Happy New Year!! (Weekly Wrap-up Edition)

Happy New Year on this last day of 2017. 

This year I did not focus on running.  I took many breaks which has made coming back to running at the end of the year a lot more enjoyable.  I only ran 355.79 miles last year, which included 2 months of no running at all.  Despite the lack of running I did run 9 races and a triathlon.

Instead of running, I did do a good share of biking this past summer.  I got a brand new bike, which I completely am in love with.  I got 591.41 miles of biking in.  I was even in a parade!

On the non-run, non-bike front, I got a new job.  Well two new jobs.  I was laid off at the end of 2016 from a job that I had for 15 years.  After a few months off I got a new job as a contractor.  I helped them move letters from an old system to a new one.  Over the summer I added to my duties and got a title of Scrum Master.  A month ago, I was offered a job as a full time Scrum Master.  This is a job I have been trying to get for the past year an a half.  And after 3 weeks, it's exactly what I want to do.  I hope that it keeps up the fun and challenge.

My cats are still their crazy selves.  My old lady had some issues a few months back.  But she is much better and we found out that her kidney blood work is normal.  They did find a new friend.  I had an outdoor cat come visit almost every day.  She looks in at them and they look out at her.  For the first few months I didn't feed her and she kept coming back.  I saw the enjoyment that she gave my cats, so I started feeding her.  And I did end up name her Duibhe (pronounced Doobie).  It means black in Gaelic.  There is no chance that she will become an indoor cat, but with the freezing temps out there, I want to do what I can for her.

While I took time off from work at the beginning of the year, I did take a Sign Language class.  This is something that really interests me and I wish I could use it on a regular basis so I could really learn it.  Maybe one day....

For Valentine's Day we had a girls night out to do a Murder Mystery Dinner.  This was a lot of fun and we plan on doing it again at some point.

I was lucky enough to see the Eclipse this past year.  Granted it was only 86% of the Eclipse but it was so amazing that I didn't need to see the full thing.  It was a once in a lifetime view.  Though I'm tempted to make plans to see the full one in 7 years.

I did do a lot around my house.  While I had time off in the beginning of the year, I was able to clean out a lot of my house.  This included 10 trips to Goodwill.  While the house is not as clean as it was in March, it still is fairly organized.  I also power washed the side of my house, deck, and front porch.  As well as stained and painted my deck and porch.  The outside looks so nice now.  But there still are things that need to be done.  I also started upgrading some items in my house to start connecting and making my house Smart.  This includes automating my porch lights to go on and off with the sunrise and sunset, my thermostats, and my front door lock.  I have plans on a couple more things that I'd like to connect.

 

 This next year I don't have any grand plans.  I am signed up for two Disney races, but that's it.  I probably will be signing up for a St. Patrick's day race, but not sure if it will be a 5k or 10k.   I really don't have any other real plans.  I'd like to have a vacation where I'm not running.  I haven't had one of those in like 2-3 years.  Beyond that, no plans or goals for 2018.  I don't believe in resolutions, as I know if there is something I want to do, I don't want to wait till New Years.  And I don't want to half heartedly do something just because it's New Years.  

 

Though I have been thinking about doing the #365DaysOfHappy challenge on Instagram.  I don't know if it's something that I want to commit to every day, but I'd like to share what makes me happy each day.  We will see if it happens or not. :)

How was your year?  Any plans for 2018?

Linking up with Holly and Tricia's Weekly Wrap Up.

 

Sign Language Class (Friday Five Edition)

Since I lost my job I have been trying to stay busy.  I was lucky enough to get some training money with my severance and they did not have to be IT classes.  After telling my mom that I was not going back for another degree (she is a college professor and loves to encourage me to go back to school), I looked around at the local classes to see what I would like to learn.  I saw that one was offering Sign Language classes.  I don't know what my draw to Sign Language is as I do not know anyone who is deaf, but I have always been fascinated by it.  I love watching the interpreters at live events.

1.  I learned the alphabet and some basic words when I was in second grade.  I went to a Montessori school and there I remember being taught these basic things.  Up to the start of the class I could still did remember the alphabet and a couple words like love, want, and day. 

2.  The class was a 6 week course taught through one of the local universities which as a vast non-degree curriculum.  The class was taught by a deaf person.  The first day there was an interpreter there explaining a lot of the details.  The rest of the classes there was not.  It is a little challenging to take a class without an interpreter there, but it made us learn a little bit more to communicate.  We would write on the board or finger spell things to get our thoughts across.  I do think I learned more without being able to rely on the interpreter.

3.  We played games.  I think this was the most fun and the way I learned.  Remember the game telephone where everyone sat in a circle and one person started and whispered something to the person next to them?  They would go around the circle back to the first person and what was said was so mangled it didn't make sense.  We played the deaf version of that where everyone stood in a line and the person at the back would show a sentence (or word spelled out) to the person in front.  It would go through the line to the first person, and like telephone, it was a mangled mess.  It was funny to see what it started at and how it ended. 

The other game we played the last week was that the teacher started with a word and each person would add one word to that sentence.   The sentence we ended up with on the last class was "Women love watching birds fly in the evening and don't love to eat cats or dogs, but they want many flowers on Friday".

4. The hardest part for me was reading the signs, especially when it was spelled out.  It's easy to practice signing, but if you don't have anyone to sign to you, it's hard to keep up.  The other students had said the same thing, especially about the finger spelling.  Your brain is so busy trying to figure out what letter it is, you forget what the first few were and then you can't figure out what the word is supposed to be.  And it doesn't help that I'm a horrible speller.

5. The American Sign Language (ASL) sentence structure is different from the English language.  Like when you are speaking Spanish, the adjectives are always after the noun and in English the adjectives are before the noun.  In ASL the questions are backwards for the most part.  Instead of "Where were you born?" it would be "Born Where?". 

I have really enjoyed these past six weeks, though I feel like we haven't scratched the surface.  Luckily there is another 6 week course taught by the same teacher.  And I have already signed up for it. 

What other languages do you know?  Have you ever learned Sign Language?

I'm linking up with Fairytales and Fitness and Running on Happy for Friday Five 2.0