cup'.  regardless of how many time awesome husband @_antgas tries to get me to see it.

9. What was your biggest failure?

fuck failure.  i try to look at everything as a learning experience.  but i did fuck up a dozen cookies.  i tried to make them bigger.  not a good idea.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

hahahahahahahaha.  yes.  

11. What was the best thing you bought?

i just treated myself to my second coach bag of the year.  i spend money on dumb things.  but i also bought myself a heated blanket.  yum.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

mine for not killing stupid fucking asshats?  does that count?  also, awesome husband @_antgas for putting up with my shenanigans for another year.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

people in general.  they are quite often asshats.  also, men who think women dressing a certain way means she should be raped.  that kind of reddit crap.

14. Where did most of your money go?

i don't make a lot of money.  awesome husband @_antgas shares with me.  most of it goes to rent and food and car payments... you know. living expenses.  and some to cats and medication.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

that one of my oldest, bestest friends lent me her citi card to get billy joel tickets for next march.  

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?

meh.  'summertime sadness' by lana del ray because i still can't get it out of my damn head.  

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? ....happier?

ii. thinner or fatter? no change.

iii. richer or poorer? poorer. see: 1, 5, 7.  poorer.  

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

stayed positive?  i don't know.  

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

worrying.  worrying and being anxious and whatnot.  crap.

20. How will you be did you spending Christmas?

woke up earlyish and made waffles, brunch squares (like quiche), bacon, veggie sausage, and cinnamon rolls for awesome husband, my dad, my brother, sisterfromanothermister, and her mom.  they came over to open presents and whatnot.  then we went to my inlaws for a couple of hours where people coughed near me and i lost my damn mind, then went to my dad's brother's house and visited with that side of the family where no one coughed near me.

21. There was no #21. I don’t know why there was no 21.

i'll answer the 21 that aunt becky came up with.

21. Why does the term “designer drugs” conjure up an image of a bunch of pills hanging out wearing tiny Chanel and Prada clothing and snappy accessories?

it really doesn't to me.  i think more of ecstasy and club drugs and the like.  but i like the idea of pills wearing prada.

22. Did you fall in love in 2013?

i've been married for almost a decade and banging the same guy since 1997.  i don't know if this is an appropriate answer, but this is what you get.  

23. How many one-night stands?

really?  see above.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

the walking dead maybe.  i really like bob's burgers too.  and cartoons in general.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

hate is a wasted emotion.  i'm not going to waste my energy hating people.  stupid.

26. What was the best book you read?

'dad is fat' by jim gaffigan.  hahaha.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

ergh, what?

28. What did you want and get?

i mostly get what i want.  that sounds bitchy, but if i really want something, like REALLY, i work to find a way to get it.  like playstation 4.  we wanted it, we found a way to get it.  boom.  QED.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

harry potter?  does that still count?  i have no idea when it came out.  but i haven't seen a movie in the theater in a long time.  we did see 'jurassic park 3d' when it came out.  i think that might have been this year.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

i think maybe we went out to dinner?  no idea.  and i was 32 and 33 on my last birthday.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

not sure.  i try to be happy with what i have.  it's not easy but i'm trying.  so stop asking annoying questions like that.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?

my what?  i don't know.  i'm not 15.  or a model.

34. What kept you sane?

pills.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

well i still quite fancy nigella lawson.  she's HAWT.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

hahahahahahahaha 

37. Who did you miss?

my mom.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

i don't really know.  trying to think of new people i met this year.  it's kind of a blur.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:

life.  loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.  

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year (because this Meme is apparently written for tweens):

really?  i'm not a 16 year old girl suffering her first broken heart.  i'm starting to regret ever listening to aunt motherfucking becky and doing this. 

good thing i'm done.  so, do this if you want and link back to me or whatever.  or don't do it.  i'll live with the rejection.

burning my candle at both ends

but i usually have yankee candles in jars, so they don't have two ends.

i've run myself ragged this holiday season.  monday - interned, shopped, went wedding dress shopping.  left the house at 8:30, got home at 9:30.  tuesday - finished up a bit of shopping, cleaned the apartment, left at 5:30 to go to the family xmas eve.  home by 11.  xmas morning - up at 8am, had family over for breakfast, went to my in-laws, went to my aunt's, home by 10:30.  yesterday - interned, did a bit of shoe shopping, went to my in-laws for leftovers (a christmas tradition), home by 8.

i had planned for today, friday, to be a day of rest.  i didn't set an alarm and planned on sleeping until i woke up naturally, then taking it easy around the house (it's almost noon and i'm still in my pjs with no bra on).

what i DID NOT plan on was hellish indigestion that woke me up three times during the night, requiring a total of 10 tums and it barely helped.  around 4am, i finally got out of bed and dragged an extra thick pillow out of the closet and spent the next three hours sleeping sitting up.  then i snuggled back down and slept for another hour or so.

so my long, luxurious night of sleep turned into tossing and turning, interrupted sleep, lots of tums and yucky indigestion.  horrible, horrible.  so angry.

which is why i'm still in my pjs watching television and relaxing.  and planning on doing so for most of the day.  with intermittent napping.

i started on enbrel last week.  i inject myself with this biologic medication once a week; my second injection was on christmas morning.  i haven't noticed any improvement yet, but i haven't noticed any side effect either.

