Happy New Year!

It’s 2003! 2002 is officially dead, pushing up the daisies, stiff as a board. Welcome 2003!

We finished our Christmas prezzie opening yesterday.

Stockings:
Santa left candy and an adorable little bear-in-a-star-costume ornament that I had ooed and giggled at when I saw it at the “Build-a-Bear” workshop in my stocking. Matthew got chocolate and several pairs of holiday socks. He was very excited about the socks. And Hobkin got a pile of Apple Pupovers and a little packet of Kleenex.

Hobkin loves to shred tissues. Our living room looks like a blizzard of shredded paper came whirling through it. It was very cute, seeing him pull out each tissue from the little container, hold it between his front paws, and systematically tear off bits, spit them out, and then repeat. Messy, but cute. Clean up will commence next week.

– My place of business gave me a nice bake-ware set, as I had stipulated from their gift catalog. Huzzah. Now we can pitch the cookie sheet and muffin tin that look like they’ve been through a war zone.
– dude_the gave us the first season of the Avengers on DVD. Much fun. Thanks, Dude, The!
– Mike, a friend of ours from Illinois, gave us several bags of this amazing coffee we love from Harry & David, a box of Frango mints, and a canvas wine carrying bag. Whee!
– Completed opening revealed: LoTR and Labyrinth on DVD, a really sexy see-thru top from Express that I’d been drooling over, and a pair of gargoyles for the library.

I like prezzies!

In writing news, I received in the mail my check from Phobos (woo!) and a packet of goodies that included a copy of last year’s anthology–signed by the publishers–and the press kit with my bio and picture in it. The mail also gifted me with my membership packet from the SFWA (at last!), and a form rejection from Space & Time. Sigh. The rejection note was maybe an inch wide. It was too small to even use as a bookmark! Nothing like ending the year on a deflating note.

We rang in the New Year with a bottle of wine, eschewing champagne this year. Matthew and I had picked up a lovely white at a tiny little San Francisco winery called Viansa in 1998 when we went there on our anniversary, as part of a wine tasting tour. We loved this vintage and bought an extra bottle and have been saving it. We decided it was time to open it last night. We drank the whole thing which, if you know anything about my drinking habits, is a lot of alcohol for me. Mmm, tipsy good New Year.

But now I’m awake, sober (sans hangover, thankfully), and thinking of 2003.

Resolutions:

– I stepped on the @#*$&! scale this morning. ACK! Resolution the first: I will lose the seven pounds I have gained from being sick and sedentary, and then chowing down on rich, fatty, sugary holiday fare. Gah.
– As sort of an addendum to resolution the first, I will pick up my very neglected yoga studies again. A new session starts on the 6th which I will join.
– On the writing side of things, I want to push forward with my productivity.

Writing-wise, I want to:
– Write and finish 12 short stories and/or finish the novel I’ve started.
– Make another pro-level sale so that I can qualify for Active status in the SFWA. Actually, I hate making this resolution ’cause I don’t have the same level of control over the success of it as I do over just completing something I write, but there it is, hovering over me.

Looking back at 2002 I:
– Saw my fiction in print in Cicada, completed thirteen short stories, and have begun a novel.
– Was a winner of the Phobos fiction contest, giving me another pro-level sale.
– Sold three stories to semi-pro markets.
– Joined the SFWA as an associate member.
– Penned a total of around 85K words in thirteen completed short stories. I keep a yearly tab on my writing output. In 2000, I completed approximately 45K words. In 2001 it was 57K. I saw a big bump in productivity this year. I’m hoping to maintain that and push it forward to the 100K mark. That’s not a resolution ’cause I’m more interested in completed works than word count, but a long-term goal is to hit my millionth word by 2010, so a little voice in the back of my head tells me I gotta keep stepping up the pace.

2002 was a pretty decent year, writing-wise. May 2003 be even better!

Things on today’s agenda:

I got Matthew this receiver for our downstairs entertainment system for Christmas. He was already tinkering with it yesterday and excitedly using a lot of words that my brain didn’t really register. Hardware confuses me. I suspect he’ll spend a good portion of today playing with it. I want to watch some of the excellent DVDs we got. We watched Lilo and Stitch yesterday upstairs on the big TV. I really love that movie. It’s just so sweet, funny, and poignant!

Basically, today will be a lazy day, I think. Maybe with some hot tubbing!

2002 had ups and downs, but then every year does. I am thankful for Matthew and his family, and our friends. ‘Tis the season to treasure one’s loved ones, as every season should be.

Welcome, 2003.