Time for the annual roundup!<\/p>\n
1. What did you do in 2013 that you\u2019d never done before?<\/strong><\/p>\n Stayed at a cabin in the winter (and are doing so again at the end of January, because it was awesome) 2. Did you keep your new years\u2019 resolutions and will you make more for next year?<\/strong><\/p>\n I finished one 101 Things<\/a> list and started a new one! I like that way better than resolutions. Although I am setting a goal to have $12,000 in cash (well, savings, but that’s basically cash) by the end of the 2014 so we get get on with other goals. Oh, and I’d also like to take more photos next year. When I’m not doing a photo project or on vacation, I forget I own a camera.<\/p>\n 3. Did anyone close to you give birth?<\/strong><\/p>\n Doran and Sarah, and\u00a0Dan and Kate.<\/p>\n 4. Did anyone close to you die?<\/strong><\/p>\n Nope.<\/p>\n 5. What countries did you visit?<\/strong><\/p>\n Just Jamaica. We mostly had domestic trips this year, and that’s something I’d like to work on over the next few years.<\/p>\n 6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?<\/strong><\/p>\n More time, always. Everything feels like it’s moving so fast.<\/p>\n 7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n The days we spent driving down the Keys and back; I had a mile marker guide that pointed out all the kayak launches along the way, both in the Gulf and the Atlantic. Between that and the awesomeness of Key West, I became convinced that I’d be pretty happy living there, even with the hurricanes and rising sea levels. (That’s why stuff is built on stilts, right?)<\/p>\n 8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?<\/strong><\/p>\n Learning C#, MVC architecture, jQuery, Ajax, etc. Also a lot of financial stuff you don’t really care about.<\/p>\n 9. What was your biggest failure?<\/strong><\/p>\n I’d have liked to have more time to work on personal projects and keep writing for InfoQ, because I learned (and earned) a lot from it. But when you’re frenetically busy writing code 40 hours a week at work, it’s hard to want to do that in your spare time. Oh, and I still can’t run three miles straight. I hit a wall around 2 1\/2 miles, and then had this annoying overheating problem. I’ll keep working on it.<\/p>\n 10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing major, thankfully.<\/p>\n 11. What was the best thing you bought?<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) Brewing equipment (I think that summarizes everything we spent over a couple hundred dollars on this year, too!)<\/p>\n 12. Whose behavior merited celebration?<\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone involved in legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota and elsewhere. I’m cynical enough about politics that I really didn’t think that would ever happen.<\/p>\n 13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?<\/strong><\/p>\n Most of the American government. (I’m extending it beyond just the Republicans this year.) Gun lobbyists. The super-ridiculously wealthy. Most celebrities.<\/p>\n 14. Where did most of your money go?<\/strong><\/p>\n The aforementioned financial stuff, and travel, mainly for our trip to Puerto Rico in a couple months.<\/p>\n 15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?<\/strong><\/p>\n VACATION! Camping! Nerdy projects!<\/p>\n 16. What song will always remind you of 2013?<\/strong><\/p>\n Matt and Kris’s dancehall samples in Jamaica. I can’t type the contents here because they’re too offensive. Also Ignition Remix<\/em>, since Matt makes sure it’s stuck in my head at least once a week.<\/p>\n 17. Compared to this time last year, are you:<\/strong><\/p>\n i. happier or sadder? Happier 18. What do you wish you\u2019d done more of?<\/strong><\/p>\n Travel? Is there ever a time when a human being wished they traveled less often? (Not counting work trips.)<\/p>\n 19. What do you wish you\u2019d done less of?<\/strong><\/p>\n Spending time in meetings. I started bringing my laptop to them so I could get other work done. Also just being annoyed at poor project management. I HATE being surprised, I hate scrambling, and I hate feeling like I’m being forced to produce anything less than perfect. And then I hate being angry about it afterwards.<\/p>\n 20. How did you spend Christmas?<\/strong><\/p>\n As we usually do, we went to Watertown, South Dakota to spend Christmas with Matt’s parents. It was fantastic. We celebrated Christmas with my family in Eagan last Friday. Awesome Xmas is still coming up on January 10!<\/p>\n 21. Did you fall in love in 2013?<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m already in love, and he’s the best.<\/p>\n 22. What was your favorite TV program?<\/strong><\/p>\n Breaking Bad\u00a0<\/em>and The Sopranos <\/em>– we have two seasons left of it, and that’s exciting.