my internship is going well.  i've started sitting in on assessments and groups, and helping write up group notes and things like that.  i'm still in the hiring process for the other per diem counselor job, the one i get paid for.  hopefully by the second week of the new year i'll be ready to go there.  and making a few extra bucks on the side.  it's nearly impossible to be a single income household on long island and do things like eat.

forget about the fact that my medical care, even with insurance, is starting to take a toll on our finances.  i started getting my methotrexate and folic acid prescriptions filled by my insurance company's mail order pharmacy, which cuts that cost in half easily.  i got three weeks of enbrel samples to start with, and will be filling that prescription through my insurance co's mail order speciality pharmacy.  no idea how much that will cost.  already nervous about that.

but life moves on.  as marvin says in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, 'life.  loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it'.  i mean, i like it.  but whether or not you like life, or appreciate life, or hate life, it goes on.  and you can be either a human BEING or a human DOING.  so, you know.  get on that.

sorry, i've been napping.

i wish i could tell you the past two weeks have been a whirlwind of not slowness.

but, you know i'd be lying.

last week i started my internship!  exciting.  i have my own office (which i may have to share with another part timer, but still).  it's a CORNER office with a big desk and chair and whatnot.  it's pretty bad ass.  it's a private catholic organization (and i didn't even burst into flames) and the part i'm working with is the chemical dependency unit.  the location only handles outpatient substance abuse issues - some are from dwi/dui, some are mandated by probation, some just need help.  i sat in on my first assessment on tuesday and it was a 24 year old kid who had an opioid problem.  his mom told him either he had to leave or get help - he chose to get help.

i'll be interning for 12 hours a week.  the new new york state rules for mental health stuff that went through june 30th of this summer mean that my 300 hours of intern experience must be spread out over SIX DAMN MONTHS.  stupid crap.  so that's about 12 hours a week.  we were hoping to bang out my 300 hours in a couple of months but the state stopped that.

but it leaves me time to work a job that will actually pay me.  i had been working with my dad a day or two a week out in queens (a two hour commute each way) which i love doing but i do not love the commute.  especially since my ra diagnosis and starting the medication i'm on.  the fatigue is horrible and more than once i've been afraid i might fall asleep at the wheel.  in the middle of the day.  damn it.  last week i interviewed for a per diem counselor job with another non profit here on long island where i'd work in houses for mentally ill adults who are working towards independence.  i was offered the job and now will be starting the long-ish road of getting hired.  the new york state office of mental health has really tightened their standards for hiring, which is good, but annoying when you're trying to get hired.

school is driving me slightly nuts.  it's not that i don't have enough time to get my schoolwork done, it's that i'd rather spend that time napping.  i do not know how to quantify the amount of time i want to sleep.  it's more than 10 or 11 hours a day.  if i don't have to move, i don't want to.  i get tired enough and just lying on the couch staring at a cat is restful enough for me.  it's disgusting how much i don't want to do things.  i mean, i do - i cleaned the apartment (with some help from awesome husband).  we went holiday shopping.  i cooked.  i keep wanting to be more productive and get things done, but my body is like NO WE ARE TAKING A DAMNED NAP AND YOU ARE DOING NOTHING.

we decorated for the holidays over the last two weekends.  we're not christian so we don't 'celebrate' christmas as, you know.  the birth of jesus.  which it isn't.  jesus wasn't born in winter.

ANYWAY.  we bought a little 4" tree and put our fave ornaments on it.  we put some lights on the porch and got a 3.5" inflatable santa yoda.  it's nice.  i like to call christmas 'traditional american familial holiday' because that's how we celebrate it.  i like seeing family and giving people gifts and enjoying time with people i love.  i've done a lot of my holiday shopping online.  i REFUSE to give any of my holiday money to any shops that are open on thanksgiving.  (i do not include grocery and pharmacy stores in this because they have always been open on t-day.)  it's mostly about the other types of stores - macy's, kohl's, target, kmart, sears are all on my no-no list.  i was bummed that macy's was open on thanksgiving - i did a huge portion of my holiday shopping there last year because they were closed on turkey day.  not this year.

we decided to give 'the kids' cash.  the kids are my 17 year old twin sisters and our nieces and nephews (age range is like 10-24).  i saved a bit of money each week from like october to cover them.  and then i've been trying to buy something every week to cover the stockings and whatever.  i'm always in charge of stockings since my mom died.  chocolate marshmallow santas, bits of candy, tiny gifts - i get all types of shit to put in the stockings.

the biggest issue i'm having is finding a damn playstation 4.  i told awesome husband he could have one and made him trade in all his xbox crap (he has two games to hold him over) so we could put it towards a new ps4.  and now i can't find one.  fuck fuck fuck.  and remember, i can't buy it certain places - i'm planning on buying it from gamestop because they didn't open until 12am on black friday.  yes, it's practically opening on thanksgiving, but it's technically black friday.  they do midnight releases all the time, i'll give them that one.  they haven't had them in stock for weeks.  the other day awesome husband called one store and they were like, order it online - they're shipping by december 16.  i got on the website and - nope.  so today i'll be calling a fuckton of gamestop locations to figure out what's up.

and i'll be cooking.  napping.  watching american dad.  gathering info needed for my new per diem offer.  you know, just steph gas being steph gas.