Goodbye 2011

I've just finished putting all the photos in the 2011 scrapbook. As I say good-bye to the year, I think about how I would rate it.

Politically and economically 2001 was a terrible year, but that didn't affect me all that much.  I do follow politics, almost as an addiction.  I marched in the Madison protests against our governor in March.  I wrote letters of support and signed recall petitions.  I watched the Republican presidential candidates self-destruct, one after another. It was awful for them, but amusing for me.

People are suffering from the bad economy, but I've had a low income for so many years, I'm used to it.  I could give lessons on living on next to nothing.  

From a personal standpoint, 2011 was a wonderful year.  This year, I traveled 8,410 miles to tell stories all the way to the West Coast.  I hiked mountain paths, drove along swollen rivers, waded in the Pacific, and camped in the desert.  And when I was back in Wisconsin, Gary and I camped beside forest lakes and canoed.  I counted cranes, guarded sturgeon and birded.  At the end of the year, I had spotted 105 avian species.

I continue to be healthy.  Even with some bouts with arthritis, I kept on exercising. I swim several times a week, work out with Gary at the fitness center, and continue to walk,  652 miles this year.    

2011 was the year I gave up volunteering and decided to spend the rest of my life writing.  Wade Peterson and I started a short story blog.  Our stories are read by people around the world.  I even self-published a book.  It didn't go anywhere, but now I know how to do it.  I will send more books out to the world in the coming years.

Gary made improvements in Mathom House this year. The dining room is now lovely and he has plans for other parts of the house.  He caulked the windows before cold weather started.  Even with winter winds blowing, we are warm and secure. That man is intelligent, funny and so ready to spoil me.  I am so lucky to have him here.

Then there's my  family.  My son and his wife gave me a cute grandson to play with. Tisha takes time to go shopping with me in the thrift shops. Chris is ready to answer my panicky calls about computer problems.

I have friends around the world and one close friend, Norma. We met 55 years ago.  We still meet several times a year, though she lives in Chicago.  We e-mail almost daily.

And beyond that there are sunrises, sunsets, rainbows, stars, and all the world to explore.

All waiting for me in 2012.  I wonder what's next.

Another Writer Joins Us

This week, Wade Peterson and I were joined by our good friend Nikki Kallio on our short story blog, Black Coffee Fiction at  http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com 


Nikki is a journalist, a fiction writer, an editor and a teacher.  She excels at all her occupations.  We met her when she taught a workshop for our critique group and since then, I took her Fox Valley Technical College course on blogging, which led to this blog.  


We were especially pleased to have Nikki with us this week.  Wade has been tied up with family commitments and I am busy with my end-of-the-year organization. (Only 19 more things on my list by tomorrow night.) We discovered that writing a short story every other week is a big commitment.  We'll keep at it, but a vacation is a relief. 


Nikki decided to begin by demonstrating "Three Word Wednesday", a prompt on the Internet at http://www.threewordwednesday.com   that was set up to inspire writers. Using the prompts, Nikki wrote two short pieces.  


To learn more about Nikki, visit her blog, http://morepurplehouses.blogspot.com

Hard Times

Tonight I went over to the aquatic center to do some work on my arthritic knees.  I was doing the usual, standing in the warm water and bending them over and over.  I talk to the lifeguards, finding out what has been going on in their lives.  One was home from college.  He was finally a junior, but it will still take him over two years to graduate.  Carlotte was planning on going to visit her family in California to celebrate Christmas Hispanic style, but it didn't happen.  She missed her big extended family as she told me about their traditions, their food, and their love for each other.

Then I began talking to a couple in the pool.  She was walking back in forth in the deepest part of the pool.  Knee injuries, I asked, just to make conversation, and she began to tell me about her arthritis, caused by an injury at her job.  At the same time, her husband's employer went out of business. They found themselves without work and in serious financial difficulties.  The bank took their house and for a while, they lived in a tent behind their friends' house.   Now her husband and part time work and she has disability, but they are living on a quarter of what they used to earn.  They were pleased to find the pool so she could work on her legs and back.  Seymour's pools and fitness center are much less expensive than the YMCA.  

This is what economic hard times look like.  We talked about ways for them to find a place to garden.  There was a community garden last year, so maybe they could do that.  I told them about the vouchers they could get to use at the farmers' market next summer.  I know a lot about living below the poverty line.

This is reality, not what politcians and corporate honchos talk about.

Even more tasks .....

This morning I did a final taste test of the bean soup I made yesterday.  It was delicious.  There are fourteen individual servings frozen up.  Now I am wishing that I could remember how I made it.  Three recipes went into it, followed by leftover scalloped potatoes.  That's all I can remember.

