A List to End the Year

Oh my god, this miserable year is finally coming to a close. Thank god. I've had it.

Life is pretty quiet right now. Days come and go and I fill them with working by day and watching YouTube / Drag Race with Charlie / playing Animal Crossing by night. It definitely feels like we as a society are in mile 19 of a marathon. The end feels so close yet so far away and girl I'm so done with it. I just can't wait to let someone shoot me up with that vaccine. I'm horny for it.

We had a quiet Christmas just the two of us. We made egg rolls on Christmas Eve (a Blauvelt family tradition) and I made pear coffee cake for Christmas Day breakfast. We didn't do gifts for each other. I personally HATE getting gifts. I'm controlling and don't like things coming into my posession that I didn't explicitly purchase or ask for. People don't understand it so unfortunately I'm subject to always receiving at least a few gifts at Christmas. Luckily most of the things I received were edible (the one type of gift I can be fine with).

Due to life being quiet, my increased feelings of nostalgia, having taken essentially no photos this past month, and trying to keep positive I thought I would let this post be a list of everything good that's happened this year:

• Moving in with Charlie into our new place. Spoiler alert, we're probably gonna move in the summer because we want a cat and our landlord won't let us have one 😿. But maybe not. Who the fuck knows?
• Getting a great job and finally having (what I'd call) a real job for the first time in about 2 years.
• Graduating from Alchemy Code Lab. Doing that program is probably the best decision I've made in my adult life other than moving to Portland in the first place. I 1000000% recommend it and love everyone there. I also made great friends there 👯‍♂️!
• Starting this blog which has made me hate the internet a bit less and lets me pretend it's still 2007 (which was the golden age of the internet IMO).
• Listening to a lot of music. Here's an Apple Music & Spotify playlist of some of my favorite stuff that came out this year (in no particular order). I recommend just shuffling it if you listen.
• Going on two fun camping trips in the summertime. I bought my first tent this year as well so I'm more prepared for camping than ever before (I'm known for being severely underprepared).
• Ordering an electric bicycle. After riding the bikeshare e-bikes I knew I wanted one so I ordered one back in November. It's supposed to here on the 8th so hopefully I'll be able to talk about it in my next blog post 🤞🏻.
• Eating many many many baked goods and discovering that Crema doesn't actually suck and becoming a regular there. Also Sparrow Bakery opening in Portland giving me access to the closest thing to a legitimate kardemummabullar that I've had outside of Sweden.
• Taquiera Los Puñales opening right as we moved into our new apartment 🏳️‍🌈.
• Working from my courtyard. I love that courtyard. I'll miss it if we wind up moving.
• TRUMP FUCKING LOSING!!!
• Joining a coworking space in town (shoutout to Collective Agency). It's really helped me feel more productive leaving my house everyday. Also there's a lot of safety procautions in place so I feel safe when I'm there.
• Pretty much bailing on posting on social media. I want to full on delete Instagram but I'm not ready. Perhaps 2021 is the year?
• Watching Day in the life of a Japanese salary woman videos on Youtube. I watch a lot of like... "people living their lives" videos these days. Also video reviews of trains in Europe. It's how I escape.
• Walking everywhere. I drive like... maybe once every 2 weeks. During the summer Charlie and I would go on walks almost every evening but now-a-days I just walk for all my errands.
• Having a fireplace for the first time! We do a lot of fires and they're hella cozy.
• Buying a (knockoff) Eames Lounge Chair on Craigslist and fulfilling a dream I've had since my teen years.
• Turning 29 and making the best birthday cake I've ever had. I also got to have friends around in my courtyard that day which I probably wouldn't do today so I'm thankful I got to do a little something for my birthday this year.
• Not dying. That should really just be enough this year, you know?

That's 19 good things! Enough to make me think this year wasn't a complete loss. It's the little things, right? 2021 will be here soon though and I'm really excited for the new world where I can socialize and travel and have a full life again. Fauci says vaccines will be available to the public March/April and I hope that turns out to be true because I will run straight to wherever I need to go to get it. I hope you'll do the same, friend.

See you on the other side ♥️.