2012: year in review

[boogieshoes]

2012 To-Do List

A few comments on 2012 from personal memories:

2012 was dominated by achievement of HOUSE, which is awesome in several ways. 

For one thing, this puts the 2nd-tier back-up retirement plan into action.  The 'Retirement Plan' is the dream castle/ wild horse park, which I am in good position to accomplish, albeit probably not for at least 20 years yet.  The 1st-tier back-up plan is to have a few acres in the Wyoming/ Colorado/ Montana/ Idaho area along with a comfortable house that are completely paid off along with a comfortable income to do whatever I want with.  The 2nd-tier plan is to have this in the area I currently live in.  It's a big jump from the 1st-tier back-up to The Plan, and if I can't make it, I'm seriously considering finding a house in the Four Corners area of Wyoming, because, well, FAN-LIFE. 

For another thing, getting my own 3 acres goes a long way to helping with my ‘Zombie Apocalypse Survival Plan’, in that it's a pretty essential skill to know how to grow your own food in your climate, and then have room to grow enough for you and your dependents throughout the year.  And room to store it.  I haven't had much success in figuring out how to get to actual fruits and vegetables, but it's just about impossible to grow suitable amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables in an apartment.  The second part of this is learning how to can and otherwise preserve your bounty for the long winter months.  If I can manage to grow anything at all this year, I'll start on learning how to preserve/ dry herbs, etc. 

Gardening crosses genres between Zombie Preparedness and 'Things I'd like to contribute to the SCA.  I'd love to be able to offer fresh fruits and vegetables to our local Feast-o-crats.  I'd also love to be able to provide fresh and dried herbs and flower ingredients to local people who make things like bruise juice (a favorite of fighters), muscle balms, dye lots for wools, herbal medications, etc.  There will be things I won't do – I refuse to garden anything that requires gloves to handle because it's too dangerous to handle with your bare hands.  This means no foxglove, no matter how pretty, because apparently the digitalin chemicals can be absorbed through the skin from handling the plant – and the digitalin shows up in every part of the plant, in high enough concentrations to be inherently dangerous.  Digitalis, by the way, is what they make heart medication from, and the dosage used in the medicine is way lower than the dosage that shows up in everyday plant life.  So no matter how pretty they are (and they're really beautiful), no foxglove on my land.  I'll probably also stay away from things like Oleander and Boxwood, plants which are poisonous if you ingest them.  I have kids and pets in my neighborhood, and both species tend to explore things by putting it in their mouths.

On the gripping hand, I'll probably try for at least one apple tree, cyanide notwithstanding.  That's right, cyanide – bet you didn’t know that, huh?  Apparently apple seeds are chock full of cyanide, which, of course, is not so good.  Peach pits are full of cyanide, too.  But most people and animals won’t eat fruit seeds/ cores like that. 

Something else that crosses genres that I've been wanting for a while is an archery lane in my back yard.  I'll have to get a few things, and probably wait until after Gulf Wars in March, but I can put up an archery lane and practice and get my hand back in… and my exercise in trying to find out where I shot all those silly arrows, since they won’t actually be in the target for a while…

Then there's the woodshop/ workshop, which crosses genres between SCA and mundane life.  This one's rather self-explanatory.

So, despite what it looks like below, I accomplished a whole lot in 2012.

The Garden:

The garden no longer counts as an 'easy' thing to knock off just because I'm in an apartment.  Contingent upon buying my house and acreage - I'm looking for 2-3ish acres - I wish to complete the following:

1) Take measurements of my plot and house and lay it out in some landscaping software.
2) Put up a fenced-in area if one does not already exist, because I wish to own a doggeh.
3) Sketch in areas on the e-layout for an eventual in-ground pool, a patio/outdoor kitchen area if one does not already exist, and a formal vegetable/herb/fruit garden patch.
4) Sometime near October/November, I'll need to finalize plans for what I want to plant starting in 2013, where, in the vegetable garden.  The first year, I'll probably move my containers to various areas and see what's what.

