2013: The Year in Review – Everything is Connected

Uh-oh, I just realized how very broken this site is. The blog post links work but fancy stuff like the slide show gallery of photos and the Twitter widget are kaputt. Which means finding a new theme is now added to my Project List. What else has kept me busy this year?

January
Finalization that I was transferring positions with my firm and changing cities came through in mid-December 2013 but there was holiday partying and travel in the back half of the month so I only started to pack up all of my stuff in January and said goodbye to my life in Toronto and my ultra-cool condo. I am satisfied that I got it out of my system and was excited to start the next phase of my life involving choosing to return to Vancouver. My last day at work in Toronto was on a Friday, I left on Saturday and started in the Vancouver office on Monday. It sounds a little insane but it’s all within Canada and to a city I already know! It’s not like I’m some big-time executive moving out of the country with a family and needing a moment to settle.

February
At a Chinese New Year family gathering (February 11), his family picked an auspicious date for the wedding and started planning….

March
On my birthday, NPY (finally) proposed. I would have preferred it while we were traveling last year in Hawaii or even Vegas, but it was atop Grouse Mountain instead.

April
Taking advantage of having a place to stay in San Francisco and badly needing a getaway from the house, I went to San Francisco for the first time in about twenty years. It was packed with walking around and adjusting how I tour on my own. (I wish I had a fitness/step tracker back then! Or even to have had the battery power to run Runkeeper all day.)

May
Slightly guilt-ridden about moving back to Vancouver after tantalizing the family that I might (remotely) settle down closer to them in Toronto, I went back for Mother’s Day. But just Halifax is not enough and I preceded the Halifax leg with a road trip to (Rochester) New York and a few days in Toronto. I also attended my first stagette, an away one in Whistler.

June
My intermediate accounting final was in the beginning of June (which made life not fun in the least for a while preceding) and subsequent completely blew off steam in a big way – lots of Barre, badminton, Chopra (yoga); fun things like a day trip to the States to have Red Lobster, watching Les Mis for the first time.

July
We did modestly fun things like a day trip to Bowen Island and I could easily forget that school ever existed. I was “taking the summer off” with the weak excuse that I needed to “plan” for the party but didn’t really do that either as a girlfriend did a big chunk of it.

August
This was a busy month of weekends with a friends trip to Vernon, cousin’s “destination wedding” in Uclueluet, WordCamp and another friend’s wedding rounded out the month of weekends! Party planning was wrapping up and we switched from house hunting mode that was on through June and July to rental hunting. I moved into our Olympic Village rental suite at the end of the month. Also, sometime this month, I finally reached total five years of employment. And I’m how old?! Of course, the exact day went unobserved and the five years were with three different employers including my current one.

September
Lil Sis was in town to visit so it was a week chockful of activities and then it was the weekend of our own party. Once again, I didn’t take any time off – party on Saturday, back to work on Monday. I started in with Tantra and went bonkers on a two-week new client pass and discovered the wonders of Aerial Silks.

October
Our annual big trip! We went to London, Amsterdam and Paris – ooh la la.

November
It was a wasteland of a month, just playing catch-up in life and had to miss Black Friday shopping both with friends who went to LA and family who went to Seattle. Boooo….

December
This year is only my second Christmas in Vancouver after all these years living there. And I still haven’t spent a New Year’s in Vancouver, this year being no different. So, at the end of December, I’m off to on a Halifax-Toronto trip.

The year in travel: pitiful.
But I was out of town (Vancouver) for 52* days of the year – on average a day per week – which then sounds more fantastic.

Three day trips to the States with friends and only as far as Tulalip – dress shopping, end of January one, Red Lobster meal
Two road trips in August – one to Vernon and one to Ucluelet – so BC-centric
Trip to San Francisco in April
Trip out east in May: NY-ON-NS
Two week Europe trip in October
Christmas trip to Toronto and Halifax

* Days where the night was not spent in Vancouver, or the day after overnight – i.e., day trips do not count.

On this day..

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