To appropriately ring in the new year, I am reflecting on things that the old year taught me. How can I go forward if I don’t know where I am, right?

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

1. It is possible for your wisdom teeth to be severely infected for months, without your actual teeth ever hurting.

2. My parents are awesome, supportive people, and I am darn lucky to have them both still living.

3. 5,000 words typed in a single afternoon? Yes, it happens. 😀

4. Winter precipitation is a particularly large pain in the posterior region. It’s fine to be in a warm house looking out at said precipitation; trying to walk in the cold among inches and inches of icy, slippery snow leads to many falls and much fist-shaking.

5. Summer precipitation is no better–hailstorms are nothing to mess with, and leave your car looking like it’s been driven through a rough part of town. (LOL, my little Sydney has “street cred” now)

6. General anesthesia is a blissful nothingness, usually…but I had a dream while under general anesthesia, in which I talked peacefully with one of my relatives, long gone now. I wonder what I glimpsed?

7. Trying to sleep through a headache doesn’t work. Period.

8. Zumba, on the other hand, works. I lost 5 inches off my waist in 5 months of a little less-than-regular weekly attendance. 😀

9. Never put your faith in a single hard drive. Sooner or later, all hard drives, whether they are flash drives, external drives, or internal drives, will fail. Multiple backups are awesome!

10. Living without a personal computer is very annoying at best and creativity-killing at worst, at least for someone who creates files on a daily basis like I do.

11. Holly bushes absolutely COVERED in beautiful, big red berries = free Christmas decorations for the outdoors. 😀