2010: Not Exactly A Good Year For Blogging

Well, the year of 2010 is slowly winding down and preparing to give way to 2011. As is becoming customary at this Decembery time of year, I figured I'd write down how this new decade has treated the Cook family.

Well, the year began with us both in work and hopeful for the year. It's been a pretty interesting one too. Me and Bexs are still working away and that's going quite well for us. Well enough that the bills are getting paid and we're in a place where we can save up and get the things we want. For the first time in about five years I've been able to look at our finances without releasing a worried 'Hmm' at the figure. I mean, we're not gajillionaires or anything, but at least I don't have to panic when the gas bill shows up. For me personally it's been a bit weird having things so stable, but I'm glad it's finally working out for us two. Only took us five years.

Speaking of which, a few weeks back me and Bexs celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Here's hoping that this is one of many, many milestone years! I'm glad to see my friends are also enjoying new and exiting things such as having kids, new jobs and houses and so on and so forth.

The year hasn't been without it's downsides mind. My little Ka finally gave up the ghost on that fateful M6 trip, and I'm having to get rid of it. It's going to a good home though. After a month of cycling, buses and taxis to work I managed to get my mitts on a very well looked after old Rover, which I've become really fond of. Annoyingly, some yob smashed one of my rear windows a short while after I'd paid for the thing. It looks like that will be fixed in the new year though, so it's not all bad.

When it comes to leisure, it's been all right. I haven't really spent a lot of cash on games this last six months, just playing through some of the ones I already had and borrowing the odd game or two from friends. There was one recent big purchase for me though- Fallout: New Vegas. I really enjoyed Fallout 3, and this is more of the same, but better. Given I've spent the best part of a month wandering the post-apocalyptic Mojave Desert, I think it was a good purchase. The story I was working on fell by the wayside, and the reboot of my cartoon has also undergone some changes, so neither of those went anywhere it seems. The MMO, Final Fantasy 14 I was expecting got delayed until March 2011 and then delayed indefinitely for PS3 until they sort out a whole mess of issues.

So, what's to look forward to in 2011 for the Cooks?

Well, if 2010 was the 'Year of Just Getting On With It', then 2011 will be 'The Year of Creativity'. Now that things are stable, I want  to get back to some of the stuff I really enjoy- doodling and writing. I'm planning on releasing a new blog in the new year, in a similar vein to my old Journey of  The Christian Gamer blog I wrote a few years back. I've been planning on doing something like it again for a while now, but this time around I'm doing a lot more planning. I'll probably get that kicked off in the new year. My much planned cartoon should be ready to be scrawled out next year too, as well as a project my church has given me- a gospel tract in cartoon form. As for that story  started writing this year, I realised that more work needed to be done on fleshing things out a bit, so I might work on that and go back to it. It could be said I've an exiting new year ahead of me!

Well, that's me for this year. No doubt I'll put digit to keyboard in the new year. Part of next year's creativity drive will be writing of course, so I expect I'll be blogging a bit more than once every six months.

So until 2011, have a Happy Christmas and a fab New Year!