The Year In Review
A new year, a new decade. We didn't really do anything for New Year's Eve really due to unfortunate circumstances, but we might not have done much anyway. I did come up with my own menu for dinner though. We had chicken wings, those Friday's frozen potato skins, and individual salads we each chose, plus cakes for dessert. I had to shop with my dad for the food because my mom was too sick to go out. It wasn't too bad though. After dinner we watched Inside Out. My parents can't stay up until midnight anymore, so I haven't watched the ball drop in a while. Didn't really matter to me though because the end of the year's been such a downer. My mom and I watched the rose parade in the morning though. I've probably seen better with that too.
So, I'm going to get into my annual year in review now. 2019 was on the rockier side, not to say good things didn't happen, but my family got hit hard in different ways. But it's mostly colored by the last month of the year turning into complete shit. At least we're all alive, and that's what really counts. I hope 2020 will turn out more for the better. I foresee it being a year of change. That's already started to happen, so I guess I have a good instinct for these things like when I had an uneasy feeling about 2019 at the start. How right I was I guess. So, considering the current situation though, my upcoming blog posts might possibly end up being delayed. So, I'll just say they'll go up when they go up. I am writing these posts ahead of time though, so I can keep on top of things. Let's just get this out of the way first. Here's my summation of 2019.
The first thing signifcant-ish that happened in 2019: my brother had broken up with Ariel and got back together with Kourtnei. The sounds of facepalms echo everywhere. In the past couple of months he's been spending much more time at her house than back at home. It's like he's moved in over there, but not officially. He's still on the fence about that. But whatever, it's fine, because we're still not involved anyway. They can have their own lives without us, and at least they're trying to make it on their own now. Still think Kourtnei does toxic things. Look back on my blog if you want to know. I honestly kind of forgot about that thing she did at the beginning of the year.
Fast forward to April, where the next significant thing happened, my dad had torn a ligament in his thumb while playing ultimate frisbee at work and had to have surgery. His surgery went well, but it could have gone worse because he put off getting his thumb checked out.
In May was Luke's annual vet visit and he almost bit someone, completely scaring the crap out of me. My mom usually has me hold him while she paid for the vet visit. And now I feel like I don't want to accompany her to the vet ever again. It was also the month of our short weekend trip to San Diego. It wasn't the greatest trip though. I mean I had an OK time, but everyone else didn't seem to be enjoying themselves that much. It didn't help that it was also rainy at the time. Next time we should just leave my brother at home, which is likely anyway because of how much time he spends with Kourtnei now. I also read one of my worst books ever on that trip, but I'll get into that once I write my post about the books I read last year. I also had annoying issues/pain with a tooth again...after a filling I had... again. I noticed it felt rough and they smoothed things out, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference, but I didn't say so. It was a broken filling though I guess. I decided to switch to Sensodyne toothpaste and haven't had as much problems since. So I can stop going to the dentist for problems they can't figure out what's wrong. I can still feel a zing if I bite down on that tooth in a certain way, but I've learned to just live with it.
June was the start of family health worries. A predictor of things to come later maybe. First Grammy was discovered to have skin cancer on her eye, but it was taken care of pretty easily and they got it all. Then my mom had been complaining about side effects from her blood pressure meds for a while causing a tickle in the throat, which is pretty common for the type of drug she takes. So she thought to switch to a different med. Big mistake. She actually tried several different ones, which had even worse side effects and made her blood pressure actually go up. It was really starting to scare me. She switched back to her old med without even telling her doctor, figuring a tickle in the throat was a more tolerable side effect, than more dangerous ones. But I did give her some suggestions to try to alleviate the tickle in the throat. And the last thing was about my uncle who wound up in the hospital likely due to complications from Diabetes. He nearly died. :( He is OK now except he has something wrong with his knees, so doesn't get around well and won't see a doctor about it because he and my aunt can't afford the medical costs. Sad to think this wasn't the end of family health problems though.
