Not This Year

So!!  It's time for the all traditional Blogger's Year in Review!!  Wherein we see what all was accomplished this year and bask in the warm glow of our sufficiency and abilities.  Well, I'm gonna need to sit by the fire 'cause there ain't no warm glow coming off anything else around here.  This year has been a miserable disaster.  It just flat out sucked.  But, you know what?  Crap happens.  I actually went back through the blog to see if I could even find enough stuff to make a list of accomplishments...and well, it was mighty pitiful.  But, you either cry and feel bad about yourself or you just have to laugh and poke some fun.  It's nobody's fault either; it's just life.  Sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the windshield.  This was the Year of the Bug for me.  I did manage to scratch together a few things that were done this year though.  Hey, at least I have plenty to look forward to doing in the coming year...haha!
This year though I did manage, despite much crap, to:
1.  Pour the hearth in the living room.
2.  Start the slate and mosaic on the dividing wall.
3.  Installed the drop lights over the kitchen counters.
4.  I finished the east side of the chicken coop.
5.  Pump house finally insulated. 

See?  Pit-tee-fulll.  We did have a good garden again this year though and I was even able to can quite a bit of food, even learned to pressure can, so that was no small feat.  I was rather proud of that and we have been enjoying the fruits (and veggies!) of those labors lately.  We also planted 3 new fig trees in a new cleared area in an effort to move the figs out of the fenced garden, thus giving us more room for crops there.  We had a successful asparagus crop this spring, albeit small.
In addition to all the other downer stuff ya'll already know, we also lost 4 or 5 hens this year to predators or sickness and the voles ate up yet another apple tree.

In other statistics that I just happen to notice; this post will only be the 90th this year.  One less than my previous low year, making this year my least prolific on the blog.  My readership has also dropped to an all time low; about half of what it was before I got married.  As you might imagine, the US is where most of my readers come from but I was surprised to see that Russia was a very popular second.  France is a distant 3rd followed by China, then Canada, Germany and Australia way at the bottom.  A few other countries pop up in there too.  Most of my referrals come from Google, the Pure Florida blog or Hermit Jim!  The most commonly Googled subjects that lead people to my blog are, snap ties (how to use them), concrete, rebar and footings.  I do occasionally get the odd subject though, such as, "where do I put the dishwasher?"  I would suggest, in the kitchen, but that's just me.
I have also discovered that 2 subjects on my blog have just exploded on Pinterest, sometimes receiving literally hundreds of hits in one day.  Those would be the rebar handrails and the mailbox in the garden. 

So, there you have it.  I will continue to limp along though until the day I can start running again.  I will get there.  I have been able to go on a little longer walks lately and continue to clean and purge around here, getting my studio back in order for working.
Tonight however, is for fun and relaxing.  I've made up just a gluttonous assortment of finger foods and treats for me and Allen and we are going to kick back and enjoy ourselves.  I hope you all are able to do the same!!  Happy New Year to all of us!!  May it be prosperous and healthy!