2024 Year in Review
Looking back at 2024 has been a bit eye opening for me, because some of the things that happened in 2024 I thought happened like 3 or 4 years ago. Thank goodness I have my Flickr photos, my Google calendar, and my bullet journal 1 to remind me what the heck happened this year!
January
January 2024 was a hard month, because we lost my beloved cat Watson. This is one of the things I swear was 3 or 4 years ago, but in reality at this time last year, my baby Watson was curled up on my feet every night and snuggled next to me or on my lap whenever I was on the couch. I miss him terribly.
In January I also held my birthday party, as I do every year, and saw Jerry Seinfeld perform at the QE Theatre. He really is a comedy genius.
I did a couple of open mics in January, including my first time at the Sunday night open mic in Abbotsford. I really like the group that runs/goes to this open mic, and I’m resolved to get out there more often in 2025!
February
February brought a new kitty into our home, as we welcomed Kingsley Shacklebolt to the family.

So smol!
February also brought a new stove, dishwasher, and microwave into our home.
The new stove revealed that the previous owner of my condo did not tile directly behind the control panel on the previous stove (which was the kind of stove where the control panel was a raised piece at the back). Since my new stove doesn’t have that piece, as the controls are on the front of the stove), I now see some bare wall behind the stove. Still haven’t gotten around to re-tiling, and am currently mulling over whether I just want to do a stainless steel metal backsplash instead.

The whole appliance buying spree was precipitated by the fact that the font panel kept falling off my old microwave, which I kept just pressing back into place. Until one day when I tried to use the microwave and it shocked me, and then I thought perhaps it was time for a new microwave.
The oven had been not operating well for some time (I had to set the temperature much higher than the temperature I needed to get it to actual get to the temperature that I needed), so it made sense to replace it to and then I got a really good deal to buy a new dishwasher at the same time.
March
As far as I can tell, nothing of note happened in March.
April
The Canucks made the playoffs for the first time since 2020 and even that was an asterisk year, because of the whole pandemic bubble year, so it was the first time for a non-asterisk playoff series since 2015. Cath and I decided to go to game 1 of round 1 and it was amazing! It was almost a decade of pent-up energy channelled into the most joyous bunch of people I’ve ever seen. And we won the game!
May
The Canucks playoff run continued and a group of us went to a watch party at Rogers Arena. Watch parties were held for away games, where you could get cheap tickets (all of which went to charity) to watch the game on the Jumbotron. Totally worth it to be part of that energy!
May was the first of two travel-heavy parts of the year for me. First up was a trip to New Brunswick for the Canadian Evaluation Society conference in Fredericton. But I also tagged on a trip to Saint John to visit my dear friend Ziba, who moved there during the pandemic. I had a super lovely time visiting Ziba, and a great time at the conference, and appear to have taken very few photos on that trip!
Shortly after that was my annual Wine Bitches trip, where a group of us get together to tour wineries in the Interior.
As always, it was an awesome time of fine wines, delicious food, and excellent company!
I went home a teeny bit early from Wine Bitches, because Scott’s CPA graduation was on the Saturday afternoon, which was the day the Wine Bitches normally drive back home. So I got a ride up to the Interior at the start of the trip, and then flew home in time for Scott’s graduation ceremony.
I rounded out the month by flying to NYC for Kalev’s birthday…
June
…which went into the first week of June.
Also in June, Scott and I went to the season opener of the BC Lions with some friends of his, mostly because there was a 50 Cent concert before the game.
Unfortunately our seats were behind the stage
But we could see it on the Jumbotron
I’m not much of a football fan, so I may have also been watching an Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup finals game on my phone at the same time. Speaking of the Oilers being in the Finals, after they knocked the Canucks out of the playoffs, I let myself be sad for a minute and then got behind the Oilers. We watched game 7 at the Rio, which was a very fun venue, until the part where the Oilers lost 🙁
I saw Hamlet for the first time in my life, which is kind of shocking given that I enjoy Shakespeare, and I did a minor in Drama in my undergrad during which I took an entire class about acting in Shakespeare plays! So since Bard on the Beach had Hamlet this year, I decided it was high time that I saw it!
June ended with me starting a new job. I’m still working for the same organization and doing similar work, but I moved from a research centre in the organization to the central part of the organization. As per usush, I’m not talking much about my work on this blog, but I will say I’m very happy with the team I joined and the work I’m doing, although I do miss my old colleagues!
Also, I wore a new pair of Fluevog shoes on my first day in my new job!
July
Dr. Dan visited Vancouver in July, which is always a fun time. We went to the Roof at Black and Blue for cocktails, St. Augustine’s for a flight of beer, and Perverted Ice Cream for, well, ice cream. Perverted closed down not too long after that, RIP PIC.
The Summer Olympics in Paris was in July and while I’m not usually into the Summer Games, I got excited for it this year because two women who train at my gym competed in Paris in wrestling 2! I’m not usually into any of the fighting sports, but knowing people who are competing at the highest level makes things much more interesting! Since I’d never watched Olympic wrestling before, I had to learn all the rules 3.
Kingsley also enjoyed watching the wrestling matches.
August
As far as I can tell, nothing of note happened in August.
September
The last remaining drive in movie theatre in BC closed down, so we decided to go to one of the final shows. We saw Beatlejuice Beatlejuice and Deadpool and Wolverine. RIP drive in movie theatre.
Another highlight of September was being a guest on my friend Monica’s podcast, Funny Over Forty. Thanks to Kalev for letting me know that I could book at recording room at UBC!
Cath and I went to a Canucks preseason game. Preason games are awesome because you get to see the new talent, but also because the tickets are much more affordable than regular season!
October
In October I went to Portland for American Evaluation Association, where I gave remarks on behalf of the Canadian Evaluation Society at one of the plenary sessions. I started my remarks with “Hello! Bonjour! Greetings from Canada!”
November
In November I went to Edmonton for the Canadian Evaluation Society board meeting. Productive meeting, and lots of fun!
Then Scott and I left on a trip to Maui! Maui was pretty epic and deserves its own blog posting, but in the meantime, here’s a link to my photos from the trip and a photo of me surfing:
December
The trip to Maui included the first week of December. Then I had a week of work, and then headed to Toronto to spend Christmas with my family. I got to see my sister’s cool new house and drink copious amounts of espresso from my sister’s fancy espresso machine (in the form of Americanos, eggnog lattes, and espresso martinis). Saw a bunch of friends, ate lots of delicious foods, and got to just hang out and relax abit.
I got to go to my first ever Professional Women’s Hockey League game – Toronto Sceptres vs. Boston Fleet – with my nephew Thomas. Toronto won and it was a super fun game. I also did an escape room with my nibling Madeline – it was called Butcher’s Basement and was terrifying and super fun and we solved it despite it having only a 30% success rate, so we were very proud of ourselves.
Then it was back to Vancouver in time for New Year’s Eve. We had a few friends over to ring in the new year and now it’s 2025!
- I thought I’d written a blog posting on bullet journaling, but a search of my blog indicates I have not. Then I searched my drafts and discovered that I have started, but nowhere near completed, that posting. Something to add to my “to finish” list for 2025
- I *may* have bragged quite a bit about the fact that Olympians train at the same gym as me.
- Totally should have included that on my list of things that I learned in 2024!