It seems like 2011 got here so quickly, yet there were moments during 2010 where I felt like the year would never end. I felt 2010 was just so disappointing. Let’s break it down:

Work – I’m thrilled to even have a job considering half the country is unemployed. Yet I really despise my job. I work in a two person office, me and my boss who is the owner of the company. Yeah, no advancement opportunities there. I used to get my salary and a monthly bonus. As of February my bonus was gone. So basically, I consider that a salary cut, since that extra bonus was really helping me financially. My boss had been promising me he was going to set up a 401K, he’s been promising me for the last 3 years, but of course he blamed the continuing financial breakdown of the country, so that’s been nixed. I still have no insurance. I had a discounted plan, not really insurance I was paying for but I could no longer afford it so that had to go. As the year moved on, we began losing clients. We began the year with around 25 clients, and now we are down to about 10. My boss says he’s looking for business, but he’s not as good a sales person as he seems to think. I’m so incredibly miserable, at the end of October I began to actively search for another job. In November, I found out that my salary was yet again going to be cut. My boss mentioned this salary cut along with cutting back some of my hours. I hope he remembers that, because it’s unbearably slow at work. While spending all day on the internet sounds cool, the novelty wears off really fast.

Social life – I should probably skip this one because there’s not anything happening here. I decided to give the internet dating thing a try in 2010 and it tanked miserably. I met so many strange people. I found most men who contacted me didn’t bother to read my profile. I realized that after one guy sent me a message that sounded promising, but after we talked on the phone and he told me he was allergic to cats. I asked him if he’d read my profile, he said yes but I can’t help but wonder what he thought I was going to do with my cats if we hit it off. I met one guy who loved cats, and had 3 of his own. He was utterly creepy though, since every time I asked him about his job he kept telling me it ws confidential and couldn’t tell me. He just gave me the creeps. So after a while, I decided to just put the online thing on the back-burner.

Health – I’m the heaviest I’ve EVER been in my life. I hadn’t been on a scale in months, but in December I got a nasty case of the shingles and had to go to an urgent care. They had a scale. Let’s just say looking at the reading made me numb enough to not care about the pain I felt from the shingles for a few minutes. I’ve got a used treadmill, which I plan on getting my fat ass on this year! I’m also going on my third year as a vegetarian, and quite happy still. 2010 kicked my ass to the very end, as I cut a chunk of my pinky off making a vegetarian lasagna on Christmas eve.

But I don’t want you to think things were all bad. My dad was finally able to fully retire and enjoy some time off. His wife is still a douche-bag, some things don’t change. My brother is well and so are his kids. My friends are all well and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have their support.

Some of the things I want to do creatively this year is write more, use my blog more, get the gangs blog going, and figure out what I can sell on Etsy.

And finally, I can’t end a post like this without mentioning the 5 loves of my life, my cats known collectively by all as The Gang. I am incredibly blessed that they are all healthy and hopefully happy. My hopes and dreams are to keep them this way for many many more years to come. I hope to one day be able to either have the means to buy a small home with a patio I can screen so that I can build them a little cat area for them to enjoy the outdoors safely. And I’d also love to take the 4 cats I’m currently feeding who live outside in this condo complex. I could build a cat fence, and they would live in my backyard safely. I don’t know if that will happen this year, but it’s a dream I am working toward.

2011, you better be nice!