2018, eh? Ok!

Welcome to my end of year ramblings!  My thoughts always meander on this date and you who stick with me get to follow along the winding trail with me!  Lucky you!! ;0)

The end of another year.  Didn’t we just do all this about five minutes ago?? 

It’s very cold. Words like arctic, 10 minute frost bite warning, dangerous, deadly, are being bandied about by serious faced TV meteorologists.  It’s so cozy warm inside that I don’t take enough notice, and I walk the granddogs outside without enough layers.  Jesus…it’s the kind of cold that it’s hard to explain if you’re not living it, but it actually hurts to breathe in, and my lightly gloved fingers ache within a few seconds. Big, fat clunky gloves next time!  Thankfully, the dogs don’t love it either, and their legs tremble as they quickly pee and turn to haul me back inside again! Phew!

So – it’s been a year where I really became a working artist!  I mean I’ve always sold a bit here and there, but this was the first year of regular, pretty constant work!  Me!  A reallytrulyartist!  Yippee!  One of my 2018 resolutions is to improve, improve, improve, and to try to be a little less harsh on myself maybe. :0)

And more metal work, better metal work, new techniques, new fun! Excited to begin!

Another resolution- back on the 5/2 and no more cookies and chocolates  and yummy carbs!  That resolution means I have to eat all the sweets today, right?!  Oh well, that may be disordered thinking, but Ima still eat all the sweets today! And then I’ll buy a treadmill, ready to sell again, {like new, hardly used! ;0) } in about 2 years!  No, no, just kidding, I’ll use it, Mike, I promise! ;o)

This year was good.  I enjoyed my work, and Mike and I had a quiet, busy but pleasant year. We get along almost perfectly. I don’t remember the last time we had a disagreement, let alone an argument, and we like the same kind of things, laugh at the same nonsense. We’re friends, as well as spouses, and we’ve decided that’s to be celebrated!  I like to sit sometimes and remember why we got together, the things I admired and appreciated in him, the things I was ready to fight to maintain, the obstacles we overcame, the blended family we managed to successfully cobble together. I like to occasionally tell the world – thanks Facebook! – that he’s the best husband/father EVER. He took it all very seriously, while always providing laughs (groans!) and the kids all love him dearly, I know. I’ve seen many step relationships so fraught with difficulties that it never really works, so I always say – how impossibly lucky are we all to have found this guy from the other side of the Earth!? This year, we’ll celebrate our 17^th wedding anniversary, (big fat flipoff to all those who said it wouldn’t/couldn’t work out!) and I love him more than ever.  How IMPOSSIBLY lucky am I??!

And this year was bad. We lost Cleo AND Tipsy, and it was hard. Really hard. These furkids of ours are so integral to the family, and leave a massive emptiness when they are suddenly gone.  I know we were lucky to have Jazzi and Cleo right from the little puppies they were when we got them, to a ripe old age with very few health issues in between, but oh my, it just seems impossible to believe when they’re suddenly not there. Sad, quiet house.  For me, it was even harder when Tipsy left me, and I’m still missing her terribly. My studio shadow. I love Maddie, the left-behind-cat, but she is less affectionate, less shadow-y, more Mike’s cat! (How does that even happen when he’s more of a dog person?? Haha!) Anyway, we’re adjusting, and I think a new kitten, a playmate for Maddie, is in the very near future.

The kids are doing well, all doing their things; we have grandchild number four due within the next couple of weeks – what a lovely new years treat! And we have plans for the new year together and separately!  I will continue with my hypnosis, which I think is proving (surprisingly) valuable for my  encroaching agoraphobia and continuing anxieties, and I’ve already developed a few techniques for stress management which seem to be working.  Oh and Heather’s gonna dye my hair purple too, so that’s gonna be a 50 year old wish granted! :0) So thrilled that I suddenly don’t care about the inevitable judgment!  Hypnosis must be working!!

Now about that tattoo…. Hahahahaha!

So in a nutshell, the resolves are – thinner, less stressed/anxious, better artist/marketer. Easypeasy!

Happy new year one and all. May your 2018 be filled with all that you wish for yourselves and, though it’s hard to imagine how this is going to be possible, may this chaotic, crazy, topsy-turvy world resume some sort of order and calm.  You know – just the normal crazy instead of 2017 crazy!  Yeah, y’all know what I mean!

Peace!