Things I Did at the End of 2010

This year I finally joined the rest of the country on a couple of random bandwagons. Among them...

* I joined Netflix. Thanks to a gift subscription for my birthday, I'm now on the get-DVDs-in-the-mail-and-watch-whatever-I-want-streaming plan that everyone else has been on for, oh, 10 years. And for all the pooh-poohing I've done, and all the claiming that I don't need that, I will say that I absolutely love it. And that I'm watching more TV and movies than at any time in recent memory. You would not believe the stuff that's out there, just waiting for you to add to your queue.

* I started playing video games other than Wii Fit. I became obsessed with Mario Galaxy 2, for instance. obsessed. Sadly, this has not improved my ability to play the float-your-bubble-down-the-river Wii Fit game, which I had hoped would be a side-effect of my eyes and brain getting used to how video games look and move on the screen.

* I joined Skype. Yeah, I know, everyone's been doing that for even longer than netflix. whatever. I had iChat with video chatting, so why did I need skype? Oh wait, so I could keep in touch with friends who don't have macs. duh. My campaign to just get everyone I know to buy a macbook has failed due to cost, and skype is free.

* I got a Kindle and also managed to download a ton of stuff before I even knew what hit me. I heart my Kindle and read on it almost every day. My favorite part is that I can read while lying down and never have to worry about the left page, which always makes my arm tired when reading regular books. I do still love books, of course, and I don't think they're going anywhere. There's something about the tactile experience of a book that you just can't replicate. but I finally got over that and joined the zillions of people who've been doing the e-reader thing for half a decade already.

* I decorated my house for Christmas. I don't normally do this, but it seems like the thing to do this year. So my living room/dining room/kitchen have lights and ornaments other other fun. No tree (cat hazard) but it is sort of festive when the lights are on.

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There are some things I did not do this year that everyone else is doing, too. For instance:

I did not get on any of the no-really-you-can-keep-your-house-clean-in-5-minutes-a-day bandwagons. I'm not sure they're for real anyway, at least not without significant up-front time investment, and besides that I'd rather relax my five minutes and clean once a week. (Well, okay, who are we kidding...I get to the end of the week and would prefer to sit on the couch, so it's more like once every 2-3 weeks...but that's where Roomba and a dishwasher come in. Praise the Lord.)

I did not join any weight-loss programs, though I did exercise more and attempt, generally, to eat better. People seem to think I've lost weight, which is lovely of them. Whether it's true or not is unknown.

I did not pay my quarterly estimated taxes on time. sigh. I swear I'm going to be better about that this year.

I did not file a single thing at my house this year. I made a pile of all the stuff to be filed, but I filed nothing. This year I have to decide whether to go ahead and file it or just shred everything and start over.

I did not blog or tweet as much as I should have. This community is important to me and if I want it to be community for me I need to participate more...so I'm working on that.

I did not get a smartphone. I did get a new cell phone, touch screen and everything (hello, 21st century, nice to see you 10 years in)...but no internet, no email, no apps. My one hold-out in the culture of always-available.

And now it's a new year, with new possibilities. May it be filled with good things.