Finally after a couple rollercoaster years, 2022 wasn’t a bunch of crazy highs and lows. There were both, but not crazy swings.

The year started out with me having enough in my gun fund to finally upgrade my sidearm to a Smith & Wesson M&P9 2.0. It would be a bit before I could run some rounds through it, but it’s now riding in my holster. I have found that the aggressive stippling on grip likes to snag my cover garment more than expected, but I’m still liking it.

February the Ward household got hit with COVID. Damn, that was the worst sick I’d been in a very long time. The MIL, BIL, and SIL all got it. The Wife was like that one trailer in the trailer park the tornado just ignores. Which left her having to care for us. She was also the only one who could visit when BIL had to go to the hospital. Yeah, that wasn’t fun in any measure. It hit him hard and put him out of work for most of the year.

March was the first time since our wedding that The Wife and I actually go to go out to celebrate our anniversary. So, we moseyed up to St. Augustine for a few days. This would not be our only trips for 2022.

April and June were the months I lost both of my grandmothers – the last of my grandparents. In one of those odd coincidences, they died exactly two months apart. There were some heart wrenching decisions – such as whether I could make the trip out to see them. Fortunately, technology allowed me to have a final “face to face” call with my paternal grandmother. The one I made sure to call every Thursday. It’s still odd when I remember I don’t need to call her after work on Thursday.

May is also when I wrapped up reposting Zombie Strike on the blog. Which meant no Monday Fiction. It would be a while before Monday Links would become the replacement. Although, Monday Fiction might make its return. If I can get some things done.

In June, I did my first speech to my Toastmasters club in two years. The club finally began meeting in person again this year. And I felt it was time to get back up on the horse – so to speak. I would go on to give two more speeches this year. In addition, The Wife and I agreed to become officers again in our Toastmasters club.

August was the month we went down to one car. Well, The Wife and I went down to one car. The MIL still has hers. Yet, after much discussion, The Wife and I became the proud owners of the Ward Wagon. Later that month, we would host the great-niece’s second birthday party. The Wife and crew made the house look like Disney vomited inside it.

September was the month we lost our sphinx Titus. This was a hard loss because it was so sudden. Titus was one of the most people-friendly cats I’ve known, and his loss put a big hole in the house. Then we had to deal with Hurricane Ian. This was the first big storm in the new house, and we were afraid we were looking down at a Hurricane Andrew-type event. We had to pull out the storm screens and get things rearranged. Then it was twenty-four hours of watching the storm. Fortunately, our house came through without issue.

October was the month where three years of planning finally saw us going out west. Both The Wife and I have family in Idaho and Washington State. So, we spent a couple of weeks visiting/introducing each other to our respective sides.

November saw us on the road again as The Wife’s job had her come up to New York to meet some of her coworkers IRL. And since I can do my job from anywhere there’s internet, I went up with her. Which resulted in her going around while I stayed in the hotel room. After we got home, we had some discussions on the clowder. And ended up bringing home a new kitten – Freya. Adding a kitten has done some interesting things to the clowder. It’s been amusing to see which cats warmed up to her – and which ones were very annoyed by the new one’s presence.

December has been relatively quiet – except for the onslaught of holiday parties, holiday shopping, and prepping for hosting Christmas dinner. I also got a new iPad which helped with boosting my writing on my fantasy novel. Maybe I’ll finish it. Sometime.

Onward to 2023.

Last week was dominated by holiday parties and an internet outage.

Tuesday was our Toastmasters Holiday Party. It’s always interesting to see what luck comes from the potluck – and it was a pretty decent spread. Unfortunately, we needed to leave prior to the white elephant gift exchange. One of the cats decided to pull a disappearing trick. Missed dinner, missed treat time, could not be found. Very unusual for this cat. The Wife was worried enough that she couldn’t enjoy the party. So, with heavy hearts, we bid the club adieu and headed home to join in the hunt. Only for the cat to show back up when we were five minutes from the house. At that point, we were too exhausted to even contemplate going back.

Thursday the Ward family woke up to an internet outage in the neighborhood. This is something of a concern as both The Wife and I are teleworkers. Plus, we have a lot of smart home stuff. Okay, well, outages happen. They usually resolved by the time we have to go to work. Um, nope. Damn. The Wife and I manage to tether our work phones to our work laptops. The Wife gets almost as good speed from hers. Mine is… well, let’s just say anemic was being nice. Annoying, but outages happen. It should be resolved before lunch. Nope. By dinner? By bedtime? WTF happened? We awoke at 0300 the next morning, and I was still seeing the red ring of “no internet” on my Echo. The Wife informs the outage is resolved. Maybe for the neighborhood, but not for Ward Manor. We get on chat. Go through the usually “have you turned it off and on again” steps. They end up having to send out a tech. Who comes in early enough that we didn’t have to work most of the day off of our phones. Some sort of issue with the cable. Which meant I didn’t have to spend time doing maintenance getting stuff on a new network. Yay!

Which was really good because that meant I didn’t have to miss my office holiday party. Since most of us are fully virtual, this is one of the few times we see each other in person. Sometimes it’s a challenge for me because all of the normal meeting places are usually a good hour away. This year was at an upscale bowling alley/family fun place. Whatever. I wasn’t bowling. Shoulders said no. But the food was good – and it’s good seeing my teammates in person on occasion. Our supervisor always gets annoyed with us at the White Elephant because we don’t get into the larcenous side of the event. We’re just too laidback. I got a ten dollar bill stapled to a candy bar because one of our teammates left her present and that was what she could come up with on short notice. Hey, cash and sugar. I wasn’t going to complain.

Saturday was the Ward family holiday. Mom, The Brother, The Brother’s roommates (who are long-time friends), Rocket Engineer Brother and his family, The Wife and I traveled to Bok Tower for food and frivolity. The weather was cooperating and the food was plentiful. We don’t do white elephant for the family. The Brother runs a Secret Santa for the adults and everyone buys stuff for the niece and nephew. Secret Santa (SIL) got me a signed screenplay from an episode of Firefly and a little sign with my name from gun things. (You’ve probably seen the ads). The Wife got a small whiteboard desk cubby and some dry erase erasers in the shape of paw prints from The Brother. Of course, getting back home was a bit interesting due to one of the main state roads getting closed due to an accident. The only way to move traffic was an access road on the property of one of the major phosphate companies – who was reluctant to allow a large volume of vehicles go screaming through their area of liability. I think some of the deputies had a talk with security – who had a talk with their higher-ups – and we were finally able to get around.

All in all, not a horrible week. I don’t care what my calorie counter says.