Not This Year

No, not going to do NaNoWriMo this year. Did it for 6 years (2005-2010) but am just not into it this year. In previous years, when my mouth was saying "no" in October, my brain would be saying "yes" by having Betha (my main character) pop into my head and tell me what she would like to be doing. Not this year; she's been oh-so-silent. It's just another sign that I am totally done with this year - when Betha doesn't speak to me, it's time to move along. Maybe next year.

Done, done, done

Dad's girlfriend, Ann, went to Biloxi on a gambling junket this past week, a bus trip she took with her friend, June. Her souvenir of Biloxi? A pacemaker. Passed out in a casino, needed a pacemaker, had one put in. She's okay; coming home tomorrow (flying) instead of yesterday (15-hour bus ride).

I've said it before, I'll say it again - stick a fork in this year, it's done.

She's here! ...aaaaand she's gone...

At the beginning of the year, we had decided that we would not do as much travel as we did last year. HA!

January - Meg went to Vegas with Kei; we both took a day trip to Chico to pick up some files from Kelly's divorce.
February - Kelly off to Ottawa (work); Meg to Santa Clara for a "sleep-over" Stitches West; an Oxnard weekend trip.
March - Spring training in Arizona; DRJ conference in Orlando (work).
April - Kelly to Memphis (work); Kelly back to Ottawa (work).
May - Kelly back to Ottawa again (work).
June - Oxnard weekend trip.
July - Sacramento for the Model Railroader's Convention; planned trip to Vegas postponed so I could fly to Florida after dad's 3rd or 4th hospitalization; train trip to Portland for Sock Summit.
August - We actually stayed home the whole month!
September - Oxnard weekend trip; DRJ conference in San Diego; back to Oxnard following Kelly's mom's death; overnight in Novato (wine train weekend); Healdsburg weekend trip.
October - Back to Oxnard to help Kelly's dad get situated in an assisted living facility and get their house ready for sale; I'll be going back to Florida to spend a week there after my dad's other 2 or 3 hospitalizations.

And we're not even done yet; we still have our Pismo weekend and the postponed trip to Vegas, both coming up in November.

I wonder how much travel we would have done if we *hadn't* decided not to do it too much? I'm not even going to try to say anything about 2012, especially since we already have a cruise on the books for February and a weekend in Healdsburg for a Wine Road event...

Enough is Enough

We have decided that we're done with 2011 and are very close to declaring it over. We'll have a "goodbye and good riddance" party to kick its sorry ass out the door.

Dad's back in the hospital again. More ventricular stuff going on, and oh by the way, he probably has pneumonia as well. He's being pumped full of antibiotics since early this morning, and as of late this afternoon, they're giving him a new IV medication to control the ventricle. (I don't know the exact term for what's happening.)

Too many bad things this year, so we're done with it. I'm going to start writing '2012' on my checks.