Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than the Last

SO much to blog!!! I keep thinking I'll do better, but there's always something else, it seems. Oh well, it is the way of life.

Welcome to my year end wrap up!!! If I finish before 12 tonight, I'll have one more in for 2011!!! I'll go over a little of this & that interspersed with the pictures from this year's Christmas.

Completely unrelated thought, know how some stores (most, I would estimate) shun using the actual word "Christmas" in any of their advertisements and promotions??? Perhaps all us consumers should thusly shun doing any of our actual Christmas shopping at their establishments...

I like the way my son caught my wife giving me the sideways eyes in the first shot.

I think I did all my Christmas shopping online this year...

Bought our cat a catnip apple for Christmas. It's always lost. He never tells where it's at, if he knows.

Seems like work was busy all year. Goodie day came and went, and our department didn't do the T-shirt exchange that we usually do. Kept me from having to find one for a co-worker, usually with only a week or so of shopping time. Gravy day elicited a roar of approval from packing when it was announced to them, moments before our department. Biggest one I've ever had, bigger than everyone was thinking it was going to be, much to our delight. Not too far below the amount it was the one year prior to my arrival that the employees ended up shutting down the local branch of the bank the checks were drawn on because they ran out of cash!!! Signs so far tend to indicate this coming year will be at least as good!!!

Too much zoom in the shot of my wife getting the DVD set of Dexter season 5, boy. Actually, it came out a pretty good effect, though!!!

Now, to get on to non-Christmas related news, and in relation to the post title... Two weeks ago today I was actually up fairly early for a Saturday, when I got a call from my dad. He found my mom keeled over & unresponsive when he got up. She was already on her way to the hospital, and he was heading over.

They managed to bring her around, and the thing everyone (including myself) goes to is a stroke, so that was what they were treating her like. Turned out not to be the case. Arrhythmia and cardiac arrest was what was actually going on. Of course, we visited her that day, but she was heavily sedated and had, among many others, a tube down her throat. Somewhere between 13 and 30 times they've had to defibrillate her to get her going again. THEN she gets infected where they had the IV inserted in her hand, so it was later before they could implant the ICD... Pretty impressive device, they're able to externally adjust it, which they had to do a couple times in the next days. She seems to finally be in fairly good shape.

One bad thing, though, there's been illness within my household, so we haven't been able to visit much. I've called my dad most every day, and my mom several times also. My dad's been there every day, of course. Best Christmas ever, he says. I agree. My oldest sister has been there a lot, too, which is also a good thing.

I'm sure I could say much more, but don't want this post to be nothing but. I think I've covered most of the salient points. Oh, a little insult to injury, she went out with her leg on the little electric heater. Looks nasty, but it's healing up. Oh, another one, one of her rooms at the hospital got flooded out by the toilet. My dad was the one who discovered the extent of that one.

Got my boys a night vision viewer with video capabilities. It's pretty sweet, for the money I paid. I think they managed to delete the one pretty hilaras video of the older boy spooking the younger by coming forth from the darkness.

Massive windstorm last month. Knocked out power for something like four days and blew a sizable branch off the tree, narrowly missing the Falcon. My wife finally finished the book she was working on for a year or more. Had to use watches and phones to wake up. It was an adventure. I was very glad we have a gas heater.

I don't think I saw a single movie in the past year, with the exception of the documentary "Born to be Wild" when we were vacationing in San Diego at the Science Center's domed IMAX theater, and that was included with admission. It's about orphaned orangutans and elephants and the people who rescue them. It was narrated by Morgan Freeman, which was pretty epic. The movie was pretty decent, but you could tell it wasn't designed to be projected onto a dome, it didn't come out right around the edges. Much like facial piercings, I found that to be... distracting. They had another movie coming on after that one that I'd wished I'd opted for instead about storm chasers (which may have been the title of the movie, as well).

The couple of pretty good books I got in this year were one we'd got from my mom, John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Had that for a long time before I got to reading it. My wife started on it, but found it too dark. Got Stephen King's 11/22/63 when it came out, and went through that in fairly short order. It ended, I though, surprisingly upbeat for a King novel. I certainly enjoyed it. I'm currently going through Douglas Adams' HG2G books. I'd long ago gone through at least the first three (and in the middle of the third is where I currently at) but know I never made it through the final one. A couple years back, I think it was, I bought the five in one ultimate one for my first born, and that's the one I'm currently in. The one the seller shipped at first was a collectors edition with photos and such, but not all five books. They made it right, though.

Hey, it's already 2012 on the Eastside!!! Happy New Year!!!

Car news. The last week my wife was working this year, the traitorous starter on Janice went out again, less than three month later. Do NOT buy your starters from Auto Zone, their rebuilders suck. That was what I was going to be doing the weekend my mom went down, so that was delayed. Oh yea, we had been planning on doing the family Christmas the following Monday (I had it off, along with the Tuesday after Christmas as my last personal days) so needless to say that has yet to happen.

The Wednesday following THAT, Baby started showing some problems... First sign was she stalled right after starting up!!! That never happens... Had to two-foot her when coming to a stop and such. Checked forums and it sounded like (along with a previous symptom I'd noticed) a bad coolant temperature sensor. Bought a new one, as well as a fresh set of plugs and wires, the next day. When I went to install it, made the mistake of giving it one too many cranks tightening it down and snapped it off down in the hole.

Didn't want to try and get it out in such an awkward area, so I JB welded it back together. That seems to be doing fine, and it seemed to be working fine until it warmed up, then it was worse than before!!! Limped her home again, and popped the hood and heard what sounded like a major vacuum leak. Turns out both ends of the PCV hose has elbows that were both cracked open. Of course, no one makes anything like that, so I've fabricated a lengthy section of hose and an elbow from one of Janices' repairs. So far it seems fine, but I've yet to drive her any distance. At this rate, that won't happen this year!!!

Counting Crows' "A Long December", in case you didn't get the title reference!!!

And, finally, a little Christmas something for all you that read or happen across my low traffic blog, a shot of my wife's boobs (or at least cleavage) in her Christmas Victoria's Secret push-up bra and pajamas!!!

And to all a good night!!!