Well, everyone is looking back on the past year, wondering what happened to the last 12 months and so on. That's why I like working these last few days of the calendar year - there is nobody in the office and it allows a person to do some good house cleaning and self-reflection. I am not immune to such introspection, and in fact I embrace it.

2012 was ugly. Dont get me wrong. I am very blessed with my family, friends, health and employment, and given the events of the past few weeks, I can overlook other items that - at the time - seemed to be big deals for me.

But that's the beauty of self introspection. You dont have to equate it to the triumph or tragedy of others, but rather to the changes in yourself over the past 12 months. And in that light, 2012 was all a roller coaster full of disappearing dollars.

In the past 12 months we have:

* relocated twice, including an apartment and a housing purchase.
* because we relocated to FL, I watched our insurance costs double, almost across the board.
* both my DW and I changed jobs (not always because we wanted to).
* I blew apart my achilles tendon in the Spring, so the resulting surgery, rehab, and doctor's visits - net of insurance - totaled between $6500-7000 for the year.
* DW had some dental surgery that totaled over $3000 after paltry insurance input.
* several touch-ups were required of the new place, totaling a few thousand bucks.
* we had issues with a couple of our pets, and the vet bills were about 4x the typical annual expense.
* we decided to put in a pool at the house, involving 2 months of construction and many dollars! (but boy it looks beautiful)

So when it came time to review the year's performance against last January's budget, it was challenging to say the least. However, all things considered , I think I did ok. Only a handful of categories were significantly different than the original estimates, and often those could be explained through cost of living or lifestyle changes that were previously unknown.

Incidentally, have you ever noticed how as soon as you decide to make a major purchase, unexpected items start popping up? It's as if someone out there says "Ok, you signed the contract, but I want to make sure you earn this" and quickly your down payment vanishes into a vet bill or your vacation money gets sucked into an AC repair. Hate those situations! If I had hair, I would be pulling it out.

So bring on 2013!! I've got some ambitious goals set and a budget laid out. Let's see how well we do. Here's a couple known items for 2013 that we will be using as qualifying factors at the end of next year.

* we will need to replace one of our cars (long story).
* the company my DW works for was just acquired (again), so we will keep an eye on the fallout from that.
* I have a 7-year old son, so you know something (car window, ming vase, etc.) will end up being replaced this year.
* then there is all those unknowns that spark the need for annual self-reflection.

"... and the hits just keep on comin'..." (think Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men - love that movie!)

This is the second post in less than a month. That's some sort of record for me. So I got to thinking - and the more you read my blogs, the more you will realize that I am ALWAYS thinking something - that writing a blog may be a good exercise to help me focus.

You know how you hear about people that have a notebook by their bedside or in the bathroom or outside the shower so they can write down ideas that pop in their head? You know those ideas - what did i forget to pack? I need to remember to call... what do I need to do tomorrow? etc. In order to sleep (or do whatever) in peace, it helps to write them down. There is something in the act of doing so that puts your mind at ease and says it is ok to move on.

There has to be a paper written on that someplace. If not, I just gave a psych professor somewhere a great idea.

Incidentally, I think that parentheses and dashes were invented for the random thinker - or what I call a popcorn thinker (Pop! There's an idea. Pop! There's another...). The popcorn thinker has difficulty keeping a single train of thought so he/she uses the parentheses and dashes to insert the actual thoughts that enter their mind, whether or not it is relevant to the current discussion. You will notice a lot of these in my blogs.

Anyway, I started to think that writing a blog post might be therapeutic in helping me get thoughts out of my head so I can perform better at work. I love numbers and could talk personal finance all day. Unfortunately, it is not necessarilly germain to my job, and I dont get paid to be thinking about personal finance. So, maybe if I get my thoughts - random as they are - out on 'paper' and out of my head, I will be more productive! Sound plausible?

Remind me later to ask my boss for a raise. Such an increase in productivity needs to be rewarded!

One more random thought - when a job posting states "awesome culture", is that like saying your blind date has a good personality? Not that I am looking, but I saw it in a LinkedIn status update.

Nonethless, if I can remember to post an entry now and then, expect a lot of random thoughts. I just need to get stuff out of my head. You, my Faithful Reader (a term Stephen King often uses - love his work!) have become my therapy. Good luck with that.


** In fact (and this is the honest truth), I just had to re-type this entire blog. I went to categorize it and saw the link for "Edit Categories". Since I didnt (at the time) have a Category for Random Thoughts, I clicked on the link and promptly lost my original post.

SQUIRREL!