1. What did you do in 2020 that you'd never done before?
   • I got 'rona, was put in quarantine, and was also diagnosed with spondyloarthritis. I was laid off, and was on unemployment for a while. These are all bad things... I'm sure good things happened, but I just can't think of any right now!

 

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
   • I usually do, and I will!

 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
   • I don't think so

 

4. Did anyone close to you die?
   • No, thankfully

 

5. What countries did you visit?
   • none, but I will visit one next year!

 

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
   • I hope to go to Japan in 2021! And try teaching online! 

 

7. What date(s) from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   • March 13th, (Friday the 13th) - the day I started showing 'rona symptoms, and the day I was laid off.

 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
   • I figured out what was going on with my joints, and I have successfully found a mostly effective treatment!
   • I stayed positive and maintained my mental health in the middle of a pandemic. While sick. 

 

9. What was your biggest failure?
   • I prefer to not dwell on failures, so I shall not. 

 

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
    • OOF

 

11. What was the best thing you bought?
    • A lot of Sims 4 packs! Entertainment is important. 

 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
    • People who learned to wash their hands, and wore masks, and did their best to minimize the pandemic. This has been a rough year, and I'm really proud of everyone who tried. Even if things fell a little short, even if you messed up... as long as you tried and did your best I am proud of you. 

 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and/or depressed?
    • the anti-mask psychopaths who think the entire world faked a pandemic to take away American freedoms

 

14. Where did most of your money go?
    • In reality? bills. 

 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
    • CYBERPUNK 2077! BUT I CAN'T FUCKING PLAY IT BECAUSE MY GODDAMN VIDEO CARD IS BROKEN, AND THE MOTHERFUCKING REPLACEMENT HAS BEEN LOST BY THE FUCKING POST OFFICE FOR TWO GOD DAMN LAWLESS FUCKING WEEKS

 

16. What song(s) and/or ablum(s) will always remind you of 2020?
    • WAP

 

17. Compared to this time last year, you are:
    • 10lbs lighter! In less pain! Mentally healthier! 

 

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
    • I'm pretty satisfied with what I've done this year, and confident that I made the best of my situation. 

 

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
    • regrets are for the weak! ;-)

 

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
    • With my wonderful husband, and my adorable pets. We will have the family on zoom on the TV in the living room. 

 

22. Did you fall in love in 2020?
    • I feel even more in love with my husband! I'm pretty sure I would have murdered anyone else if I had been quarantined with them. 

 

23. How many one-night stands?
    • Zero

 

24. What was your favorite TV program?
    • good lord, I watched so much TV I have absolutely no idea. 

 

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
    • about 70% of humanity

 

26. What was the best book you read?
    • Fuck man, IDK. I read a lot. 

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
    • This year? IDK. Ever? Offspring

 

28. What did you want and get?
    • I lost some weight! And my hair is LOOOONG now!

 

29. What did you want and not get?
    • I wanted to move to Japan... but that'll be a 2021 thing!

 

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
    • No idea

 

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    • 32. My hubby and I had a photoshoot together (his gift to me), and we had a nice dinner and a movie at home. And presents!

 

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    • regret is for the weak, I'm happy with what I've done with my year.

 

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
    • Comfy, not even comfy-chic... just comfy

 

34. What kept you sane?
    • pets, books, shows, harassing my husband

 

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
    • tbh, i don't really understand this question. 

 

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
    • I'm not gonna lie... all of them. Black lives matter? this is a big deal! Election? Also big deal! Masks? Big deal, too! 

 

37. Who did you miss?
    • my friends, both near and far. With how bad the pandemic has been here, we haven't gotten to hang out at all. And my family (kinda)

 

38. Who was the best new person you met?
    • I met no one, oof

 

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020:
    • life is what you make it
    • never trust people to do what's right
    • boomers would rather you die than they be mildly inconvenienced

 

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
    • "I'm not crazy I'm just a little unwell" (chest pain wasn't anxiety, it was spondyloarthritis!) Also, this was legit the year of shitty physical health. 

We put up our Christmas decorations!

The stockings, in order from left to right: Roux, Alex, Muffins, Me, Leela

 

I've signed up to take a TEFL class to prepare for teaching online starting mid-late 2021. 

My other classes are going well, I should finish my masters degree right before we move to Japan. 

Everything is going well at work - I will be hiring my replacement around February or March so that I can start getting them trained up. I've alaready discussed the move with my boss, and they are excited for me and very supportive. It helps that I've made it super clear that I'm not abandoning them, that I love this job, and that I will do whatever I can to make sure the transition is smooth. I've been in that job for 5 1/2 years now, and I don't want to leave them on bad terms. If I did that I would have a hell of a time finding a job somewhere else!

My weight loss is continuing as planned. My starting weight was 220 (so chonk), and as of my last post I was pretty consistently at 215. At this point I'm hovering around 213-214. From what I understand, losing about 1lb a week is considered pretty safe and sustainable... so that's my goal. But I'm not going to be upset if I can't make it, especially since there are days I can barely move. 

