Hey all!

Happy new year? I guess? We had another journey around the sun and it was…. Bad. A couple good things, we don’t have *that man* in the Oval Office anymore, there’s a vaccine for this gawd awful virus, and things have been opening up more. I was also able to do a bit of travel, we did a few friend cabin visits that were Covid friendly, got the vaccine,I went to SLC to visit Ginny for her bday and yolo’d and paid for first class, got vaccine shot 2, I went to visit Sam from Thoughts on Tomes in Chicago for our bdays, and did I mention the vaccine?

Bad news is that while I thought this was going to last 6 months more according to my 2020 wrap up, we’re still fucking in it. Omicron is tearing through our area. Everyone has this thing. My mental health isn’t the best (but I started therapy so) but I’m working on it. When will this be fucking over?!

So since 2020 sucked, let’s try again with 2021? Since I know that we’ll be in this telework, quarantine, stay-at-home posture for at LEAST 6 more months, I’m going to be a bit easier on myself.

2021 Bookish Goals:

1. Read 70 books. Yikes… I’m at 53…
2. Review 50 books. Nailed it
3. Give myself a break when it comes to ARCs. This I did. I was pretty proud of it actually. I caught up with my backlog and I only have a couple more that I’m already excited to read so we’re good there.
4. Get back in to the community. I did not do this… I will try for next year.

2021 Personal Goals

1. Do what you have to do to stay healthy. I didn’t do much physically, for sure, but mentall? I’ve been working my hardest. I feel like I say this every year but work stress is nuts. Maybe not harder than previous years, but more often do I find myself having a breakdown. Because of this I started therapy and it has helped a lot. I also feel like I’ve stopped burdening my friends with my work drama. I think (at least I feel) like I talk too much about work to them and it gets old fast. So I’ve been working hard not to talk about it. As far as a lot of that goes I’m in a good place, which is miles away from where I was this time last year.
2. ^That’s it.^

2022 Reading Goals:

• Read 70 books. If I go any lower than this I won’t read at all so we’re gonna keep it.
• Review 50 books. I’ve seriously been slacking on these. I’ll forget about it for weeks and then do like 4 in one night. I’ll get better at this.
• Read what you own. Like seriously. At this point I own more books that I haven’t read than I have. I’ll get some metrics on this and report back.
• Get back in to the community. I will. I will I will I will.

2022 Personal Goals:

• Stop being a potato. Ok, so I did the mental health work last year. This year I have to get up from my couch more. Walking meetings, whatever. Go back to the daily yoga, wash my face every day, cook, whatever. It’s too easy to stay a slug so I am gonna stop.
• Get work back under control. So, this may seem funny, but I had gotten a handle on work and then we had some leadership changes and my whole universe flipped. I basically have to do some re-inventing to figure out my place in the new order of things. My bosses are fantastic, but they’re going through it too, so I’m resolved to make it as easy on them as I can while trying to figure it out on my side too. There has been some progress made, but I wanted to write it down so I can keep it going.

Now with all that. Fuck you, 2021. I’ll see you in hell with 2020. I’ve stopped begging for this to get better, I jut would like to ask the gods for this not to get worse.

Hobey ho!

Until next time, we remain forever drunkenly yours,

Sam