Tuesday, December 31, 2019

One Year Closes

Well, we made it through another year.  How are you doing?  I feel a little worse for the wear.  It was another long, bumpy one (yeah, I know TWSS).  

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.  
There were good things, too.  
  • I learned to make a pretty good batch of Hot and Sour Soup.
  • 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.  
While that's not all that happened, I think it gives a pretty good picture overall.  So, let's say buh-bye to 2019.  Thank you for being a part of my life and for allowing me to be a part of yours.   
  

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Merry Christmas

From all of us here to all of you wherever you are, Merry Christmas!  (volume up, if you would like a little music, too)