An end-of-the-year quiz! Now with more links! And how!

I saw this over here and thought it was cute…Plus I’m just a sucker for quizzes. Who knew it was going to take me all friggin day to complete, though! January was many, many moons ago, apparently. Anyway, here you have it, 2009 in review (and a lot about my house, sorry.)

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Bought a house (!), tried absinthe (ick), and got reeeeeeally into vampires.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I make the same resolution every year, which is to always be reading a book, and I kept it…For the most part. Right around the time we were moving, I was reading Interview with the Vampire and between work stress, moving stress, stressy stress, and the fact that the book HAS NO CHAPTERS, I just couldn’t get into it. Then I tried reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, but to no avail. Since things were sort of desperate, I turned to the old standby, James Patterson (Cross Country), but got nothing. Luckily my mother-in-law recently came to the rescue with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire. Finally, I’m back in the game!

And yep, same resolution for 2010. That, and making more of an effort to remember/acknowledge the birthdays/anniversaries of my friends/family. I suck at that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Other than a couple of my internet peeps, nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank goodness.

5. What countries did you visit?
Just Mexico. And it didn’t get too exciting in the states, either: One trip to San Francisco for fun and a couple work trips to Washington D.C., one of which was only made exciting by the fact that one of my brothers-in-law was living there at the time.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you didn’t have in 2009?
A baby? Haha…Ha. Ha.

7. What dates from 2009 will be etched upon your memory, and why?
September 15th, the day we got the keys to our house. It’s sort of significant (and the only date, other than my birthday, that came to mind) because it was actually the date we were supposed to close escrow…Which means that we technically closed on the 14th, which in foreclosure world, is a HUGE deal (banks have a tendency to just do things whenever they feel like it, regardless of what the contract says. My [irrational] fear was that we’d have to live out of a moving truck for a week or more.)

8. What was your biggest achievement of this year?
Umm, buying a house? Seriously, it took a lot of work…Three separate trips up here to look at houses, writing FIVE other offers before getting this one accepted, and digging up a shit-ton of documents for the loan. Not to mention all the trips to the bar we had to forgo in order to save money. Now THAT was the real achievement!

9. What was your biggest failure?
I feel like a failure right now, thanks for bringing that up! I’m sort of kidding, but sort of not. I gave up a fun job that I really liked in order to move up here and although I love it here (and I don’t miss my BlackBerry AT ALL), I do miss feeling like my life has a purpose and like I’m contributing to my family/household.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I did not! In fact, just the other day, Chris and I were discussing injuries and broken bones and whatnot and he couldn’t believe I’d never broken a bone. I was like, dude, there were four of you, there was only one of me. I’ve never broken a bone, never been to the hospital, and never ridden in an ambulance. Knock on wood.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I’ll give you one guess.

I was also pretty excited about my iPhone, but I didn’t technically pay for that.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I don’t know if it was his behavior, per se, but my dad retired in February, so that was a pretty big reason to celebrate. He worked for 55 years straight, his first job selling gum, newspapers, etc. to commuters taking the Staten Island Ferry, so he deserves a little R&R more than anyone I know. Now, if only his Cleveland Browns would make it to the playoffs once in awhile…

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I had a dear friend who basically decided to up and end our friendship. Without telling me. I’m not really that upset about it; she started dating a guy and basically turned into a different person, so her ending the friendship wasn’t the actual loss of the friend, as that had pretty much already happened. [I hope that made sense.] Anyway, to make it even more annoying, she still stood up at our wedding (presumably knowing then that she hated me?), which means that now every time I look at our wedding pictures, I have to see her. Talk about bad character, right?

