insert sarcastic quip about new year same old shit here
Happy new year!
yeah, I sort of fell out of posting during my vacation back in early October.
Things that have happened:
My grandmother had a nasty fall and was hospitalized for a while, now been in the local nursing home for a while. Still there. We had her home on Christmas Eve. I try to visit her as often as I can, but I don't get out very often. Sometimes it's as long as two weeks in between. She might not come back to live here again. Maybe after the new house is finished, but that's going to take about a year.
My aunt and uncle are building a new house! They will still be my closest neighbors, slightly closer than before but not by much.
My loan has been approved and now I just need to sign the contract I think. It's exhilarating. Soon I will be in debt and a home owner. If things go as planned, I'll have it all paid off in fifteen years. I'll be 50. I can't really imagine being fifty.. but then, when I was seventeen I never imagined I'd live to be thirty-five.
Speaking of thirty-five, that's how old I'll be in a bit over a week. My birthday is on the 13th. Very few people remember it, mainly because I don't put it in any of my social media profiles, so people aren't notified of it... which reminds me of how my little brother changed his facebook profile to say his birthday was April 1st. He got like 29 happy birthday messages.. his birthday is in January.
I've been through a really rough patch in November-December. The lack of sunlight certainly didn't help. Went weeks without direct sunlight. I finally managed to get myself up Brosviksåta on Christmas Eve. Barely managed to get back home again before it was dark again, and I left home right around dawn. The days are so damn short this time of year, this far north.
I just barely made my reading goal for the year - 21 books, all written by women - on New Year's Eve. Procrastinating is a character trait of mine, I suppose.
I'm rather down about the state of my home. All the clutter, I mean, not just the general state of decay. I don't even know what's taking up all this space.. it's just stuff. I wish I had access to a storage unit. There's a ton of stuff I don't need, but am unwilling to part with for various reasons. Sentimentality mostly, but a lot of my older books are out of print and couldn't be replaced if I were to change my mind.
I have THREE old computers I'm not using (two more if you are counting laptops too). I don't want to part with Lorelai, my first, or Ao-chan, the ancient win95 box I salvaged from one of those dreadful work placement programmes. They both run Daggerfall wonderfully. I could get rid of Matsuri, I suppose, but would anyone want her? I did get rid of Yoki, finally, but he was having some issues and was probably not going to be good for anyone. I picked out the RAM and any useful parts before putting it out on one of the bi-yearly large trash pick-up days. The old CRT monitor too.. so now I don't even have a spare monitor, but I have multiple devices; I'd be okay even if my main died. I could order a new one and have it in less than a week.
Maybe I can get rid of some of my old computer speakers. Ones where there's one of the pair that keeps cutting out and in again, but they technically work. Suppose they could be fixed. Probably a cable that has been stressed.
Cats are mostly fine. They weren't too bothered by my two weeks away. A little more quarrelsome than before, I think. Having them here is such a boon. Even at their worst, having them is a net gain to me.
I want to come back to livejournal, really I do.. but there are so few people here, and so many over at tumblr, so that's where I tend to post. Also twitter.. Heck, sometimes they even take preference over IRC.. when I'm out and constantly updating my status, like during my trip up Brosviksåta. For conversations, IRC is still number one.
I miss roleplaying. Did I even play any in 2014? *checks Time Flies* Yes, in February. I was playing Danica. I.. don't even remember what happened. Some sort of wrap-up session?
These past few years.. sometimes I wonder if my best years are behind me. Are things really going to get better? Financially I am much better off than five years ago, but am I any happier? Less worried about money, sure. If something catastrophic happens, it's not the end, just a setback. This summer when my washer died, I just bought a new one and my only worry was how to get it home. My buffer was larger than the cost of a major appliance.
Want to take bets on what's going to break next?
Poll What will break next?
I think I would be happy if one of them were to go, because that means I could buy a new one, and I'm not really happy with any of them (though my aunt swears the fridge was brand new when I moved in - I disagree with that. It must have been at least two years old at the time). Just, if it's the hot water tank.. please let it die with a whimper, and not with a bang.
I really want to replace that ancient chest freezer with a standing freezer. The floor space I'd save! How much easier it would be to access the things! Stuff gets buried in a chest freezer.
So this entry got a bit long and rambly and not very interesting, and I apologize for that.. but I don't write this blog to entertain. It's my journal. The record of my existence... and my existence is sometimes -- often -- dreadfully mundane. If you want just the shiny bits, I post cat photos somewhat regularly on tumblr.