I'd intended for there to be one last
post of 2019 that went up ahead of this, but that didn't quite work
out.
I was going to reflect on what had
happened last year, both good and bad, in that post and then make
another one that I'd have come out right about now, about things I'm
looking forward to in the year ahead. Unfortunately, I got a little
bit hung up on the bad things and it didn't quite happen the way I'd
intended. That's OK, though. I probably don't really need to make
this a million pages long, and if I have to do it all at once, I
might not.
I'll be looking at four or five things
that happened last year. I've got one good thing and one bad thing
picked out for short term or one-time events, and one good thing and
one or two bad things for long-term events, simply because I'll be
deciding just what I want to cover here as I write. That's actually
a more common thing in these posts than it probably shoud be, but
it's how I've been doing things for pretty much the whole time I've
been doing this.
The bad short-term thing I've got here
is when I wrecked a tire on my car in the spring. This kind of ties
into some of the long-term stuff I'll be getting into later, because
I think I kind of zonked out for a few seconds when it happened. I'm
just lucky it was only one tire and not the whole car. Reflecting on
previous years for a second here, I can't help but wonder if
something like this happened when I did
wreck a whole car. For now, though, I'll just count my blessings
that it didn't happen again, since I was on a busy street when it
happened.
The good thing in
this category came later on in the spring, when I went to see the
last Red Green stage show when the tour came through my area. I've
been a fan since high school, and I'm glad I took the chance to get
this picture, since I'll probably never get another, on account of
the character's creator and actor retiring permanently:
Gotta say, Red
Green's been more of an inspiration than he probably should have
been, in more ways, too, including
my favorite MiSTing series. More on that later, maybe.
Now, on to the
long-term, ongoing stuff. I'd start with the good thing, but I want
to end this section with a good thing, so that means starting with
the bad things. Yeah, I think I'll do both, even though I probably
shouldn't.
The first ongoing
thing is that my last surviving grandmother is in hospice care after
having a sever stroke sometime in the middle of November. I've got
some seriously mixed feelings about this one, to be honest. On the
one hand, I'm glad she's not dead yet, for a lot of reasons,
including that I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. At the same
time, I sort of wish she were, because she's just not herself any
more, and it's an extremely difficult thing to see a person I care so
much about in such a bad way like this. If there's a silver lining
in the situation, it's that she's in a place where there are people
who can give her the kind of care and assistance she needs right now,
and hopefully, it'll be over soon.
The
second ongoing bad thing is that my own health has taken kind of a
downturn the last month or so, in spite of it also being the ongoing
good thing that I'll get into shortly. In spite of the general
improvements that I'll go over in a bit, I've been making the kind of
dumb choices that led to my being in the situation I mentioned above
that led me to wrecking a tire this spring, and probably an entire
car a few years back. Now, granted, I'm still doing better than I
have been in the past because of some of the good things I'm getting
to, but I've slipped kinda hard in December, in no small part because
I came down with some kind of bug in the middle of the month that
really did a number on my breathing and digestive tract.
As I said, though,
I'm making some positive headway in that regard, too. In the summer,
I finally started using the health insurance that I had to get
because of the Affordable Care Act. As a result of finally seeing
doctors and the like, I'm getting treatment for some of the health
issues I've got. Starting in July, I got a primary care guy, who
helped me get my ass in gear to lose some of the excess weight I'm
carrying around. I'd say I've lost 20 or 25 pounds since then. I
should probably step on the scale here soon, though, just so I can
see how much damage the holidays have done to that. Kinda gotta know
how much work I've gotta do before I go back in to see that doctor.
In October, I had a
sleep study, which led to my being put on a BiPAP machine by the end
of the month. The followup for that was in December, and the
pulmonary guy said I had sleep apnea bad enough that it was waking me
up almost 150 times an hour, but since I got on the machine, it's way
down, to what they'd consider a more normal number of times. I can
tell, too. I've been sleeping better than I have since college, for
sure, and maybe even since high school. Hopefully, that'll help with
the whole weight loss thing, too. That'll be on top of better
portion control and a little more exercise, too.
Now that all that's
taken care of and I'm on a second page here, I may as well get on
with what I'm hoping to do with the new year ahead. I've got a few
interesting things in mind. Here's a handful of them.
Naturally, the
first thing on the list is continued improvement on the health front.
As I was just saying, I've been having good luck on that front and
getting some good results. I fully intend to continue on with that
as best I can. I'm doing better with portion control than I have in
a long time, which has been doing good things for me. In spite of
slipping in December, I've still been moving forward with it, and I'm
hoping to get to a place where I can start doing decent exercise
again soon. The better sleep I've been getting with the BiPAP will
probably continue to help on that front. I should probably look into
getting at least one new pillow, though, because the ones I'm using
now are a little old and worn out, which is probably not a good
thing. I'll have to look around my apartment and get with some of
the people I know about that, because I may be able to solve that
problem without spending much money on it, which I'm thinking would
be a good thing.
Also
on this list is my writing hobby. The measure I go by for how I'm
doing on that is the number of posts I make here on this blog, though
it's hardly the only place I've got writing posted. Last year, I had
52 posts here, which works out to about one a week, on average. I'd
like to do better than that again, because I have in the past, and I
think it's possible to get back to it. Doubling my post count this
year may be a bit ambitious, but it's still something I'd like to try
for. I'm also feeling good enough about all of this that I've
created an account on a writing site called An
Archive Of Our Own. One project I've got in mind is to transfer
some of my old stuff to there from FanFiction
dot net. There's also some new stuff I've got in the works, too.
I'll post relavent links as they become available.
Part
of the writing and blogging stuff I've got at least provisional plans
for right now involves that Mystery Science Theater stuff I talk
about in the description of that picture I linked to on DeviantArt.
The links there might not go anywhere any more, but as I've been
becoming more clear headed as my health has improved, I've
rediscovered that I still have all those on various hard drives that
I stil have access to. There's also an associated somewhat
standalone piece associated with that same series I've been meaning
to tell the story of and repost in various places. Found that while
I was on vacation, along with some vintage MiSTing fodder I kind of
want to do something with. I think I may have made mention of that
in one of my vacation posts.
So, yeah, I've got
a lot planned for the new year. I'm hoping for mostly good things,
and hopefully a lot of them will be. As always, we'll have to see
where things go, of course. I'm optimistic, though. I've found that
things tend to work out better when I am, even when they're going
bad. Makes it that much easier to at least try to get back up and
try again or try something else when the situation calls for it.
Anyway, here's to a
good new year, everybody. Hopefully, I'll see you with more of what
I've already got going on as well as all that new stuff I've been
going on about. I hope you all have a good year this year, because
I'm hoping the same for myself. Here's to seeing you along the way,
everybody!
Happy 2020, all!
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