I feel like I just wrote my similar 2018 post.  Is it that I'm older that is making time speed by or is it having the kid?  The combination of the two has my life flying by.

Reflecting on the things I said I wanted to achieve in 2019:
- Seeking out friendships locally remains hard, but I have at least added to my FB friends and people I speak to in public partly thanks to the parents of the other kiddos at school.
- I failed miserably with regard to bible reads and studies.  I'm getting better at having more conversations with Him, so that's something.
- I did lose some weight!  Granted I'm having a hard time here since Thanksgiving and it wants to pile back on, but I do intend to buckle back down and dip the scale even lower.
- Taking days off with Avery... did I take 8 days off?  Well, no, but we did go to the Zoo and Idlewild (both of which were on my list)!
- The half bath is at 90%.  I really need to put the pulls on the cabinet and patch/paint the holes, but significant progress as made.  I didn't take action on the other two bathrooms.  They are likely to be bigger undertakings as I'd like to replace the floors there too.  I'm kind of glad I did one bathroom as it showed me some things about granite that will inform my decisions in the other two rooms.
- Decluttering remains on the list.  Some action happened, but nowhere near enough and I suspect given my propensity to adore cute things I will always fight this desire.


Notes from 2019:
- Avery can drink out of a cup and rarely needs a sippy, except when it's more convenient for us (we're on the move) and feeds herself pretty well including chunks and a wider range of foods.  She's very vocal and easy to understand.  She has a heck of a fun personality and just gets cuter every day.  She never ceases to impress me.  She even started to make great progress with the potty here in the past week!
- We did get out to do some fun stuff this year as mentioned above (Zoo and Idlewild).  We also went to Kennywood.  She and I checked out the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.  I had a great time with her flower picking at Simmons farm in August and with her and Lor-Lor doing all of the fall activities at Triple B Farms.  We hit several fall festivals (Canonsburg, Houston) and watched her first Christmas parade at the local Old Fashioned Christmas event.
- We didn't do as much traveling as I've grown accustomed to, which isn't my preference for sure.  We didn't get back to Aunt Jackie's and we only went on one cruise - back in April.
- Aunt Jackie did however still come visit us a couple of times!
- Last year I bought some new pieces of furniture.  I still haven't found the perfect end tables or bookshelves for the living room.  I still didn't get that replacement freezer, but fortunately the existing one didn't die - yet.
- Some staff changes at work have alleviated some stressers, but things are still pretty hectic.  The important part here is that I'm still getting paychecks and I had a banner year performance-wise.
- Danika and Safyre are still here and well enough.  I feel bad as they don't get brushed as much as they should and that in turn means more fur around the house to clean.  Dani is definitely showing her age and getting weaker.  It's nice to have these posts to reflect on from year to year because I see that some of her issues poo-ing started before 2019, so at least I can say nothing has taken a drastic turn, although, I admit I am frustrated with cleaning up poop because she doesn't give me much indication she needs to go.  I do fear that I don't have an inordinate amount of time left with her however.  Saffy continues to want to dig up patches in the yard and flower bed and I can't figure out a reliable way to deter her.  Other than that, she's doing well.  Both of them continue to be great with Avery, despite Avery starting to be a little bit more stressful to them.
- Here's the big one for the year that will change all years moving forward... I found another half sibling on both sides of the family thanks to Ancestry.com.  There aren't really words for it.  It's a mix of emotions and it changes everything.


My desires for 2020:
- To get to know my newly found relatives better!
- To get back on top of the weight loss and take the scale down further.
- Continuing to take days off to go do things with Avery.
- Take some more action around the house.  I can't do everything, but right now here are the things that are on my mind today:
   - The bathrooms upstairs (floors and cabinets/counters/mirrors/lights).
   - Windows - builder grade means way too much air and too much of a challenge to properly clean the outsides.  Adding blocks to the garage for light or a window in the laundry room (which seems like a wasted expense).
   - Replacing that freezer!
   - Replacing the dishwasher (also builder grade).
   - The carpet will need to be replaced some day, but I feel like that gets deferred until I don't have older dogs and a younger kid in the house.
- The other thing I want is to just be a better person.  Someone _I_ like more.  I know I've grown from who I was many years ago, but I want better.  I know others still see those spots as glaringly obvious, for I'm told about them.  But even without a reflection of the things others don't like - I see Avery do and say things that I don't want for her.  It's reflections of uglier parts of me (e.g., yelling at the dog for a mess).

Last week I had to call upon a plumber.  My shower had been draining slower, so I pulled out my little hair wand and removed a big ol' clump.  Oddly though, after removing the wad of hair it really slowed down (that was a really fast shower night).  He took care of that, and looked at two other targets of opportunity.  I mean, if he's here I may as well get the other things looked at, right?

He cleared out the other bathroom's drain, which has always been slower to drain and sometimes had a smell when you first ran water, but I didn't realize it should have been doing so much better.  He checked my dishwasher which was starting to get gross and needing cleaned on the bottom (something I never did in 18 years in the Jingletown house w/ that dishwasher).  He cleared some ick out of the drains there and tried to place them more appropriately under the kitchen sink.  This has now been dry at the end of a cycle.  He did note that the dishwasher is crap - you know, builder grade.  Not a surprise to me.  I've not been a fan of this one - I miss the one from Jingletown.

I think the new bedroom TV should be labeled as my Christmas gift to myself, but girl, there is always Valentine's day or my birthday.  I suppose I should replace that darn extra freezer sooner rather than later too.

Aside:  I'm very lucky that here in this community we have an electrician and a plumber, both of which get kudos from the neighbors and are fast to respond.  I also have the electrician coming back (he was here a while back to add plugs and some lights on a switch in the basement) to add another plug - one up high on the bedroom wall for my new wall mounted tv.

I don't have food intolerances (that I know of), or at least, nothing that I've identified that makes me ill or uncomfortably bloated.  I do however notice patterns of disturbance.  E.g., Long John Silvers... man does that give me gas - and apples make me burp.  This recent discovery surprises and confuses me.

Chili powder.  Whew.  I don't know why I've not noticed this pattern to date.  Maybe because I hadn't made anything with it that had enough leftovers to correlate things.  I guess I'm super surprised because it was like a tablespoon in the whole recipe.  How on earth is it doing so much to me.

Yesterday I spotted something small on the floor.  I gave it a nudge and it didn't feel like a clump of dirt or something (which often falls from Saffy's feet because she's naughty and keeps trying to dig).  I picked it up in a tissue and looked closer (pull out the readers).  It's another tick.  GAH!

It was just laying on the floor in the entryway.  What's up with that?  Clearly it came off of a dog (probably Saf since Dani doesn't wander much of the yard) and was full.  It didn't seem to be moving/alive.  Needless to say I applied another dose of biospot on the dogs.  It makes my skin crawl wondering how many others I've missed that are in my carpet etc.  I don't feel others on the dogs.  C'mon super cold weather, please kill them off.