July was of course our two big earthquakes. One on the fourth no less. Neither were violent shakers, but both went on for a long time and I've never experienced two large earthquakes so close together before in my life. I'd like to think they were the “Big One,” but unfortunately they're not. I also got to visit Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge for the first time in this month. It's pretty incredible what they did with this land. Got to ride Smuggler's Run, but what I really can't wait for is the main attraction: Rise of the Resistance, to open on January 17th. :)
August is when my mom had her trip to Ohio and had to stay there an extra day due to flight delays coming home, which really sucked. It was bad timing all around too. She won't be going through Chicago ever again probably. And of course my parents went to Idaho right after that the following month, which went more smoothly.
September was our biggest trip, well still short, but it was one of the best trips I had in a while. That was our cruise down to Ensenada. It was a birthday celebration for Grammy and uncle Doug and aunt Jennie came along too. I didn't think I'd want to do this cruise again after last time it was a very meh experience, but this time I actually had fun, so I'd probably do it again, but go somewhere new. Jennie and Doug didn't seem to do much. They turned into old people, but whatever.
Not a big deal really, but it could have been worse. In October, is when I slipped and fell from the bottom step of the stairs a few days away from Halloween. Luckily, I just got bruised up, but it kind of shook me and feel extra cautious going down stairs. And then just the next month I just so happened to slip and fall in the shower, which wasn't my fault that time and I didn't get hurt at all. But yeah, 2019, the year of falls. Oh, not just me. :(
In November, we got Disney+ and I've been enjoying it ever since. Baby Yoda forever! Although, their interface for desktop could use some work, and the movies/shows don't save where I left off, so I have to write down the time stamp. It's kind of annoying, but doesn't put me off using the service either. I hope to watch some of the classic films from the 50s-80s in the near future, and other shows from my childhood era of course.
December. OK, take a deep breath because this is the month where everything came crashing down. First off, both my parents got sick around Thanksgiving and both of them seemed to relapse by Christmas. My mom got something like bronchitis recently. She seems to be getting better now, but it hasn't been a fun time. Remarkably, I've stayed healthy. Even my brother got sick for a brief period of time. And then Grammy went and broke her hip and everything's been depressing ever since. She's been moved to a facility now. I have no idea how long she'll be there. That will probably be dependent upon how willing she is to get back on her feet. Progress has been slow, and she's had this attitude that she's done with life. It's just been really hard thinking about it and her situation. I've been really down about it, and I don't think things will be the same again, unless and until she can be herself again. It feels unfair. But there's nothing I can do about it, but pay her visits. I just don't want it to end like this for her. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I hope this new year starts turning around.
The first of my lists will be "My Favorite Books of 2019," and it will go up well... hopefully tomorrow, but if not, then soon.
So, I'm going to get into my annual year in review now. 2019 was on the rockier side, not to say good things didn't happen, but my family got hit hard in different ways. But it's mostly colored by the last month of the year turning into complete shit. At least we're all alive, and that's what really counts. I hope 2020 will turn out more for the better. I foresee it being a year of change. That's already started to happen, so I guess I have a good instinct for these things like when I had an uneasy feeling about 2019 at the start. How right I was I guess. So, considering the current situation though, my upcoming blog posts might possibly end up being delayed. So, I'll just say they'll go up when they go up. I am writing these posts ahead of time though, so I can keep on top of things. Let's just get this out of the way first. Here's my summation of 2019.
The first thing signifcant-ish that happened in 2019: my brother had broken up with Ariel and got back together with Kourtnei. The sounds of facepalms echo everywhere. In the past couple of months he's been spending much more time at her house than back at home. It's like he's moved in over there, but not officially. He's still on the fence about that. But whatever, it's fine, because we're still not involved anyway. They can have their own lives without us, and at least they're trying to make it on their own now. Still think Kourtnei does toxic things. Look back on my blog if you want to know. I honestly kind of forgot about that thing she did at the beginning of the year.
Fast forward to April, where the next significant thing happened, my dad had torn a ligament in his thumb while playing ultimate frisbee at work and had to have surgery. His surgery went well, but it could have gone worse because he put off getting his thumb checked out.
