One last word before the year is finished...

We didn't go to the gun show.  (SCORE! - oops, did I say that out loud?)  Truthfully, though, I've only managed to postpone the inevitable - we're going on Sunday.

It was beautiful today - the temps got up over 60!  We decided to take advantage of the unseasonal warmth and took Finn to the dog park to run and play.  (I took pictures, but I'm still not used to my camera and so none of them are worth posting.)

  See?


 When we got home, Jimi went down for a nap and Finn and I took a nice long walk down Southern Parkway.  (Finn had gotten his exercise, but I'd not yet gotten mine.)  It sprinkled briefly a few times, but nothing substantial; the weather mostly just stayed awesome.  It still is.

Our party plans for the evening have been scrapped, as well.  (Act surprised, I dare ya!)  There was already one strike against the idea:  the simple fact of driving around on New Year's Night.  People are dumb and do dumb things a lot, but on nights like tonight, there's an extra dose of dumb in the air and on the roads.  Next, looks like Jimi's starting to get a cold, so there's strike two.  The beautiful weather is supposed to turn to shit right about the time we'd be leaving for home, so there's strike three.  And so I picked up some mixers and we'll have our own little celebration* at home.  Jimi apologized for letting me down.  I told him to stop being stupid; when given a choice, I'll always go for the option that allows me to not wear a bra.  Besides, I'll still get my kiss at midnight.

Tomorrow we're ringing in the new year with a visit to my brother.  I missed out last week, lame as it may be, because I was hung over and honestly didn't feel that I could make the 8 hour trip.  (3 hours down, 2 hours to visit, 3 hours home - too many hours)  I miss my brother.  It will be good to see him again, though I wish the circumstances were better.  His head seems to be in a good place, though, so perhaps things WILL work out for the best this time around.

I'll forever be the optimist.

I painted yesterday.  I'm going to do it again, maybe even tonight.  My problem is I don't know what in the hell to paint.  I'm not good enough to paint actual "things" - my pictures need to be abstract, or at the very least, an intentionally vague representation of the thing from which they're modeled.  Since I can't figure out what to paint, I decided I'll just paint anything.  Whatever shows up when I put the brush to the paper.  I'll figure out where I'm going with it eventually.  Right?  If not, I've already paid for all the supplies, years ago, so it's not like failure would actually cost me anything.

I think I mentioned I want things to put on the walls.  I've gotten on a kick, and the end result is going to mean me taking pictures of lots of things, having large prints made, then sticky-ing them up on the walls all over the house.  Who needs frames?  No frames means I can change them out more frequently.  (I'm sorry I'm so tacky.  I can't help it; it's part of the fabric of my being.)

I realized I left off my list of 2011 resolutions the biggest resolution of them all:  I'm really, actually, finally going to stop smoking, starting midnight tonight.  I've got 4 cigarettes left in my last pack, and they'll be gone by midnight, even if it means breaking them in half at the stroke of midnight.  I'm done with this monkey on my back; I'm done with the coughing, I'm done with spending the money, I'm done with stinking, I'm done with upping my risks of heart disease, heart attack, stroke, cancer, emphysema, infertility.  I never meant to start smoking in the first place, and for the first - oh, I don't know, 5 years? - I convinced myself I could quit at any time.  Then I started trying to quit and learned otherwise.  It's been 12 years.  That's too many years, and I don't want to spend another day as a smoker.

So there ya go.  I'll tattle on myself if I cheat, and I expect (please?!) that you will all give me holy hell each and every time I slip up.  I need to do this for me, but a little encouragement never hurt, you know?

I'm going to go fix another drink and smoke one of those last 4 smokes and watch this Trailer Park Boys movie Jimi's got on.  (Have you seen this shit?  It's ridiculous.)

Happy New Year, Friends!  

I hope 2011 is kind to you and yours, 

and brings you happiness and fulfillment in all things.  

*celebration = Sitting in front of the TV, watching Twilight Zone or something on Netflix, me on the computer, him curled up with the dog, the cat in front of the space heater.  But our cups will be full.  And love and happy will be in the air.  And then we'll set off bottle rockets at midnight and hopefully not set our neighbors' houses on fire.

Let's talk about 2010.

I said I'd do one of these before the end of the year.  It's the next to last day of the year, I'm off work, Jimi's at work, I've got nothing better to do...no time like the present.

It's been a hell of a year.  I mean that in a good way, mostly.

Jimi and I turned this house into our home over the last 12 months.  We're still expanding and settling and finding homes for all of the things we've accumulated over the years, but we're comfortable and happy here.  We've learned the sounds of the house - the creaks in the floors, the sound of the sump pump, the weird sound the furnace makes - and can differentiate between them and, say, the sound of the effing raccoon that's living in the crawl space in the attic.  Yeah, that little bastard moved in with us a few months back, and we (Jimi) still haven't evicted him.  Gotta get a live trap from somewhere and trap him and take him somewhere.  Anyhow - back to the house.

One of the highlights of my year was watching our yard come alive this past Spring.  We looked at, fell in love with, and purchased this house in the late Autumn, so we had no expectations or ideas of what the warmer months would bring to our landscaping.  There were tulips.  And a great big hibiscus.  And lilies.  And buttercups.  And weeds.  Oh, God, the weeds.  And the grass.  Holy crap, do you know how much grass grows on a half acre?!

