Cool stuff that happened to you in 2018

[Cashmere]

 

Nice job on all that blood, Poe!

[The Kurgan]

I looked at my credit line balance a year ago and it was $10,000. Now it's $1,000. So that's pretty good. I'm going to need financial flexibility in the not too distant future, so it's a damn good thing if I can clear away debt and save a bit.

 

The wife had a hip replacement last June. Kinda stressful when it happened, but turned out well. It caused us to miss our annual vacation east last summer, but perhaps that's just as well since that's a part of what allowed me to clear away so much debt. She's getting her right knee done next. She has joint issues stemming from a connective tissue disorder, which isn't very fun.

 

Congratulations on what sounds like an awesome year, Tank. Good for you.

 

Playing D&D is what caused me to start to worship the Devil <grin> - My first experiences with the game was in the early 80s with my older brother. I began DM-ing in 1986, and did quite a bit of it in the '92 to '95 time span. Damn it, it's hard to get a committed group together for any length of time though, especially once you start getting married, having kids and so on. "The DM's new girlfriend" is truly the greatest threat any player-characters will ever face. Very early 2000s was the last time I ever played or DM'd.

 

If you like long road trips, the one I usually do but missed this year is from Alberta, Canada to cottage country on the great lakes, about an hour or so west of Toronto. It's 3300 kilometers - a little over 2,000 miles. 3 days of solid driving - 12 hours for the first two and about 8 or 9 hours on the 3rd day. Piece of cake. First time I did it I went from Calgary to Kenora, Ontario in one day. 1,500 Km (930-ish miles) and took from 5:30 a.m to 11 p.m, counting time zone changes. Not doing that again.

[Cerina]

2018 was a fantastically shitty year for us, but most things did eventually turn out ok.

 

Big kid had surgery for his right foot. After some financing complications, we were able to take care of it through a Go Fund Me. And the surgery went well. The left foot will be done this year, but, of course, first funding issues again.

 

In the middle of all of that my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, but it was caught mega-early (because her mother is causing such stress in her life that it gave her an ulcer and the ulcer treatment and diagnosis found the cancer) and she beat it! So yay for that.

 

After Harvey our mortgage company tried every which way they could to screw us out of our home. Eventually, among threats to foreclose, we sold it out from underneath them. For cash. Thankfully we bought it super-cheap, so even after the world's shittiest mortgage company decided to pile on one last FU by adding so many fees to our payoff that it wound up being higher then the initial purchase price 7 years ago we were still able to walk away with a decent chunk of change. So we paid off a few CCs that had been sinking us for a few years, and used the rest to find a bigger, nicer house in a better part of town (rental) where we actually get to help out our friends/landlords. So that's win-win.

 

But since we closed December 17th and moved into the rental January 4th, we pretty much skipped all the holidays. We didn't have a tree. We didn't do Santa. Thankfully, I have the world's most understanding 10 year-old who was already aware of the truth about Santa and was fully knowledgeable about our situation and a completely clueless 2 year-old, so neither kid feels cheated. And this year I owe them a trip to Disney or something.

 

And actually, in November, in the midst of all this drama, my sister and brother-in-law took me to Disney World basically for free. She gets free tickets, he gets free flights and hotel. So that was awesome.

 

In better news, I started a new part-time job working for our local Boy Scouts district. I help new units get set up, planned, trained, etc. It's like 5 hours a week, but I like it. Works great with my schedule and gives me just enough money to avoid going broke buying stickers for my planner.

I also finished a very rigorous leadership training that scouts offers. Someone once described it as roughly the equivalent of doing 3 Eagle Scout projects, and I agree. It took me 14 months to complete my projects after spending two 3 day weekends on the practical training. So yeah. I earned my beads and I'm very proud of that.

[Destiny Skywalker]

I love how involved you are with your BSA council. If I wouldn't have to take such a pay cut, I would consider a paid position with Girl Scouts.

 

I am so glad your housing situation worked out. That mortgage company was awful.

 

My 2018 kind of sucked, admittedly. But way better than 2017. Most of my year was spent fixing the hot mess from 2017, so that was frustrating but I felt accomplished? But because of all of that, I got some big-deal work-life balance award from a leadership organization at work, so that was kind of cool.