It's been a hard year in a lot of ways — it's actually a little absurd how many family members and and friends died this year, and by November, when 1 more family member and 1 more acquaintance died, I was pretty much numb to it, and that's where I am right now.

We lost Kato and Slinky, and even though they were at the natural end of their lives and we were damned lucky to have them as long as we did (15 1/2 is an exceptionally long life for a dog Kato's size, and almost 21 is an exceptionally long life for any cat), it was so fucking hard to lose them.

Politics. Jesus. I feel so demoralized and crushed on the regular.

My fucking depression relapsed really badly, perhaps unsurprisingly.

The parent who *didn't* have a history of heart disease (my mom) had to have major heart surgery at the age of 70, which was terrifying.

BUT.

Two Christmas gifts I make every year are (1) a calendar for all of Tim's family members, using photos from the past year, and (2) a ViewMaster reel for Tim of the highlights of our past year. Putting those things together made me realize that we had a LOT of highlights. There was a lot of good. Weddings of family and friends, a lot of concerts (more than in the last 15 years combined, literally), other shenanigans and outings. My brother and SiL were home for 2 weeks over the summer, and I got to spend a LOT of time with my brother, which doesn't always happen when he's in town.

We found our next kitty in our own backyard, literally. Murderbiscuit is the devil but also a source of amusement, and a BIG source of joy for Tim.

I started Prozac at the end of September, which has made a HUGE difference. I'm more motivated and more energetic and engaged.

Because my mom is healthier and in better shape than some people 20 years younger than her, she sailed through heart surgery with flying colors and recovered quickly and uneventfully and was back to teaching yoga in 2 months.

The daith piercing I got in November for my migraines seems to be helping, though it's only been 6 weeks, so it's still a bit too early to say for sure. I can say that, in the 6 weeks since I got the piercing, a migraine has tried to start twice, and I've managed to stop it within a few hours with meds, which almost never happened in the past year or two. So I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Plus, it looks cool.

In the past few years I've noticed a trend of people picking a word/phrase for the upcoming year (like "create" or "commit" or whatever). My phrase was "do the work." And my goal was to do the hard work in therapy, and at my job, and for my physical health. I can say I really did meet my goals in those areas. Therapy has been so fucking hard, but very helpful. Work was good this year -- I get good feedback and I'm sticking with the AMA for another year. When I walked the Flying Pig 5K in May, I finished in under an hour (57 minutes) for the first time, which I am so fucking proud of.

My word for 2018 is "focus." I want to really narrow in on what's important (my marriage), the areas where changes need to happen (I would like to get rid of half the shit in this house, and "half" is genuinely not an exaggeration), and things I want to continue (I'd like to beat 57 minutes in the 2018 Flying Pig 5K).

And as always, I'm so grateful for all of you.

I've been trying to think of one good thing from every month in 2017, it's challenging mostly because my memory is crap.

The year over all was horrible in the big picture, but not so bad for me personally.

Jan - The Women's March which did spark in me something and was a good day if not quite a march for me personally.

Feb - Moonlight won Best Picture which was my favorite and made me so emotional. Mac got his learner's permit. Nevertheless, She Persisted.

March - Spring Break trip to LA, saw friends, relaxed, visited Disney, good times. Started watching Walking Dead.

April - Started coloring a stripe in my hair. Started my Chris Evans retrospective (which I need to pick back up!). Old 97s County Fair for the second time, seeing Mavis Staples live was the highlight.

May - Covfefe. Garage sale #1. I got rid of an entire bedroom suite which was a big step in move prep.

June - changed the hair stripe to teal.

I can only manage half the year thus far.

Wishing growth, peace, and love to you, Beloveds, in the coming year.

2017 is the year my father, defying all expectation, didn't die. So that was good. It would be really lovely if 2018 followed suit!

2017 was the year my father did die, and I've been equal parts sad and relieved about it. I actually found Christmas to be less sad with him all the way gone.

Other than that, my year was a year. I got a new job and a new cat, had a great trip to Europe, and was mostly horrified at the state of the country, with just a couple of bright spots here and there.

I'm not sure if I know how to feel about 2017, except in little bits.

Husband got laid off AGAIN. Bad. Might have to move again. Exhausting. Moving here was supposed to bring us closer to family, but we've only seen them a couple of times, probably because they are not good at organizing, and the younger ones are all busy with kids. I mean, they're there if we need help.

Got my hair colored with blue and purple and green. That was cool. I may do it again in February, before another con.

Back surgery. Definitely sucked. Surgery part wasn't that difficult. The parts before and after were worse. I'm still fighting to get that last 10 percent of functionality back, and apparently that's going to require work on my part, and work is never my strong suit.

Finally went to a headache specialist for my migraines. Ongoing. One step is dropping artificial sweeteners, which means dropping diet soda. Which hardly seems fair. But I've mostly done it. Unrelatedly, I've lost about 20 pounds since September. I could probably lose more faster if I were stricter about it.

I wrote a thing that's making money, and that's cool. I could make more money if I wrote another thing, but again, that would require work.

Went to Europe twice, once three weeks post-back surgery. If I had known, or been able to cancel without penalty, I would have dropped out, but it went pretty well, considering. Thankfully, husband came along. Prague was neat, but I really liked Vienna, which husband and I did on our own.

The other trip was a ten-day coach tour of England and Scotland with my oldest fandom friends, celebrating twenty years. It was awesome, and I'd do it again right now if they asked me.

So I guess that trip was the high point of my year, and the low point was realizing that so many people around me were able to completely deny reality and refuse to accept actual facts. I think progress is being made, but there are still plenty of times when I just can't cope with things in our country, and I feel guilty, because I have the luxury of hiding under the covers. But it won't do anyone any good if I'm huddled in a corner, weeping.

Summary: Vacation good, politics bad.

At first glance, 2017 didn't seem terribly different from previously years for me. Same job, same house, same husband, same child, same cats.

Obviously, 2017 was very different politically from 2016, and not in a good way. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Mr. S entered the terrible twos with a vengeance. He doesn't listen, and gets into everything. He's had some behavior issues at nursery school, and we are working with him on it.(with a good bit of help from the teachers and people from the county Infants and Toddlers program) This can be frustrating a lot. He is making progress, though.

I wanted 2017 to be over with, and I wanted to keep to my 11:00 non-work-day bedtime on New Year's Eve. So I found a radio station from England on the Net and celebrated New Year's with London.

I may make that a tradition. Kind of refreshing to celebrate New Year's, then go out for dinner at the local pizza-pasta-subs joint that was so dead that they were adding complimentary salads, and still get a good night's sleep.

I may be getting old.

Might be that with age comes wisdom!

Also possible.

I did enjoy ringing in the New Year with Big Ben.