14. Where did most of your money go?
Again, I’ll give you one guess.

That, and champagne.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Celebrating our first anniversary in Napa at Domaine Chandon and Bottega and with a bottle of Cristal. Also, I was pretty darn excited to go to Mexico.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
You guys remember than one song that sounded faintly reggae and went something like, “Hey baby, I love you” or something like that? No? Here, I found it. Anyway, it was catchy and cute and always put me in a better mood. Talk about a one-hit-wonder, though; I heard it ALL THE TIME for, like, a week and now I haven’t heard it in months.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
A) Basically the same; sadder about some things, but that’s balanced by being happier about others.
B) Pretty much the same size, maybe a liiiiiitle bit bigger, but whatevs.
C) Poorer. A lot poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I’d been able to see my family more. I have three very cute, very awesome cousins who are growing up way too fast. If memory serves me correct, I haven’t seen any of them since my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary party almost ONE YEAR AGO, which is so not cool.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
I wish I’d stressed out less. Maybe then I wouldn’t have this whole wake-up-at-three-in-the-morning thing going on ALL THE TIME.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
We spent Christmas Eve at home, just the two of us; I cooked a turkey breast, orzo caprese pasta salad, roasted vegetables, and spinach salad. On Christmas day we headed over to Chris’s parents’ house; I painted my nails, read my book, and watched Christmas movies. Then we had a New York roast, the best scalloped potatoes ever, brussel sprouts, green beans, and tons of yummy desserts. Hi, I love food.

21. Did you fall in love with 2009?
No. I did not. 2009, you were cool and all, but I think 2007 and 2008 were better. Bring it on, 2010!

22. What was your favorite TV program?
I don’t think I really discovered any new shows, so the old ones held their top spots: How I Met Your Mother, Top Chef, Project Runway, Dexter, Mad Men, Entourage, Weeds, and all the Housewives.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I’m usually very good at hating, but I actually don’t think I hate anyone right now. Surprisingly.

WAIT! I hate the cotton-headed ninny-muggins drama queen who won Top Chef this past season. The little a-hole.

24. What was the best book you read?
I’m really into what I’m reading now, which is The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. Its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was also great, and I’m excited for the third installment to arrive in the states in June! I also really enjoyed Sam’s Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I am sooooo not a musical discoverer (although I sooooo wish I was.) Sadly, I pretty much stick with the old standbys, which, I hate to admit, is mostly ’90s grunge or rap. Lucky for me, Chris recently (re)acquired all his old CDs from his brother, so I should have lots of “new” punk bands and underground hip-hop groups to discover.

26. What did you want and get?
I wanted a house and I got a house.

27. What did you want and not get?
I wanted to wake up one morning and find that all my cellulite had miraculously disappeared, but I have not gotten that. Yet! There is still one more day of 2009 to wake up to.

28. What was your favorite film of 2009?
Gosh, I can’t even remember what I saw in 2009, with the exception of New Moon, because that was, like, three weeks ago. I think I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona early in the year, which I loved. Oh, and The Hangover was AWESOME. I left the theatre feeling as though I’d just worked out, that’s how hard I was laughing.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 26 this year and went to dinner at Po Pazzo in San Diego. It was a very good birthday, minus the fact that I have now broken the camera Chris got me.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
This sounds like a pageant – I mean, scholarship program – question, so I’ll say world peace! Other than that, I would have been pretty psyched if #27 had happened. There’s always tonight!

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2009?
Haha, fashion concept, that’s a good one. I am the queen of jeans and black t-shirts – is that a concept? Other than that, I got really into big flower rings this year. Peace, love, and happiness, yo.

32. What kept you sane?
I’m not gonna lie, the booze helps keeps things level ’round here.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
If I told you what political issue I was most stirred by, you’d probably look at me like I had worms coming out of my eyeballs. Working in politics, I tend to get twisted about issues most people haven’t heard of; conversely, I’m usually unstirred by the things that most Americans (or at least the national news networks) are bothered by.

Case in point: I am currently VERY irked that Chris’s Jeep didn’t pass smog, because of some new Fuel Evaporative Controls Functional test they started doing this year. No mind that the emissions portion passed with flying colors; we can’t get new tags until this “issue” is fixed and because Chris doesn’t know what causes this issue, he can’t fix it himself. Grr.

34. Who did you miss?
As I said before, my family, especially those ten years old and younger. Sorry old folks, love you too, but you’re not as cute as the young-uns.

35. Who was the best new person you met?
I feel like I *met* a lot of cool new people on the Interwebs, but that doesn’t really count, now does it? As for a real-life person, I [sadly] didn’t meet anyone all that awesome. At least not anyone who was so cool I had to get their phone number (yep, checked my contacts – no new numbers.)

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Bolt your safe to the ground.

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“When the pigs try to get at yea / Park it like it’s hot” – Snoop Dogg