… and I’m in a bit of a writing mood.

Stuff and Things have been happening. Most of it good, some of it irritating or plain not fun.

In no particular order:

The convention I helped run back in March? – I went pretty well, actually. I’ve signed on again for next year, on the programming staff, again. We’ve not gotten any confirmation on our guests for next year, unfortunately.

My art show came down on January 6; I did sell one piece (I need to poke the owner to collect it – it’s been a while).

My Mum is getting worse. She had to sign an agreement to moderate her behavior in the assisted living facility that she lives in to avoid getting evicted. She’s been verbally abusive to, well, everyone (picking fights, too), and her short-term memory is effectively non-existent; the kicker here is that both the director and assistant director of the facility think she’s faking it. I can’t see it – if she is, she has both me & my oldest brother (who’s doing all the legwork as he lives nearby her) completely fooled. Plans are in effect to get her some more help and to find a new place for her, as we think it’s just a matter of time before she goes off the rails again and gets booted out. This stuff is pretty hard for me, especially as I’m not near enough to help – and my brother has his own moderate to severe medical issues to deal with, not to mention his bio mom and stepfather’s aging and such. Feh.

I am also dealing with a severe case of artist’s block. I can seem to get anything down in ink that I’m happy with, at all. Still working on that, but hopefully I’ll be able to break through it sooner, rather than later.

Work is going well; there are interesting things happening – the company that’s owned us for seven years just sold us… …to one of our biggest competitors. The shake out of that ought to be interesting. I’m still enjoying working there, and I got my raise at the beginning of the month ; not a huge amount, but every bit helps, as we have a rather unfortunate and large tax debt this year; the good thing is it’ll be paid off around next January.

My health is getting better. I’m still working out, and as of the coming week, I’ll be going to the gym three times a week, rather than two. I’ve lost a bunch of weight while putting on some significant muscle, and my health numbers (BP, sugars, etc) are looking very good. I’m going to try very hard to get to more contra dances this year as well.

My wonderful wife is fully employed – no longer an independent consultant (and thus avoiding having the tax problem from last year repeat itself), but a FTE for her company. She is still traveling for work, but next week will be her last in Georgia, and then she’ll be starting Sunday-Thursday at a hospital in Ohio.

My other sweeties are all doing pretty well; some of my friends are not, and I’m trying to help when and as I can (though in many cases, there’s not much I can do, other than be a cheerleader).

Basically, life is pretty good.