Right now, I'm setting small attainable goals for myself. I aim to be 210 before the end of January. I'm on schedule to do that, and this is how:

• drink more water
• reduce the amount of breads I eat!
• increase the amount of veggies I eat!
• I track what I eat, and aim to have 3 healthy, appropriately portioned meals per day. If I am hungry outside the meals first I drink water. If I'm still hungry after the water then I can snack, But I pay attention to what I ate before because it clearly wasn't meeting my food needs. 
• Exercise when I am able, stretch when I am able. 
• Take my vitamins!

I really need to lose some weight, so I've been trying to do so in a way that is sustainable (rather than just not eating for a few days). I've done this by reducing portion sizes, tracking what I eat, reducing the amount of starchy food I eat, and exercising as much and as often as I am physically able. Sometimes all I can do is stretch, and sometimes all I can do is get out of bed and hobble around... and I have decided that is okay! If it's all I can do, that's all I can do. I'm not going to beat myself up, and be dissappointed in myself, over something I have no control over. 

To measure if I am actually losing weight I keep a running average throughout the week, and I weigh myself at the same time every day (right before bed). Sometimes I get stressed or depressend and don't eat anything (or eat only sweets), so this gives me a more accurate idea of what's going on. 

As of today, my running average is 6lbs lower than when I started! 

Nothing much has happened, so I haven't really updated. 
My new-ish spondyloarthritis treatment is going well (ish). 

I'm moving around well enough that I'm catching up on household things that got left behind. My laundry was... horrific. Literally every single article of clothing that I own, every single towel/washcloth, and all of my sheets were dirty. Since I got so behind I would do just enough to get me by. Today is my third day working on this, and I should be able to finally finish. It was seriously 12-15 loads of laundry. 
At least I didn't need to wash the hubby's clothes. He does his own laundry, and kept offering to do mine. I really should have taken him up on it, but some items have to be hand washed. 

Classes are going well, I have 3 left. I also signed up for a TEFL class, which will help me teach english in Japan. 

Yes, we are still totally planning to move to Japan. Alex is scheduled to graduate and get his teaching liscence in May, and has already applied to several programs. I will either get a part-time job after we arrive there, or (more likely) teach online part-time. 

I've been considering getting a journal, and only writing things that make me happy in it, or things that I've done that I'm proud of. That way when I'm stressed or depressed I can go through it and it'll cheer me up. The only possible roadblock is that my handwriting is so bad I may have trouble reading it, lol. 

Unfortunately, the medication I was put on for my weird joint pain definately did give me a stomach ulcer. Oof. 

I confirmed this for sure when I started throwing up blood. 

As a result, I've been taken off the medication that was making my joints feel better. 

So now my stomach hurts (ulcer), I'm throwing up blood(ulcer), my hands hurt (spondyloarthritis), my hips hurt (spondyloarthritis), my knees hurt (spondyloarthritis), and I can barely walk (spondyloarthritis). I also stated my period, which is unusually painful this time. 

I feel very sorry for myself. 

The treatment for my weird arthritis may have given me an ulcer. Oof.

Other than that, all is going well!

I have returned to work, classes are going smoothly. Alex and I have officially postponed the move to Japan until late 2021. My lungs are mostly better from the "mysterious viral lung infection" that was probably COVID (according to the ER doctor at the time, and my PCP. Side tip: do not use nose-spray before your COVID test or you could get a false negative).

The treatment for my weird arthritis is going well! I can now walk unassisted, and the constant level of pain is reduced from a constant 5-6 (around the level of having your hand slammed into a door) to 2-3 (slightly more than the achy pain when you press on a really bad bruise). 

I have slept rediculously well the last 2 days - I didn't realize that my joint pain was waking me up at night, since it worsened so gradually. 

I'm also rediculously cheerful (go figure) and I just straight up feel like I can think better. I hadn't realized what a toll that was taking on me mentally and emotionally.

In an unexpected twist, I have been diagnosed with Spondyloarthritis (the exact type is still pending). 

I have never heard of this before. 

I am very confused by what this is. Even trying to find links to put in this entry is difficult, because they tend to say different things... and also don't answer many questions. Here is what I understand so far:

• it causes inflammation
• it primarily affects your spine, but it isn't uncommon to not feel like your spine is hurting... because of spine reasons? (idk, v confused)
  • my spine doesn't hurt, btw. It's my hips, knees, and hands. 
• It isn't an autoimmune disorder, but also kinda is? Sometimes? The doctor said it's basically a "cousin" to an autoimmune disorder?
• You treat it with anti-inflammatory medications. If that doesn't work you use immunosuppresants and anti-inflammatory medications. 
• It may go away after a year? Or last forever?
• It may fuse my spine into one solid spine-boi, but it may not. 
• It has caused some minor but permanent damage to my finger joints, and possibly my other affected joints.

So yeah, very confused. But happy to have treatment!

The doctor also said I have to get re-tested for autoimmune disorders every 3-4 months for a while because I have all the symptoms of Lupus and she is concerned that it's not showing up in the bloodwork. Apparently the doctor that told me that it's "imposssible" for me to get a rash from sunlight and it's just a sunburn (even when it's clearly a rash) when I was a little kid was full of shit. I also should have been seeing a doctor for the raynauds disease that I get in my hands and feet, and not just saying "I know what it is, so it's fine". Also, I shouldn't have fevers as often as I do, and get sick as often as I do. And a few others. Oof.