So a year ago, DH, HPF, and I were jet-lagged and cranky and thoroughly wrapped in Javachik's warm welcome back to the states, and to the new year. We were able to meet so many SFistas, including Megan Walker, Consuela, JZ, Hec, and Matilda and Emmett. I managed to wound myself cutting cheese, and HPF overdid it on chocolate (!), but being with all of you for the start of the year was wonderful, and we are so very glad to know you all. Javachik, I am grateful for your friendship, always.

2011, you were tumultuous at best. I spent a lot of it fighting the sinus infection from hell (thanks again Steph for calming my nerves), sorting out DH's back problem, and dealing with some ridiculous school stuff for HPF, plus the usual elderly parent things. I sold my first two stories and (you're hearing it first here) wrote my first novel, though I'm going to be revising it a lot in the new year. Raq, -t, and Gud patiently read some of my stories. Maria and LeNubian helped me deal with the ridiculous bad bank situation. The buffista community continued to amaze me with how we care for each other. On other fronts, my mom came through some health stuff well, and I'm grateful for that. We lost DH's grandmother, who was amazing and very much loved. We missed our dog as we went through a series of firsts without her after nearly 17 years of having her there. Politics boggled me completely. The earthquake in Christchurch and the tsunami in Japan made my heart ache for people I do not know, and made me hold those people I do know a lot closer.

2012, I'm hoping you are a good year, and that you are very very good to my buffistas, me and my family, and to the world in general.

So, 2011 was very much like 2010 for me. Still enjoy my job, and my studies went well. Most importantly, Wallybee is still just lovely, and Ryan is, as he opined just after his haircut, "a boo'ful boy". Had two great holidays - Sydney, with WB's parents, and Phillip Island over Christmas. (The little boy has decided that he likes holidays. They include funparks and beaches and penguins and echidnas. And a rainbow on Christmas, that was nice.)

My 2011 was really uneventful. One job, same apartment, no major crises. Also nothing really great, which is too bad. I started 2011 dating a really lovely but ultimately unsuitable man, so ended that in the spring, and haven't had much luck in dating since. Finally got a new boss at work, but am feeling more and more like the job I'm in isn't ultimately the kind of job I want to have, so that's something to think about in the new year. Mostly I'm glad my family is more or less OK, and we all like each other (enough). My father still has Alzheimer's, but can enjoy himself most of the time, and my 92-year-old grandmother will outlive us all.

So, in short: 2011 was OK. On to the new year!

sox - congratulations on novel completion!!

billytea - Ryan continues to be v. amusing.

2011 - I feel like it was more of the same. No big highs or lows but little ones. I finally ventured out and joined my local knitting group and that was a huge plus for me. Made only tiny inroads into the chaotic mess that is my apartment. Got to hear from a vet that any time I have with my cat is pretty much a gift. (She is an elderly statescat. Or a feisty old lady cat. .. or just mouthy, and snuggly and I don't know what I'm going to do without her.)

2012- makes me happy for all the dragons in my life: a brother, a niece and 2 of the closest friends I have.

Mostly, 2011 was mostly situation normal for me. No real lows or highs. But my job, which was never terribly satisfying, was always a pleasant enough place to work. It's been reorganized into a far more corporate and bureaucratic department, and I fear this means that "pleasant place to work" element will be removed. (Also maybe paranoid fears about being made redundant.) So I have been thinking a lot about moving on...Inertia is strong in me, so I hope for some kind of opportunity and the balls to overcome it. Some times I worry that I have been in the velvet prison of the civil service for so long I won't even know how to work in a real job anymore.

My parents are in their 80s. My dad had a heart incident this spring and my mom is a weird place of deafness and burgeoning senility which she is stubbornly in denial about. So I worry about them a lot. They're at an age where you just don't know what will happen.

I wish that 2012 is good to Buffistas. I know it can't be sunshine and glitter all the time, but here's to hoping that the breakthroughs column has many more checks than the breakdowns column.

SUNSHINE AND GLITTER! A perfect world!

Well, this was a year of changes. mr. flea's postdoc was set to expire in August, and he job searched and searched. At various points I looked up places like Berlin, Dublin, Ada OK, and Los Alamos. But we ended up in Cincinnati - possibly the most prosaic on the list! - and a place we'd actually lived before (and met, even.) He started his job in mid-September, and we all moved up Oct. 5. The kids are in an excellent-rated elementary school, I have a job in my field (though currently temporary, underpaid, and with a control freaky boss), and mr. flea really likes his job, which could easily be a forever job (unless a Republican president manages to actually abolish the EPA.)

But I'm not settled at all. We're in a temporary apartment; we have a house for sale in Georgia; I don't feel like we've found the right school community or neighborhood or job community (for me). I hate moving; I moved about every 3 years growing up and the longest I have lived in one city is 5 years (Durham NC) and I hate the instability of it all. I really wanted to be settled for a really long time in Georgia, although I hated the weather, and it will take a while for me to accept this move and find my way.

2011 was much like 2010 for me. Same job, same husband, same cats, same house.

Too many people I know suffered loss in some way. I keep telling the universe to lay off my friends, but it doesn't listen.

I know 2012 will have at least one change for me, as I will end up in a different lab by the end of the year. We'll see what else happens.

billytea - Ryan continues to be v. amusing.

He surely is. He's also reached an age where we can actually reason with him. With mixed results, but fairly often he'll listen. (Like the night I explained to him how the food he eats sends nutrition to all of his body, so it was important to eat good things, and he actually agreed to eat his vegetables. Refused again the next night, but it's something.)