I found more tasks to do.  I went through the greeting cards we received this year, saving the most meaningful for the scrapbook. I cut the fronts off some to be used as postcards or gift tags.  

At the end of the year, I put all the magazines and catalogs into recycling bags. These things tend to pile up if they aren't thrown out regularly.  

I went through the CDs containing digital photographs. Some I will put in the safe deposit box in case of fire, though most are in the Walgreens on line photo shop. The best are part of this blog.

I use my big bulletin board as storage for the odd piece of paper that doesn't belong in any specific file. It contains bits of poetry and wise sayings, photos, and menus.

Every year it must be cleared so that I can start over.  This year I want it empty because it will be used to tack bits and pieces of the novel I am working on.

We stopped at the cemetery this morning.  Snow is forecast, so we took away the wreath and candle I had placed on my parents' grave on Christmas Eve.  While we were there we noticed a northern harrier flying over the fields and that reminded me that I must set up the 2012 birding notebook.  

So much to do and only three more days before the New Year.

More End of the Year Tasks

At the turning of the year, there are other items on my "to do" list. 

First is disposing of the food left over from Christmas.  The ham bone went into the pot for bean soup. There were some scalloped potatoes left so I threw them into the soup since a recipe called for potatoes. I say "a" recipe since the soup was concocted out of three recipes to make something original, which I will never be able to repeat again. The cookies are no problem, they disappear quickly. There are only five left.  The chocolates are nearly gone, too. 

The food has left behind residue:  our weight gains.  Add to that there was never much time to exercise.  We're working on that now.  The swimming pool is open again after a pre-Christmas cleaning.  I went today.    Gary and I go to the fitness center to lift weights twice a week.  He is walking on the treadmill there, but I prefer to walk outside in the sunshine.  The days have been sunny and warm so I am once more walking three miles a day, going downtown to shop or down the trail when it is clear. 

Other things to do: I put the birthdays of family and friends in my day planner, to remember to send them cards.   I must also organize things like car maintenance, gardening projects, and bill payments. I want to review my credit cards and decide which of them to cancel.  Then there are the writing projects that must be organized in a logical way.

Only five more days to New Year's Day. 

Organizational Week

The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is the time when I put my life in order.

Today, I am organizing photos, memorabilia and blog entries that I've printed out to make a scrapbook record of 2011. Some years I need one scrapbook to cover events.  Sometimes I need only one for two or three years, but 2011 has been a very busy year so I will have two scrapbooks.  I'll have this job done by New Year's Eve.  While I do this, I review the year. I can announce that though politically, the nation was in a mess in 2011, I enjoyed these "best of times and worst of times" enormously.  

I will be giving a series of talks in libraries about my travels, so I must put together a CD of photographs that I can use for a slide show.  This means reviewing all the digital photos I took.

We're talking about taking the Circle Tour around Lake Superior next summer.  More organization as I send e-mails to libraries in Ontario to find some work that will pay for the cost of gas and the provincial parks.

The end of the year means preparing a tax file, so I'm getting all my storytelling records together. I make out  yearly and monthly budgets.

There are housekeeping jobs.  I go through the filing cabinets and throw out old paper files.  I go through the computer deleting documents. 

Finally, I set my goals.  Each New Year's Eve I update a five year plan.  From that, I will set my goals for 2012.  During the year, I will set monthly and weekly goals.  Do I meet all of them?  Almost never, but by pushing myself this way, I do get a few things accomplished.

This is the busiest week of the year but at its end, I'll be ready for 2012.  

Sloth

There are two days a year I strive to do absolutely nothing.  One is my birthday in March and the other is Christmas Day.  This morning, I stayed in bed until 6:30, when Rascal sat next to my ear and purred loudly.

OK, so I had to get up and feed him, but then I made a cup of tea and did nothing else but read until Gary woke up.

OK, so I made us a high cholesterol breakfast of bacon and eggs, but I left the pans to soak.  It was my day of sloth, so the pans are still there.

I sat and read some more, my feet up. Rascal sat on my lap, enjoying the human cushion.  At  times he went to see what Gary was doing.  Then  I checked Facebook, and played spider solitaire.

For lunch, we went to the China Garden for a delicious meal.  Seymourites still have cottoned to the idea of going to a restaurant on Christmas Day, so we had the place almost to ourselves.

We came home to take long winter naps.

But now sloth is getting wearing.  Restless, I find myself wanting things to do.  I had no intention of posting on this blog today, but a woman has to do something! So instead of actually doing much of anything, I am making up lists of things I will do....tomorrow.