It was a very good year...

Happy New Year's Eve! Can you believe 2014 is already over? We say this every year, don't we? Where does the time go? Unless, of course, it was a bad year. Then we say, good riddance! Couldn't come fast enough! How are you feeling about your year? Are you sad to leave 2014 behind to the discarded calendars and Facebook summaries? Or is 2015 going to be your year and you are ready to dive in with all the gusto of a hungry dog in a pool filled with Milk Bones?

Pool party!

It's been a long year for this guy

I'm a little mixed on the whole New Year thing. Well, no, that's not true. I am very excited for 2015! This past year has been amazing, but man has it been crazy! I finished my Master's thesis, graduated, ran a 10 mile race, got married, went to Europe, bought a house and started a new job. And those are only the big things! I'm looking forward to a little quiet and normalcy, if I can even remember what those things are any more.

And yet, even though I am craving the quiet and routine that has been absent from my life for so many years (did it ever exist?), I know it won't be long before I am daydreaming about this crazy year where so much changed ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Maybe I should have spread some of the joy out a bit?

Nah. That wouldn't be very me. I am a person of extremes, not moderation. I want all the joy and happiness together so they can add up to a greater joy than the sum total of its parts. I also want all the sadness and anger at once so I can get it out of the way and then remember how strong I must have been to get through all the shit that happened that one time way back when. Now I'm ready for a large dose of boring so in a couple months when summer comes around I will be bursting at the seams to get some excitement going and maybe have some wild adventures. 

Summer, I'll be waiting

Among other things I did this year, starting this blog was one! June 23 was the first blog post on Sheridan's To-do List and now this will be my 23 post and we will soon be over 1,050 views! And most of them weren't even me! OK, a lot of them probably were, at least in the beginning. But now I just have you to thank, dear readers. So, thank you for tuning in the past six months! On my 2015 to-do list (coming next time) one of the top items is to post every week. I'm going to do it. I swear. I promise! I'll try...

My first to-do list!

There was one thing I didn't do this year. And the funny thing is, it was the whole reason I started this blog! I mentioned it a few times, but in case you forgot, I was supposed to run the Philly Half-Marathon last month. And I totally DID NOT. Actually, of the four people I was signed up with, only one did it! Crystal, this blog post is dedicated to you. Congratulations on finishing your first half marathon! I am so proud of you for working towards your goal even when the rest of us dropped out.

Balloon flowers to celebrate!

Am I bummed not to have completed the race? Not really. I felt bad backing out when I had joined with the intention of running with my friends, but clearly that did not stop Crystal. But my training fell right off the wagon when the house thing started. It's not a good excuse, but my heart just wasn't in training with so much going on. I was still running, just not enough, and I didn't want to hurt myself and prevent working towards my general fitness goals. I know, excuses, excuses. 

It did have one great result, though, and that is this blog! I had originally planned on starting it to track my progress training for the half-marathon. But that seemed too finite a goal. What would I keep writing about after the race was over? I'd have to sign up for a marathon just to keep on point and NO THANK YOU to that. So instead, I thought I'd start a blog to follow ALL the things on my to-do list and six months later, here we are! 

OK, enough talky. It's New Year's Eve. If you are reading this you are probably either off work and Internet surfing on the couch while you wait for whatever is going to happen tonight to happen or you are like me, sitting at your desk with not much work to do, counting down until it is time to clock out and get to the end of year festivities. Either way, today is not for reading a novel. 

So, I now present to you, Sheridan's To-Do List: 2014. A Year in Pictures...

Christmas and holidays 2013

This time last year... we will be seeing these guys tonight!

Tom gets so jolly around the holidays

A LONG WINTER WITH LOTS OF SNOW

So we played board games at work

And took pictures of each other

And took pajama selfies

And made new friends

But spring brought warm weather and lots of excitement

My thesis accepted!

I am now Master Sheridan! (and that is Master Alberto)

Proof! 

Had a "sexy" bridal shower

And an even sexier bachelorette party

What bachelorette party is complete without
a purple dragon boat ride?

...right after enjoying a lovely Jim's cheesesteak

Fulfilled a teenage dream and saw Mindless Self Indulgence

And a lot of training in between...

How I feel after every workout

They make it look so easy

Just a warm-up

But it all paid off on May 4th at the Broad Street Run! 

Tom looking excited for the race

Pre-Broad Street Race with my homies

And we did it! 10 miles, no sweat

So after all that, we thought we might do something relaxing. Like, you know, get married!

Keeping calm on my wedding day with the help
of the best bridesmaids ever

Last minute details

Across town, Tom was looking not the least bit nervous
And why should he be?

Friends helping friends

Happy family

And time for a quick Facebook picture

Married by some of our best friends!

Time for a quick ride

And we will live happily ever after

Or else!

