I had my first art show… at the tender age of Pushin’ Sixty. It was a month ago, and it’s still up (at a coffee joint, not a real gallery, which took a lot of the pressure off). And half the pieces sold!
Anybody else? No matter how small, I think it’s worth blowing your own horn (as a shy person, it’s easier here, where nobody really knows me…).
Congrats on selling your work! That’s got to feel so fantastic!
This was a pretty crappy year for me, especially near the end, but I’m trying to keep it in perspective and remember the good parts too.
I challenged myself to complete one blog post a day through most of December as a sort of Ornament Advent Calendar, in which I’d tell a story tied to or inspired by one of my Christmas ornaments. It was tough, but I ended up having more fun than I expected. I have links to them all here, if anyone’s interested.
This year, I’ve lost most of the weight I had left to lose, quit smoking (9.5 months and counting!), and finished my second master’s degree. Oh, and I found a job that, while entry-level, has a lot of promotion potential, is stable, and has benefits. So not only was 2012 a pretty good year, 2013 is going to be pretty good, too.
What a great year! Kudos!
Moved out of a 4 bedroom I shared with friends for six years and into a place with just me and my girlfriend. And, after many years of scraping by as a musician, I found a very schedule-compatible and exciting “real” job to supliment my income.
A GREAT project at work.
I got an initial assignment with a limited scope: “Organize a single clean-up along the banks of the River Meuse and invite the press to it.”.
I thought more was possible, and I found organizations willing to join and make it bigger. The whole thing was started by a very enthusiast and determined professor, who started aresearch project funded by the plastics industry.But I managed to get him governmental support.
I found funds. The end result in March will be that we have a structure in place that will link semi-volunteer groups (mostly local organisations used to holding fund-raiser activities for and by their members) with landowners along the river. The landowners provide acess to the land, and pay a fee to the volunteers’ organizations. The River Government pays for picking up the collected trash. The counties along the river adress their volunteers.
We found an already existing organisation to do the overall initial coordinating. Students do the PR and some general research. It is even bigger then that, but I am already bursting with pride. 
The end result is that the percentage of banks of my River Meuse cleaned will go to a meagre 5 % to an still meagre, but very ambitious 15 %.
I love doing this. Ever when I first heard of Plastic Soup, of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and saw pictures of animals choking on plastic waste or tangled in it, I wanted to help. And it turns out I am not the only one. This years project was amazing. I seldom saw so much enthusiasm with so many people. I seldom felt so driven, and so carried along on other peoples enthusiasm as well.
Congrats! It must feel amazing that people are willing to spend money on your art work.
I quit smoking in April.
That same month, I jumped through the required hoops to become a hospice volunteer, which has been an interesting experience.
And, not that it was anything to do with me, I became auntie to a brand new nephew, who is of course, the most amazing baby in the world. 
Other than that 2012 was a fairly shitty year for me but I’m feeling good about 2013.
After 2 years of trying and 3 miscarriages, got pregnant and stayed pregnant. Expecting a son on Jan 13. Great 2012 and super excited for next year.
That’s my birthday! If he’s born on that day he’ll even have been born on the same day of the week as me!!
Anyway, I earned an associates degree at the ripe old age of 32. That’s pretty much it.
I got a stupid-ass job and (mostly unrelated) I didn’t kill anyone.
Been dabbling at growing various hot peppers and making homemade hot sauces. This year got pretty decent at both the growing the peppers and coming up with recipes. Hot Sauce Santa shipped out about 10 gallons of stuff this year.
I had fun and finally feel like I have some idea of what I am doing with this little hobby now.
BTW, ecoseeds.com is the a good goto site if you are interested in peppers (and in particular the growing from seeds part).
Congrats on your successful art show, digs! I think that is pretty cool.
Let’s see… I learned how to cook a mean bowl of Bok Choi. Garlic and ginger, maybe shrimp or scallops- it’s really yummy!
