The End of the Year as We Know It

I think next year I'll pick a random song lyric for a title--maybe modify it for relevance.

The Good Stuff:

• Two San Antonio bathroom problems are resolved or abated.  The sink drain is repaired, including the leaky hot water supply line. The toilet tank has been rebuilt, stopping a troublesome leak.
• Kittens are doing well, as are the big cats
• A very little work done on PBOTL
• Made progress on a few household hot spots
• Raked some more leaves; trimmed a few bushes

The Not So Good Stuff:

• Hubby is still avoiding the tub drain repair.  He has it mapped out, but he just has to convince himself to go under the house. I do understand this.  Sigh.
• Just as our Christmas ham finished cooking, the rotisserie motor on the stove went out.  We have a year to get it fixed, but I'll need to remind hubby about it early in the year.  I imagine he'll be scrambling at the last minute get it fixed, though.

The Week Ahead:

• Prepare to return to Central TX
• Bring in the New Year (because you know it won't arrive without our assistance)

Speaking of New Year, here are the goals for the coming year.

Relationship: Seems like we're in a mostly good place right now, and we'd like to keep it that way.

Pets:

• Continue care, feeding, and attention for inside (big) cats.  
• Decide what will be best for the feral kittens.  They will be ready for spay/neuter around the beginning of February.  Until then, where do we keep them?  In the crate in the garage (it will be difficult for me to clean the crate that way, but it will be better preparation if I'm to release them to outside after their spay/neuter) or set up in the parlor (where hubby says we don't have the space).  
• I plan to ask the vet if she'll keep them for a week or so to see if they can be adopted out of her office -- or I'll ask if a home they'd find from her office would be better than living outside at my place.  
• Of course, the temptation to keep them all inside is a strong one, but that would cause problems.  For our four, we can leave for a four-day weekend, and the litter boxes and food and water towers work fine.  Doubling the number of cats would be problematic.  And, of course, boarding that many for a couple of weeks while we travel would be, gasp!, prohibitive.
• If I put them outside, I'm feeding six cats, so I'd probably need two more feeders.  That would be easy.  I could probably treat these four monthly with the all in one flea and worm preventative to keep them safe from parasites -- assuming they will allow themselves to be handled once I release them.
• Continue trying to trap Sneaky to get her spayed.

Properties:

• San Antonio: This year I want to work on interior cleanliness, yard, help hubby with renovations in preparation for putting it on the market (not this year).
• Central TX House: Declutter, yard, exterior paint
• Shop: help hubby with projects (maybe bathroom repair and cleaning behind the building
• Store: Move bikes to shop, inventory glass, keep it mowed
• Ranch: Trim road edge back

Health and Fitness:

• Rededicate to WW and Fitness.  No, this is not a broken record.  I began the year at 263 and currently have a net gain of six pounds.  My next goal of 261 has been waiting impatiently for me to meet it.  A reasonable goal would be to be at or below 245 at year's end.
• Riding the bike helps keep my knees mobile and helps cardiac fitness (but I'll need to add more resistance to achieve better heart benefits)
• Resume my exercises for my knees.  My right hip is bothering me, and that's directly attributable to not doing my stretching exercises
• My blood pressure is giving me problems.  If I can't get it lowered with diet and exercise, the doc is going to have to put me on another medication.  I don't want that. 

Family:

• This is always troublesome for me.  I care for my family -- even love them, of course, but I've been away from them so long, I don't really know them.  Mom and I play Lexulous, so we chat back and forth in the course of the game.  My younger brother and his family are on Facebook, so we have some communication that way. My sister has a Facebook account, but she hasn't been on for several months.  My older brother will communicate via text, so maybe I better text him more than an annual Christmas and birthday text.
• My folks are coming to OK for my nephew's high school graduation in May, and we plan to attend as well.  So I suggested they might want to ride down on the train, and we'd pick them up in Dallas.  Then I suggested they come spend a couple of days with us in Central TX (Dad hasn't seen the house yet), and they accepted.

Writing: PBOTL revision and completion of How To Revise Your Novel are my top writing priority.  I also plan to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.

Reading: I always have a goal of reading 50 books a year.  2012 has probably been my worst year for reading, and I doubt 2013 will be much better, but the goal remains 50 books.

FM: I'm more active behind the scenes than I was at the beginning of the year.  I'm not much more active on the front end than I was before. With the transition to Joomla!, I've become the primary backend person.  I've created the test site but still haven't found the best way to get it configured to match the live site.  I plan to redo the FAQ. We need to figure out how to get chat logins integrated with the site login.  There are a few other problems people are complaining about that I have no idea how to resolve.

Blogging and Internet Presence:  I'm mostly comfortable with my current blog schedule.  I skip a few days now and then.  I see few new readers and nearly no commenters.  I understand what they meant when they said blogging was dead, but I have no interest in making Facebook a blogging platform.  In fact, I refuse to do so.  I still value what we have here at Createslate as we begin our third year.