On January 1, I made my wish list for the year. We can just say I didn't get what I wanted. Maybe I was overly optimistic but I only wanted a healthy year, a year free of political mudslinging, a year of international stability and a year of tolerance. Not much.

Well where did we get to? The political mudslinging is getting ridiculous and as a note to anyone who aspires to get into politics - I will just say if you ever want to cheat on your spouse or tax return or change your mind about anything, please be sure to have a good reason to do so. On the international stability front, I feel the Doomsday clock (do we even still have that) ticking away: North Korea leadership, Greek and Italian economics, Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Libya/Egypt/a few more countries and their uprisings/protests/change of leadership. And the list goes on and on and on.

Tolerance? Well we certainly don't have that since we have political mudslinging and international instability. I do however see some progress in that. I am not saying its perfect but I feel progress. Talk to someone in a younger generation in the US and most of them are color blind - they don't care about the skin color of their friends and family members. Most have always gone to an integrated school where more than one language was spoken by their friends' families. I see progress in gay rights - it has its ups and downs but is staying at the forefront instead of being pushed off to the side so things are changing. We still have the stupid Westboro Baptist Church and other bigots around to spread hate and probably always will have to put up with other people's narrow-mindedness. But I do feel some optimism here.

On my health, well that's another story. I had another record number of doctor appointments this year - for some reason I keep count (well really its because Excel helpfully numbers the lines in the spreadsheet where I keep track of medical expenses so they can be deducted from our taxes). On one hand I have not had any kind of surgery for over 3 years (unless you count minor back procedures), but on the other I have body parts which are being problematic and if they don't get back in line soon that may end. I also am not being treated for anything too significant - unless you count post cancer as significant which I try to ignore. My back is being decidedly uncooperative these days which gives me lots of pain which sometimes leads to crabbiness and other problems. I did join a new gym in 2011 and am working on getting in better shape. Next step is to actually lose some more weight. I have also tried acupuncture for pain and other issues and will continue to do so.

So at the end of yet another year that didn't go as planned, I will have to come up with some new hopes for the future. Perhaps I will focus on smaller things like fitting into my size 8 pants again.