There were some difficulties.
- There's the state of our country and our world. I don't have much more to say right now other than that we're still here to fight the good fight and that's what we're going to do.
- We fell. My mom at our house on the Ides of March, breaking her arm up by her shoulder in the same spot as she did fifty years earlier. That aged her. I fell in the yard on Labor Day and got my ankle/foot but good. It still isn't quite right.
- Bruce's health was not its best for most of the year. Chest pain, testing, medication changes, hospitalizations, stents, rhythm irregularities, and kidney vs heart complications. I think things might be stabilized, but I also know that I don't know much.
- We had our weather/insurance/contractor/home repair debacle. We still have more repairs to do on our own, and the financial fallout from this one will be with us for the foreseeable future.
- I learned to make a pretty good batch of Hot and Sour Soup.
- I use a modified version of this recipe.
- I saw friends I haven't seen in a long time. I hadn't seen one of my friends for ten years. I think we both intend to do better keeping in touch.
- I've added some fun with an older, hand-me-down Cricut Expression. Yep, that's how I'm making all the vinyl car stickers, campaign yard signs, badges, shirts, aprons, and protest signs.
- We have a new roof. Although much of what happened around the getting of the roof was not super-great, it is wonderful to have a new roof. Also, I'm pretty sure getting a new roof scored enough XP to get me to the next level of adulting.
- We're getting involved. It is not on-brand for us, but it is important, so we're doing it.
- We've spent a lot of good time with family this year. That is very on-brand for us, and we're grateful to have had the opportunity to do so much of it.
- We've even found ways to improve some relationships and navigated our way through some that needed some newness.