I made $5000 more this year than I made last year. Not to shabby- 2012 was my all-time highest income. And I didn’t blow it on crap- I invested a significant percentage all year long. And if I can avoid pissing off my boss for just a few more weeks I will be vested in a pension. I’m not retiring anytime soon, but it will be a Huge relief to know it is there. What can I say, I am anxious about money.
I’m still with my hot gf. We have a really nice place and cooked a lot of nice meals here. I don’t have and yowza! accomplishments I guess, but I appreciate just having a stable life.
I want to say I became a father, but I’m not sure that counts. My wife did the vast majority of the actual work, after all.
I had a baby and lost 30 lbs (from my pre-pregnancy weight).
Finished my Masters degree, after a hectic final semester of working full time and taking 166% of a full load of coursework. I somehow managed to pull off my Masters thesis on road bandits in Africa, which my advisor swore up and down I wasn’t going to be able to make work. It worked!
I was placed in a temp job at $12.00 an hour, and managed to turn that into a contract paying me $70k a year (!). With any luck, this will turn into a full-time position within the next couple months. Best off all, it is good and meaningful work that uses my skills to improve access to education.
I moved out of my rat-infested rented room in a “transitioning” part of town into a beautiful one-bedroom apartment on the good side of town. Best of all, I moved in with my beau of the last year and a half. He is a wonderful man- a cute Brazilian scientist who treats me like gold. He just met my family over the holidays, and we are looking forward to building a life together. We’ve filled our apartment with old treasures from around the world, and shiny new grow-up furniture (my first non-disposable furniture!)
Made the finals of a few prestigious fellowships (but no wins…just yet!). One had 900 applicants, of which I made the final 60 (30 were chosen- I was waitlisted, boo), and I’m in the first cut of another that starts with 12,000 applicants and is now down to 1,600. Wish me luck!
It wasn’t a big travel year, but I did manage to hit my fifth continent on my first real-life business trip. I got to see four dear friends get married, and took my beau back to California to meet my family over the holidays.
Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better year. =D
Well I think we found the overachiever of the bunch. 
Seriously though, congrats even sven. It sounds like you had an awesome year.
With a lot of help from many different quarters (including the SDMB), I scrambled from being unemployed with little future to being a full-time student.
Despite the fact that I feel like I clawed my way in by the tips of my fingers, and despite the fact that my stepfather, with whom I was staying, passed away very suddenly in early October, and I had to find a new place to live as well as help the family clear out the old house, I managed to pass, and not only that, I’m on the Honours List, with a 4.6 GPA!
Got out of my craphole job that was making me a very unhappy man (as evidenced by my posting here during that time) and got a nice cushy job paying 50% more that is making me a much happier (and more pleasant) fellow.
That was a big one for me.
Congrats on the successful art show, digs.
This will sound stupid compared to everyone else’s stories, but my big accomplishment was getting a new car. Well, it’s not NEW new since it’s a 2007. But compared to my 1993 POS, that’s pretty dang new.
I struggle with treating myself to material things. Maybe it’s low-level anxiety about the future or lack of confidence about always having a job…I just have something in my nature that keeps me from making major purchases and having fun with money. However, I am getting better with this. This winter I have actually turned on my heat!
When my old car was totaled earlier this year, I was all set to go without a car indefinitely. Walking everyone made my life infinitely harder, but hey, life is always hard. Might as well get used to it! But a friend encouraged me to see things differently and convinced me that it’s okay to actually get excited about something. So I picked out something that I liked and said, “Go git it, girl!”
I have done some great things in adulthood. But I have to say, the day I drove my car home was the happiest day of my life.
Not bad for a shitty year… great job on the quitting!!! And the volunteering and the auntie thing, too.
And thanks to all for the encouragement on the art show … it hasn’t sunk in yet (I still look at it as My Scribblings that I’m showing to friends… like I did in my 7th grade notebooks).