{"id":809,"date":"2016-01-01T08:08:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-01T14:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=809"},"modified":"2016-01-01T08:08:03","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T14:08:03","slug":"new-years-day-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=809","title":{"rendered":"New Year’s Day 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my Facebook friends who likes to post funny stuff and, as such, has a few followers, made an important request yesterday: Describe 2015 in one word. I responded to his request with the word \u201cYuck.\u201d Others had more positive responses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the first half of last year, it seemed like a bad idea to know me or be related to me. Brother #2 (I will call him Mogul) had a heart attack. My sister-in-law, the wife of brother #1 (I will call him Doc), had a stroke a short time later. Sweetness\u2019 mother was found to have rectal cancer. Other friends\u2019 family and friends turned up with diseases and maladies and things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second half of the year was a bit healthier, although not necessarily happier. Sweetness broke up with me in August. I had a few dates with a new ladyfriend, but she has fallen silent and so that little bit of hope for love is gone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My son, Spiff, lost his job at Wally World but got a new one which seems to be going well. He hopes to move out soon; he\u2019s been living with his sister for close to two years now, I think. Speaking of my daughter, Shoes is doing well. She\u2019s been working a new job which, while it strains her childcare resources sometimes, she has managed to keep at it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I went to New Orleans last month, and that was a lot of fun. The holiday season this year was quite busy for me, and that was the second of three trips over the course of about a month. I went to visit the family in Indy for Thanksgiving. I did the New Orleans thing with my second employer, and that was so cool that I am now planning (hoping) to return for Mardi Gras.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This brings us to the coming year. I hate using the word \u201cresolutions\u201d because it is a bit clich\u00e9, but it fits what I have in mind, I guess. We\u2019ll start with a bit of clich\u00e9 to fit that theme:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Better Health. Yeah, I know, I know. We all plan to exercise more regularly, which is thing #1 for me, too. I am also throwing in better oral hygiene and a trip or two to the doctor.<\/li>\n
  2. Sigh. I\u2019ve made this one before. Did it every year for a few years, and then I found Sweetness. She\u2019s gone now, so once again, to quote a favorite song, I chase \u201cthe elusive butterfly of love.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Publication! This includes three things: More stories self-published, a web-comic started, and some application or other put out there for public consumption. These are kind of old themes for me. I should manage a story or two. Finding an artist or buckling down and accepting my own crummy artwork for a comic will be more difficult, but not impossible. An application is more about having the discipline to make the time to code something. I guess we\u2019ll see.<\/li>\n
  4. Get out more. I really need to do this. I spend too much time doing a whole lot of nothing at home. New Orleans for Mardi Gras would be a good start on this. I am hoping to get back to Colorado this year, but so far that\u2019s a distant hope. If I do, I really<\/em> want to make this resolution happen, and see more of my home than I have in past years.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So there you have it. Those are my plans for the coming year, more or less, in short form. If I sound a little bitter, I apologize. If I were to make an addition to this list, it would be to find my cheerful self again.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of my Facebook friends who likes to post funny stuff and, as such, has a few followers, made an important request yesterday: Describe 2015 in one word. I responded to his request with the word \u201cYuck.\u201d Others had more positive responses.   For the first half of last year, it seemed like a bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions\/810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}