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.

What a great idea, Fred!

This was the year of The Move. My HR job was sucking my soul out of my body on the reg and there was no way we could afford our mortgage without me keeping it. We decided to move to Michigan and, although the actual prep and move were a huge pain and we STILL aren't all unpacked, we are very happy we did. Love our new house and how great local NPR is and, basically, the whole Midwest thing.

My goals for 2018 are first, to get a job, hopefully as a substitute teacher, and also to do research about opening a used bookstore in the future. Also to get the rest of our books unpacked!

I haven't posted in Goodbye and Good Riddance in years, because nothing changed- I had the same job, the same minor annoyances, the same vaguely OK happiness, but nothing to womderful and nothing too bad.

This year has been a series of bad things-

1. In April I was diagnosed with diabetes

2. This made my doctor make me see all the doctors

3. My insurance is the high deductible kind

4. My physical became a diagnostic visit, so I had to pay for it

5. My mammogram became a diagnostic visit, and I had to have a biopsy and pay for it

6. Apparently an eye exam is $400

While this was happening, at work they hired an "assistant administrator" to supervise the "administrative assistants" who previously reported to the professors who ran the program we worked for. It was pretty stressful. I love my boss and hence love my job.

7. The day after this new boss started, my mother lost her vision and my uncle was in the ED.

8. The whole thing made me crazy because no one would let me help, and I am healthcare adjacent

9. I also completely changed my eating, lost 70 pounds, and have non-diabetic numbers. But I HATE it, and I sort of hate talking about it because I would never recommend this type of eating to someone who was not diabetic (High Fat, very low carb (around 30 - 40 per day). But everyone at work wants to talk about it because it is very visible.

10. My mother did get her sight back- they messed up her eye injection.

11. My uncle died. Also I was listed in the obit as his special niece, and that made my theatre boss ask if he was really my father. Which was weird and made me hate him more than I already did.

12. I somehow lost all taste for food. I was treated for acid reflux and it seems better, but I can't look at an egg without wanting to vomit because I ate too many eggs earlier in the year.

13. I have had some sort of runny nose/sinus thing since October

14. I think I might have broken a piece of one of my molars, but it doesn't hurt anymore and I wanted to wait until there was more money in my HSA

15. I am still paying off the $1,500 deductible for my insurance, and I accidentally paid too much, so the weekend of Christmas until the 30th, I only had $20 and it was difficult. I could have paid it way earlier, but I am horrible and didn't even want to look at the bills because I was in so much denial.

16. Also, I think my cat is 22 and going to die soon. Or the people I got her from didn't tell me her correct age.

17. My mother is super more depressed than usual and so hard to talk to when I am also depressed, but I kind of think she is going to die soon too, so I try to call her every other day.

As the year comes to a close, I have barely spoken to this new assistant administrator, and I don't understand what his job is, but he seems nice. I haven't tried hard to connect because I might be getting a promotion and wouldn't report to him any more. But apparently no matter how big of a promotion (the original idea was 5 grades), apparently the university can only give at most a 10% raise (which for me is $4,000), but I would have to quit the theatre (where I make $12,000) to go back to school and get a master's in online education. So I am torn.

Hmm. That was actually cathartic. I know I am a lucky

Wow, Sophia, I didn't realize all you've gone through this year.

That's a lot.

I always keep in mind the rough point system that some therapists used to use assigning major points for Loss of Spouse, less for Loss of Job, Some for Personal Illness etc. With the idea that any accumulation of three or four or those major hits in a year was going to be extremely stressful.

You've been under a tremendous amount of stress. That would make most people depressed.

Not trying to emphasize the negative, but acknowledge how MUCH you've dealt with.