We then jetted off to Europe for a romantic honeymoon

Don't Forget To Be Awesome

First to Barcelona...

The Mediterranean

Our chill day on the beach

La Sagrada Familia

Fancy dinner on the bay 

A day in Girona

With our tour guide and friend, Mireia!

And an afternoon at Parc Guell

And then off to Paris!

Is that the Eiffel Tower?

It IS the Eiffel Tower!

Another beautiful view from our balcony

In the city of love

OK, so when we got back it was summer and time to REALLY relax and hang with our friends

Breakfast at the Main Street Diner in Lansdale with Quinn and Mo

Family 4th of July party with my cousin Evan

Worst. Service. Ever. Just kidding, Wayne!

Best root beer float from Stuart's

Tom and Anthony trying (failing) to not be geeky

Ric with a special gift hand delivered from Spain

And Ric getting dunked by his lovely Mirabai

Ava having a little wife cake

The New York crew on our way to dim sum

And the Legal crew trying to run a 5K

And getting down poured on

So we got beer instead

A Phillies game, of course

And the Dark Side of Oz

Went to my first Broadway show, Hedwig! Starring Neil Patrick Harris, what an introduction to theater, darling...

NPH, you vixen

A Tony award winning musical!

Best day ever, well, besides the wedding 

Time for a quick photo shoot

Looking cool and disinterested

Smiles after freaking out the middle age ladies in the bathroom

My treasured souvenir

The only picture I took inside. Shhhh

And the mixing board where our friend Justin makes the magic happen

We got to witness our friends Eric and Rachael make their leap into married life

Sadly, I have no pictures of the happy couple

Well, there is THIS happy couple

We took Tom's dad's convertible. It was stylish

And we danced the night away

After a rousing game of skipping stones.
Who knew Tom could skip stones like a champ?

He's so sexy

We cooked (and ate) a lot of great food this year

Spaghetti is always a winner

Lots of fresh vegetables

Some kind of fish

Summer berries

Fruit and yogurt parfaits

And the standard PBJ

Strawberry, spinach and goat cheese salad

Fish tacos 

Cookies of some sort

My first homemade mac and cheese

And mac and cheese stuffed peppers

Our one month anniversary dinner

Poolside BBQs

Turkey clubs and homemade potato salad

Smoothies FTW

A whole bunch of avocado

Dim sum

It was something else!

Talluto's, our favorite Italian market

A proud chicken

Why we roasted a chicken in the summer? Who knows

Our new pizza stone!

Almost a win. We need practice

We even grew some of our own food

More chicken?

A festive cheese stuffed tree

Oreo popcorn bark

And totally addictive gingerbread cheesecake dip

In between all the friends and cooking and eating and marrying and traveling, we also had to say goodbye to our old apartment

J-305

Empty as the day after we got engaged

Our balcony 

And said hello to our house!

Inadvertently set up just like our apartment was

But with a better paint job

It took a lot of paint

And right after all that craziness, I started a new job!

Me on my daily walk

The giant office where I now work

My official name badge

And my silly co-workers

Didn't I leave this one at the last office?

After all the mayhem of the year, we celebrated with a real Christmas tree 

And more friends and celebrations

Partying with the EMS staff

Trying to make Dev look presentable for a picture.
We failed. 

But we finally got to see Tran Siberian Orchestra

And had a pretty decent Christmas party at our new house
With Christmas mojitos

I even got to chill in Santa's sleigh

Whoo! What a crazy year it's been! It's a good thing I don't take more pictures than I already do or we'd be here until 2016 catching up on all that has happened. 

At the beginning of the year I said to someone that I thought this might just be MY year. I don't think anyone can disagree that I was most certainly correct. Just one more time, because the year is almost gone and it won't ever be 2014 again, the year of Sheridan, let's recap:

- graduated with my Master's

- ran a 10 mile race

- got married

- went to Europe

- started this awesome blog!

- watched two of our good friends get married

- spent lots of great time with friends and family, including my nephew who I hadn't seen in years before this year

- went to my first Broadway show, which just happened to star NPH and be about an awesome transgender wannabe rock star from East Berlin

- went to see Mindless Self Indulgence and Post Modern Jukebox, featuring our good friend and officiant, Ric Becker!

- bought a house

- got a new job, a writing job!

- threw our first (of many, hopefully) kick ass Christmas party

- didn't go completely crazy during all the craziness

Given all that I accomplished this year, I think I will give myself a pass on today's to-do list. Tonight, I'm going to ring in the new year surrounded by great friends, my insanely awesome husband and lots of good vibes and music. Tomorrow, we are going to chill on the couch and play some video games to get 2015 off to a nice easy start. Maybe order Chinese food. 

For now, I can safely say...

2014 = dominated

See you in 2015!