Annus horribilis

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Finally the end and a good riddance to 2012!

This past year has been one of the worst years of my life (in particular the last 6 months- basically since July) and while there have been a few good things, mostly the year has been a Annus horribilis. To recap:

* My Dad died of a sudden heart attack in July. Then Mom and I had to deal with people (aka friends or family) stealing from the farm when my Dad was dying or had just died, and then later the relatives swarmed in asking for things.

* I had to have foot surgery. I had been in pain for 1.5 years before I did anything about it and I finally had surgery in September. It’s almost January and while I don’t walk with a limp any more (most of the time) and I can finally get my foot into most shoes, I am still in pain everyday and I have not slept though an entire night without waking up in pain. So apparently I am on the slow recovery timeline of 4-6 months, instead of 3-4 months as I hoped.

* No flying. The pain from foot surgery and it’s slow recovery has prevented me from flying for a really, really long time.

* My Grandma (aka the evil twin and I were born on her birthday. She has always been my favorite grandparent and is now the only surviving one) got sick in December and they did not think that she was going to make it. She started to talk and ask for dead people and asked for last rites again (now on her third set of last rites). She has recovered somewhat and in hospice care, but she wants to die. She has been saying that she wants to die for the past year or so and has been in such bad health, but our modern enlightened society and her neolithic religion prevent other measures.

* Our family friend Marvin died in December. Marvin was a crazy old farmer, but he was a very nice man. He was one of my Dad’s best friends and for the past 30 or so years Marvin told my Dad and others that he was leaving his farm (he was a bachelor with no close relatives) to my Dad when he died. Well, Marvin died after my Dad and he hid his will and no one could find it or they found it and destroyed it. While I don’t care if we inhered the farm or not, Marvin’s terrible cousin Rupert (whom he did not like and whom has been “taking” things from the farm since Marvin’s funeral), will now probably inherit and Marvin would have hated that.

* My aunt had a seizure and collapsed in her front yard and spent a little time in the hospital.

* I had to worked day hours (a trade with another employee so they could take some classes during the day) for the fall semester and I was not happy about it because of the traffic (over an hour to get to work is crazy) and I lost my shift diff that I received from working nights.

* I had two incomplete’s to finish up this fall with my PhD program, while taking two PhD classes at the same time.

* I got a third job.

* Oh yes, I had a 40th birthday, but that was before July and I am still not happy about it. Forty was traumatic.

Now before you think that I do not appreciate all the good things that happened in 2012, I will admit that not everything this year was horrible. I solo back on June 18 and then had a second solo on June 27. I had many book reviews and newsletter articles published, received a Publishing Agreement to co-author a book, travel to Mississippi, Houston, and Washington DC, presented a paper at a conference with some friends, became a member of the Explorers Club, became the secretary for the MN 99s (the local 99s chapter), and did many other fun and amazing things with friends and family.

So I leave you with two cute kitty photos, a wish for a happy New Year’s, and a hope that 2013 will be a better year*, because really, can it get any worse?

* The psychic at the poker tournament said that 2013 will be a great year for me.