The first couple of weeks of 2014 have been kind of nuts. If things don’t change, it’s shaping up to be the year of other people losing my stuff.

New Year’s Eve was fun- I went with some friends to the Harpoon Beer Hall. However, the first couple of hours of 2014 sucked because the Harpoon’s coat check? Lost my coat. Someone else must have taken it by accident when they brought it back from the coat check, so they ended up sending me home in a Harpoon sweatshirt. Long walk back to the T on a freezing cold night- it was not fun. They did say they’d pay me back for a new coat, and I’ll take them up on that, but even though I know there are a lot of worse things than this, I’m pissed. I LIKED THAT COAT.

Then the following week I went to San Francisco for my company’s sales meeting. Getting out there was a bit of a mess. The airline delays that week were all over the news. We were supposed to fly out Monday morning, but after that flight was canceled, and the second flight we had booked resulted in us having go back into the terminal where we would have taken the first flight to get our canceled tickets and therefore waiting in a really long line and missing our flight (deep breath), we ended up having to take new flights Tuesday afternoon, arriving in San Francisco Tuesday night and missing a whole day of the conference. I didn’t want to check my bag, but I was in the last boarding group and they pulled the whole we’re-out-of-overhead-space thing (once I was on the plane, I could see that there was actually plenty of room) and made me check my bag, telling me it would be waiting for me at the gate when we landed.

It was not. I didn’t get my bag back until Thursday morning. I’m actually surprised I got it back that soon. I was not very happy during the period of time I didn’t have it.

The actual trip went well. I got to see Jenna and Mikey for the first time in almost a year! I also got an award for making my sales goal, and my flight back was great- I even had an empty seat next to me. (I’m weird and like long plane rides.)

Sooo, things have been busy and occasionally nuts, which is why I’m just getting around to writing this now.

2013! There were some really terrible things that happened this year. My uncle died suddenly in May. There was the marathon bombing and its aftermath in April.

But when 2012 ended, I said I felt like I’d spent a lot of the year in a state of blah. I definitely do not feel that way about 2013. I got shit done this year! As much as I would have liked to? No, definitely not. Dating was one disappointment after another (although I did put forth a lot of effort). I was really inconsistent with sleep, diet, and exercise and therefore am still fat. I never did that open-water swim. But here are some of the things I got done this year:

• I did a lot more writing, completing several short stories and having one short story accepted for publication. My Grub Street class was a lot of fun.
• I traveled to Europe for the first time ever and had a fantastic time. England and Ireland were just wonderful.
• I also went to Marco Island and had another fantastic time lounging on the beach with my friends.
• Work. This was not the weirdest year of my professional career, but it’s definitely in the top three, for reasons that it would not behoove me to get into on a public blog. Bottom line, though: the year ended with me making 132% of my sales goal and getting a nice bonus, so that was pretty awesome.
• I did Run to Home Base and the Tufts 10K for Women.
• And I did all the fun things I talked about here.

So what’s up for 2014?

• I can’t guarantee that I’ll meet someone, this year or ever. But I will certainly keep trying.
• I have gotten more involved in my church, and I’d like to continue that.
• I’m open on where, but I’d like to take another fun vacation.
• I’m thinking about volunteering as a writing tutor.
• Finishing a collection of linked short stories I’m working on.
• Getting more short stories published (or at least trying hard).
• Making my sales goal again.
•  Possibly another half-marathon, finally getting to that open water swim, and maybe a triathlon.
•  More cooking.
•  More reading (unofficially aiming for a book a week).
•  More making good use of the Roku.
•  More fun times with friends.
•  Hopefully get a cat!

I turn thirty this year, too. Seeing as I’m still single, I don’t really like to think about that, so I won’t. (Wow, I wrote that right after I wrote about getting a cat.)

I’m going to have to move in 2014—my landlady told us awhile ago that she’d be vacating the property to do renovations after our lease is up. So, I hope, by June I will be living alone for the first time.

We’ll see where I am a year from now. Things right now aren’t bad, but I’m still hoping they’ll end up a lot better.