In May was Luke's annual vet visit and he almost bit someone, completely scaring the crap out of me. My mom usually has me hold him while she paid for the vet visit. And now I feel like I don't want to accompany her to the vet ever again. It was also the month of our short weekend trip to San Diego. It wasn't the greatest trip though. I mean I had an OK time, but everyone else didn't seem to be enjoying themselves that much. It didn't help that it was also rainy at the time. Next time we should just leave my brother at home, which is likely anyway because of how much time he spends with Kourtnei now. I also read one of my worst books ever on that trip, but I'll get into that once I write my post about the books I read last year. I also had annoying issues/pain with a tooth again...after a filling I had... again. I noticed it felt rough and they smoothed things out, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference, but I didn't say so. It was a broken filling though I guess. I decided to switch to Sensodyne toothpaste and haven't had as much problems since. So I can stop going to the dentist for problems they can't figure out what's wrong. I can still feel a zing if I bite down on that tooth in a certain way, but I've learned to just live with it.
June was the start of family health worries. A predictor of things to come later maybe. First Grammy was discovered to have skin cancer on her eye, but it was taken care of pretty easily and they got it all. Then my mom had been complaining about side effects from her blood pressure meds for a while causing a tickle in the throat, which is pretty common for the type of drug she takes. So she thought to switch to a different med. Big mistake. She actually tried several different ones, which had even worse side effects and made her blood pressure actually go up. It was really starting to scare me. She switched back to her old med without even telling her doctor, figuring a tickle in the throat was a more tolerable side effect, than more dangerous ones. But I did give her some suggestions to try to alleviate the tickle in the throat. And the last thing was about my uncle who wound up in the hospital likely due to complications from Diabetes. He nearly died. :( He is OK now except he has something wrong with his knees, so doesn't get around well and won't see a doctor about it because he and my aunt can't afford the medical costs. Sad to think this wasn't the end of family health problems though.
July was of course our two big earthquakes. One on the fourth no less. Neither were violent shakers, but both went on for a long time and I've never experienced two large earthquakes so close together before in my life. I'd like to think they were the “Big One,” but unfortunately they're not. I also got to visit Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge for the first time in this month. It's pretty incredible what they did with this land. Got to ride Smuggler's Run, but what I really can't wait for is the main attraction: Rise of the Resistance, to open on January 17th. :)
August is when my mom had her trip to Ohio and had to stay there an extra day due to flight delays coming home, which really sucked. It was bad timing all around too. She won't be going through Chicago ever again probably. And of course my parents went to Idaho right after that the following month, which went more smoothly.
September was our biggest trip, well still short, but it was one of the best trips I had in a while. That was our cruise down to Ensenada. It was a birthday celebration for Grammy and uncle Doug and aunt Jennie came along too. I didn't think I'd want to do this cruise again after last time it was a very meh experience, but this time I actually had fun, so I'd probably do it again, but go somewhere new. Jennie and Doug didn't seem to do much. They turned into old people, but whatever.
Not a big deal really, but it could have been worse. In October, is when I slipped and fell from the bottom step of the stairs a few days away from Halloween. Luckily, I just got bruised up, but it kind of shook me and feel extra cautious going down stairs. And then just the next month I just so happened to slip and fall in the shower, which wasn't my fault that time and I didn't get hurt at all. But yeah, 2019, the year of falls. Oh, not just me. :(
In November, we got Disney+ and I've been enjoying it ever since. Baby Yoda forever! Although, their interface for desktop could use some work, and the movies/shows don't save where I left off, so I have to write down the time stamp. It's kind of annoying, but doesn't put me off using the service either. I hope to watch some of the classic films from the 50s-80s in the near future, and other shows from my childhood era of course.
December. OK, take a deep breath because this is the month where everything came crashing down. First off, both my parents got sick around Thanksgiving and both of them seemed to relapse by Christmas. My mom got something like bronchitis recently. She seems to be getting better now, but it hasn't been a fun time. Remarkably, I've stayed healthy. Even my brother got sick for a brief period of time. And then Grammy went and broke her hip and everything's been depressing ever since. She's been moved to a facility now. I have no idea how long she'll be there. That will probably be dependent upon how willing she is to get back on her feet. Progress has been slow, and she's had this attitude that she's done with life. It's just been really hard thinking about it and her situation. I've been really down about it, and I don't think things will be the same again, unless and until she can be herself again. It feels unfair. But there's nothing I can do about it, but pay her visits. I just don't want it to end like this for her. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I hope this new year starts turning around.
The first of my lists will be "My Favorite Books of 2019," and it will go up well... hopefully tomorrow, but if not, then soon.