Seeing WordPress’ report on my year in blogging—and reading so many other bloggers’ year-end recaps made me want to do a look back of my own.
Well, it helped that my phone decided to take a crap tonight. I went to the kitchen to cook dinner, and when I got back, it gave me the message that it had “no SIM card.” And unless one of my cats figured out how to remove the card, there was no reason.
I tried turning the phone off and back on. Same message. So I installed the iOS 8 software update I’ve been avoiding … no help.
On the Boyfriend’s advice, I googled what to do (first on Apple support’s sheet was installing the updated software). If that didn’t work, it said, remove and reinsert the SIM card. And if that does nothing, restore the phone to factory settings.
I did as instructed. Well, that was one step too far, because now my phone is absolutely useless. It wants me to set it up, but I can’t complete the setup without a SIM card. Verizon apparently closed early because of the holiday, plus it’s been snowing all day here in Flagstaff, so I didn’t really want to drive over there tonight anyway.
That leaves me phone-less, with nothing to do but work on my laptop. I know, I know: #firstworldproblems.
Let’s move on. 2014 was supposed to be the year I pursued joy.
On Jan. 1, 2014, I wrote: “I’ll start looking for small bits of joy in every day.” My loose goals included:
- Keep a food journal (without obsessing over every bite that goes in my mouth).
- Find a way to unlink food from fun in my mind.
- Enjoy all foods in moderation. (See Carly’s thoughts on the five words that should never be used to describe food.)
- Use my new FitBit to track activity and sleep—and figure out what to do with the info it gives me.
- Read more books.
- Keep writing.
- Do more yoga.
- Take more photos.
- Stress less.
- Love more.
Unfortunately, 2014 threw me for a loop. My job of 15-plus years disappeared when the corporate powers that be sent our paper’s page design to Nebraska. I was unemployed through most of September, all of October and most of November, when I went back to the same office on a part-time temporary basis. I also was hired for a new job, in a new city, that necessitates packing up 13-plus years of stuff from my house in Flagstaff.
That is to say, there wasn’t much joy to be found in parts of the year. The only things I managed to do on my list were “keep writing,” “read more” and (maybe) “take more photos.” I wore my FitBit regularly, but didn’t always track my sleep, and I never did figure out what to do with the data. The whole being jobless thing really didn’t help on the “stress less” front.
With so many new things on my personal horizon, I’ve chosen a new word for 2015:
You heard me. Instead of being dragged, kicking and screaming, into new experiences, I plan to embrace them.
It’s an attitude that should serve me well.
And among the changes I intend to embrace are making better, more healthful food choices, exercising regularly and (hopefully) dropping some extra pounds. Actually, my 2014 list looks like a good starting point again this year.
I keep thinking I should go back to a low-carb diet, but I haven’t committed to that yet. I know I want to focus on Roni and Carla’s #wycwyc approach. Instead of having big plans to stick to something—and going off the rails when I “mess up”—I want to focus on doing what I can, when I can. Making one healthy choice at a time…
You know—that concept I started my blog on and then somehow lost along the way. At some point, I became convinced that if I’m not perfect, I might as well not even try.
How did that happen? Ugh.
Anyway…I promised a look back at 2014. After poking around in my site stats a little, I found my most popular search terms and the most-read posts of the year.
Popular search terms
Reese Witherspoon (plus bangs, hair, sideswept bangs, haircut) — Variations on the search brought 30+ visitors to my blog
Noodle-less spaghetti — 20
Adventures in weight loss — 28
Pineapple upside down cake smoothie — 13
Egg-based snacks — 6
Other searches caught my eye just because they were funny or recurring:
damn fasting sucks
chia seeds just got scary
why is almond milk not on WW simply filling list (3 variations on this one, so I’m not the only one who found the omission odd)
Top posts
Weight Watchers, Take 2: My first gain had 392 views
Reese Witherspoon I’m not (a 2012 post) had 251 views
Recipe: Noodle-less Spaghetti had 235. I can’t say I blame them. It’s a tasty recipe.
Recipe: Pineapple Upside Down Cake Smoothie had 147. It’s another personal favorite, so I’m glad to see its popularity.
My What I ate Wednesday posts also got a TON of views. Combined, they made up 1,031 of my blog’s hits for the year. Clearly, I need to participate in #WIAW more often. 😀
Adventures in weight loss, cooking & life 
I wish I could update my phone to the new operating system if I had the memory, lol. I was just watching the movie “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead” on Netflix and in the second one he specifically talks about how stress is what he deals with in terms of dieting, check it out.
Work stress is the thing made my diet go south as well. It kind of just rearranges the priorities that you currently have. It is definitely easier now for me to eat properly and just be healthier in general.