The garden thing was really messed up by the fact that i didn't actually close on a house until mid-Sept.  Most of this will be rolled over this year, and i think almost everything but the flowers i got will be in containers, except for fava beans and/or grass that i'd like to grow in the 'designated garden plot' to make said plot better for in-ground/ raised bed planting of other things.


Cross-stitch:

1) Finish up Allyson's baby bib not done, but taken off list.
2) In rotation:
    a) Tiger
    b) Mag7 doggies
    c) Cardinals
    d) Sylvia's towel
    e) See how many of the 2011 ornaments I can get done...
    f) I'm putting Laney's sampler on the list now, although I don't actually expect it to get done until she goes off to college.  (I started this thing before she was born - she's 14 now, aieee!)
                                
I've got a needlepoint I'm adding to the list, because when i moved, almost all my supplies went into boxes.  Which are hiding.... somewhere in the purple room. (do-do-do-dummmm!)

also adding: find a beginner's stumpwork piece to practice on.  but i'm taking away: the tiger, the cardinals, and the ornaments.  i never got anything on those done anyway.

the mag7 doggies got approximately 3 stitches set in them over thanksgiving, because 1) everyone had to have some time with me (which i thought was awesome) and 2) i apparently forgot how to stitch while i was fixing up the house....

Fandom Activities:

1) I still... have those two essays on writing to finish!
2) Finish Seventh Gift
3) See if I can't make progress on the TS cross-over
4) Upload stories to Dreamwidth, and AO3
5) Start Projects on:
    a) LB!JD is actually a girl
    b) Alternate Ending to 'Something Wicked'
6) Finish alternate ending tale for the Little Match Girl story
7) Finish slice-of-life stories
8) Finish Highlander-AU first 3 stories
9) The Bitter Glass (Green Day 'verse story)

i'm just rolling all of this over.  i need to contact seremela to ask for her permission to upload the alternate ending to Matches i did.  but the rest of it was drowned by house.  not that i'm not glad for buying a house, but it took up most of my time and energy. :-p

Personal Admin:

1) Save rest of house-buying
2) Yes, I still need to transfer data from old laptops to new,
        contingent on house-buying.

rolling that over, too....

Wood-working/ Furniture/ House stuff:

1) Finish that silly chair!
    a) make cushion
    b) make two matching wood sides
2) Take apart Dad's furniture
3) Possibly buy - all contingent on buying the house first
    a) computer desk kit
    b) night-stand kit
    c) Desktop computer
    d) Rocking Chair

All of the stuff in part 3 is contingent on me having certain things done first... like all the painting/ redecorating done.  the painting and redecorating isn't done, so that stuff is on hold.

Health:

1) Keep eye on weight, with goal of losing 1lb/week
2) Keep up workout diary on Dreamwidth.
3)  First official weigh-in is 262.4lbs, 1/5/2012.

i did good on this until house.  i lost around 20lbs, and then went back up to 265ish.  at least i didn't gain a lot more.

SCA stuff:
 
 1) Set up a calligraphy area, preferably in a sun-room or sunny spot after house is bought.
    a) Get a calligraphy desk and comfortable chair
    b) Get a cabinet for use in that area
 2) Tent Prep for GW 2013
     a) Gesso/ Paint my tent walls in prep for GW 2013
    b) Get mosquito netting for tent walls
    c) Get bottom tarp
    d) Big Lots for cheap rugs
    e) bigger camp cot/ more camp cots for queen size air mattress

i'm tossing all SCA things and starting over, since i've had an epiphany about my SCA participation.  there's some deep-thinking things i want to do here, and there may be a few posts about it in the future.

Things left to do for House-Buying:

1) Research areas more closely
2) Begin driving around local counties to figure out where houses are/ get familiar with neighborhoods
3) Apply for pre-approval
4) Acquire Realtor
5) Make list of :
    a) Must-haves
    b) Nice-to-haves
    c) Must NOT have
Update:  as of 9/14/2012, house has been achieved.  2 days later, in the middle of cleaning and paint prep-work...
6) Pack and Move (Will probably hire a moving company)
7) Unpack and set up.

So, house bought, and much of it has been painting, with much painting still left to go.  look for a post with pictures soonish.



-bs, the happy home-owner