Well, it looks like we, at least in my circle, have unceremoniously welcomed 2021 – I worked my 8 hours, ate 2 square meals plus a midday snack, finished listening to The Queen’s Gambit on Audible, blogged, and went to sleep long before midnight rolled around.

2020 is finally in the past. Sayonara 2020. Good riddance. Goodbye. Adios.

So far, it doesn’t feel that much different than 2020 but it’s been only a few hours. What did I expect? Nothing changes that fast unless we’re talking about the apocalypse – you know, the movie-2012-kind-of-apocalypse. Now that is fast.

I guess my hopes for 2021 might had been a bit too high to start with. So much for being optimistic, right?

To kick off the new year, I usually set goals and hopes for myself to be accomplished in 2021. I don’t call my goals “new year resolutions” because people usually stick to resolutions for about two weeks before giving up. I call them goals because they are achievable no matter how difficult they are and they sometimes give me something to look forward to in this otherwise monotonous life.

First though, I’d like to review my goals and hopes for 2020 to see if I achieved any of them. It appears I have achieved my hopes – I have successfully curb my sugar and cravings and I do believe I went on more hikes in 2020 even though a lot of the hikes were in the same location.

I struggled with taking vacation days in 2020 though but 2020 wasn’t a year for vacation. I mean, nobody could go anywhere in 2020 but I suppose I could had taken a staycation. *sigh* I still took one day though – December 23 – that counts as a vacation day, right?

Now for my goals in 2021:

• Print at least one landscape photo in a poster format
• Take a decent solo vacation – no mom, no family, just me, my camera, and the open road
• Treat myself to a spa day when needed – It turns out, spas aren’t that expensive, and I know my body has been crying out “SPA DAY”!.
• Try to pay more principal than 2020 on home mortgage – try out the snowball method so I can pay off my mortgage quicker and start saving money to pay off my mom so she’ll stop reminding me I owe her some 70K.
• Try to save at least $5,000 to pay off my debt to my mom.

Hopes

• Try to be happier and not let my inner pessimistic voice and my family lead me down the path of misery
• Healthy and free of health scares unlike 2020 when I had problem with my blood which resulted in having to add one more doctor – hematologist – to visit.
• Write and possibly submit a short story like I did in 2019