<\/p>\n 23. Do you hate anyone now that you\u00a0didn’t\u00a0hate this time last year?<\/strong><\/p>\n I don’t hate anyone. I strongly dislike a few people, but then I just avoid them.<\/p>\n 24. What was the best book you read?<\/strong><\/p>\n Islands in the Stream<\/em> by Hemingway. I cried my head off at the end and wished there was more of it.<\/p>\n 25. What was your greatest musical discovery of 2013?<\/strong><\/p>\n Matt introduced me to the Youngblood Brass Band<\/a>. Holy crap, they’re great. I can’t believe they’re from Madison.<\/p>\n 26. What did you want and get?<\/strong><\/p>\n I guess pretty much everything? I won’t harp on the ‘more vacations’ thing here because I’m spoiled.<\/p>\n 27. What did you want and not get?<\/strong><\/p>\n I wanted to borrow a boat in the Keys and go out on our own, but the weather and timing prevented it. It’s ok, we’ll be back.<\/p>\n 28. What was your favorite film of this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n All Is Lost<\/em>. How can a mostly-silent movie with one actor be that great??<\/p>\n 29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?<\/strong><\/p>\n I went to Vegas<\/a> with my husband and 8 friends. It was the best possible way to turn 40.<\/p>\n 30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?<\/strong><\/p>\n I’d be happy to be living somewhere warmer right now! The cold affects me more and more every year.<\/p>\n 31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?<\/strong><\/p>\n Lazy.<\/p>\n 32. What kept you sane?<\/strong><\/p>\n Learning new things, projects, vacation and vacation planning, and Matt.<\/p>\n 33. Which celebrity\/public figure did you fancy the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n Eh.<\/p>\n 34. What political issue stirred you the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n Gun control. I would like the right to not live in an armed nation, and I don’t think it’s healthy for anyone’s psyche to be mentally prepared to kill (in self-defense or otherwise) at any moment. That says a lot about what Americans think we’ve become, and that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.<\/p>\n 35. Who did you miss?<\/strong><\/p>\n My grandparents and great-aunt and uncle. My parents sold their houses in the Upper Peninsula, and there’s really nothing left of that part of my life now. I still can’t think about it without crying, so I won’t.<\/p>\n 36. Who was the best new person you met?<\/strong><\/p>\n We finally met Kyle<\/a> in person, and had a great night out in Chicago. He invented Bally!<\/p>\n 37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013<\/strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s OK to slow down and not try to do every single thing on vacation.<\/p>\n 38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.<\/strong><\/p>\n The only one I can think of involves being mad at work, so I think I’ll just skip it this year in favor of being optimistic about next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Time for the annual roundup! 1. What did you do in 2013 that you\u2019d never done before? Stayed at a cabin in the winter (and are doing so again at the end of January, because it was awesome) Took a kickboxing class with Wendy and Katie Won the World’s Largest Trivia Contest with our team, …read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrapup"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/10248398606_936f75ace9_k.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/po9qt-Yj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3739"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4299,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions\/4299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTook a kickboxing class with Wendy and Katie
\nWon the World’s Largest Trivia Contest<\/a> with our team, Dad’s Computers
\n<\/a>Experienced the transition from the WCHA to Big Ten hockey and lived to tell about it (it helps when your team is #1 in the country)
\nLived in a state that finally<\/em> legalized gay marriage
\n<\/a>…and was in Wendy and Amelia’s wedding shortly thereafter
\nWent to a Twins game in the snow
\nBrewed my own beer<\/a>
\nJumped off a cliff into the ocean (for some reason, it was scarier than skydiving)
\nHad a 10th anniversary at my job
\nCelebrated a birthday in Vegas
\nMade my own sourdough starter
\nHelped run an ongoing trivia night at Pour Decisions<\/a>
\nTook a trip with my in-laws
\nWent on the Traveling Tap around Minneapolis with my coworkers
\nWon money on a boxing match
\nWent to my first beer festival
\nMade Thanksgiving dinner for 12 people and survived
\nLearned to curl<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n2) A new laptop so I could run Visual Studio and SQL Server at home
\n3) Samsung Galaxy 4
\n4) All the trips we’ve taken<\/p>\n
\nii. thinner or fatter? Thinner
\niii. richer or poorer? Richer<\/p>\n