And no one told me that Jimi doesn't mow grass before we bought the house with the half-acre lot.  I'm talking to you, Robert and Jason.  The brothers knew Jimi wouldn't cut the grass.  They laughed about it this summer, standing on our porch in the 95 degree afternoons, looking out across the expanse of overgrown lawn that was starting to resemble a prairie, what with it's waving grains and little dogs getting lost in it and whatnot.  Mowing was a fucking chore.  We broke and sort of repaired 2 lawn mowers this summer, but still only barely managed to keep our yard at a level low enough to avoid having a neighbor call the city.

I turned 30 in April - we hosted a "SUPER AWESOME 30TH BIRTHDAY PARTAY", complete with Barbie Princess bouncy house in the front yard, a stereo system set up in the front windows, a keg out back, and a cotton candy machine on the porch.  Oh, it was a great party.

Remembering that night sort of sums up my feelings for the entire year, really; I've been surrounded by love and laughter and friendship and joy and happiness every day of 2010.  Even the days that sucked -and there were some days that really, really sucked - I was still in this little cocoon of love, in a place where even at my lowest, I had people (not just one, many) lifting me up until I could stand on my own again.

Of course Jimi is the biggest part of that support system.  He is the sun in my sky, and four years into it, this life we're building together just gets better all the time.  Life threw us a few curve balls this year, but Jimi was so wonderful and good to me.  He said and did all the right things.  He always says and does all the right things.

God, I'm getting all sappy and teary-eyed.  Moving on...

What else happened in 2010?  We bought a canoe!  It's a great boat, but we didn't take it out much this summer.  We took it on the annual canoe trip in June, then to Lexington with Karen and Gary a few weeks later...holy smokes, is that all?  Surely I'm forgetting a trip in there somewhere.  In our defense, it was really hot and dry this summer, and so the water levels were low, and if you've seen Jimi and I in a boat, well, we need more than a few inches of water to get downstream, if you know what I'm sayin'.  And without a roof rack, that boat is a real bitch to get on and off his truck, and my little Civic is too small to transport the 16 foot monster.

We didn't camp much this year, either, even though we rented our spot on Blue River from Farmer Fred again, at the same rate as last year, but a much higher per-couple price because there were fewer of us this year.  The heat will be blamed for our absence here, also.  We spent a lot of money on outdoorsy things and then spent the summer inside in the AC.

I was not a social butterfly in 2010, not even a little.  I didn't see my friends much; I mostly stayed home and hung out with Jimi.  I did spend a lot of time with Stacy, which was awesome; it's so nice to be close to her again.

I bought a bike that I rode a handful of times and now haven't had out of the garage in at least 3 months.  I walked Finn in the amazing park across the street semi-regularly when the weather was nice, but not nearly as often as I should've.

I quit smoking at least 8 times.  I still haven't made that stick, but I'm down from a pack a day to a pack a week.  That's gotta count for something.

I've contracted a ridiculously horrible case of baby fever.  I rationally understand this is a by-product of losing my first pregnancy to miscarriage; I emotionally don't give a fuck so long as I get to have a baby.  I'm blessed to have a partner who understands that I'm just a slave to my crazy baby-making hormones and is willing to go with the flow.  Or maybe he's just scared of me.

I read a lot of books this year, most of them while sitting on our front porch.  The porch is a great place for reading.

I spent two nights in Columbus, OH for a business meeting.  The first two nights I've spent away from Jimi's side since we moved in together 3.5 years ago.  I slept like shit and realized he must accompany me on all future business adventures.

This was the Year of the Plants.  I've filled our home with them; bamboo, orchids, a money tree, $5 rescues from the clearance rack at Lowe's and Home Depot.  Stacy gave me an African Violet that is loving life in the kitchen, and the Wandering Jew she gave me for my birthday is so big and pretty I'm going to enter it in the State Fair next year - assuming I don't kill it this winter.  Our "Love Tree" is thriving in the dining room window and Grace, a hanging vine that Dawn gave me a few years, ago is still content on top of the fridge. I also planted a few cuttings Stacy gave me from plants that belonged to Granny - they didn't do so hot at first, but once I put them in hanging baskets and moved them to the front porch, they grew like crazy.  I bought some succulents at Ikea early in the year, but 2 of the 3 have kicked the bucket and the third is barely hanging on.  I'm far too heavy-handed with the watering can to raise succulents, I think.

We spent a million dollars on fabric and fur and foam and made our own Halloween costumes.  Well, Jimi made his Halloween costume; I pussied out and bought mine pre-made - AFTER I'd spent a million dollars on fabric and the pattern.  I've still not returned any of that, either.  Damn.

Work is work.  I have a great work family, and I count myself lucky to have a job that pays me a good wage and gives me health insurance.

Christmas Vacation with Jimi.  We didn't do anything special, really, but it was so nice to have so many days off with him.

I started blogging again.  I decided it's important to me that I have a record of the boring shit I do.  And here we are.

There's more that I've forgotten.  I'm sure I'll come back a half dozen times and edit to add in things I can't remember right now.

It comes down to this:  In 2010, I laughed more than I cried, I loved and was loved in return, and I had more than I needed of everything.  When I was 30, it was a very good year.