Coffee going in. Bunny countdown on. Wakey wakey, little brain. One more day. Bring it on, 2016.
Braincation is going pretty well, I think. The Sherlock marathon isn't moving along as quickly as I'd hoped because I keep falling asleep, but I'm glad because I'm making up for last week and gearing up for next week. I just had one of the most interactive and wonderful Christmases I've ever had in my adult life (we've been through some really sad and awful Christmases), and all this catching up napping is pretty awesome, too.
I think I've done a New Year's Eve look back through the years, but I don't think I've done New Year's Day.
1/1/2008- I had been through 6 weeks of hellish CMV infection over holidays and didn't know I was on my way further down the black hole, but hey, optimism can't hurt, right?
It's amazing how quickly we adapted to that new 22" monitor and didn't even realize it. We took the Westinghouse back yesterday and have a Samsung on order. In the meantime, going back to this little 17" feels like we're back in the Stone Age. Wild. Here we were fussing about the 22" and we already miss it. But Scott didn't like that brand, either.
I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this new year. I'm drug free again, excepting for the basics-- blood pressure, thyroid, birth control. Feeling not half bad because I'm back in balance controlling the fibromyalgia and stomach problems. Not particularly bouncing around the house, but getting things done and feeling like life might be getting a little more fun again.
Over that last week watched Mr. Bean's Holiday-- sploit, I highly recommend that one.
Oddly, the ol' crochet itch is making a comeback. Wonder if that'll result in anything. And it's a good sign, because I had so much trouble with my hands since the Bell's that I had to stop embroidering, crocheting, beading, and even writing letters. Seems to all be coming back a bit. Hope it lasts.
Also regaining an interest in my websites. Hadn't checked my trackers in months and was pleasantly surprised to see that my Lexx site has been visited from over 15 countries during the holidays. Still having cool ideas about a new chicken blog. Have been doing a little myspace work today on the Eddie Izzard space (thanx for those pjs, sploit, made a cool background... haha) and my other blog, doing some more tossing out and simplifying, so I'll just paste the rest of what I'm thinking over from there.
Hope you all have an outstanding 2008. 
Rang out the old year with homemade popcorn balls and POTC monopoly (Scott is a real gloater, watch that guy), and Dick Clark dropping the ball, as it were. Brought in the freezing cold 11 degree wind chill new year with bacon and homemade cinnamon rolls, and cool new stuff. New black toile on pink satin pjs with Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill dvd tucked inside from my sploit (just about the most clever gift I think I've ever received), a huge new makeup collection for only $15 yesterday on a red tag sale at Penney's with a gift card, and a bunch of really nice winter sox by St. John's Bay for only $1 a pair. Beat that, Walmart. Watching the Tournament of Roses parade now.
:edit: In the event you caught that parade today, it opened with my alma mater,
Pride Marching Band - Bands - Missouri State University, which has one of the top bands in the nation and always put on spectacular shows. Today they intro'd the Tournament of Roses president and Grand Marshall Emeril Lagasse. Also in the event that you caught any of the parade reruns on the Travel Channel and happened to see a text 'holla' that said "Scott ur the bomb", that was me, ha.
Pride Marching Band - Bands - Missouri State University, which has one of the top bands in the nation and always put on spectacular shows. Today they intro'd the Tournament of Roses president and Grand Marshall Emeril Lagasse. Also in the event that you caught any of the parade reruns on the Travel Channel and happened to see a text 'holla' that said "Scott ur the bomb", that was me, ha.
1/1/2009- I didn't blog anything privately throughout January but I do have extensive notes in February. I was public blogging surveys back then to get through because I'd been so very ill all year and was still sinking. On January 4th I published this one, which I later moved to Surveypalooza for better mobile viewing. from old to new survey I can't say enough for silly surveys keeping me going through some really bad stuff, although that is one of my more boring ones. I started picking up a bit later in 2009 when new Trek sent me through a spectacular rant, and then I disappeared again into private blogging in 2010.
1/1/2010- I actually did this. Seriously. I kept egg charts on my chickens through 2009. That's how desperate I was for distraction in real life.
In 2009, my 5 hens laid a total of 785 eggs.
Jaizzy- 131
Macy- 230
Dooney- 294
Spencer- 99
Bean- 29
Dooney and Macy never went into molt. Spencer and Jaizzy both went through two different molts within the year. Bean went into a partial molt and still hasn't grown some of the feathers back, even after two months.
Jaizzy is several years old and lays gigantic eggs. She's a Production Red cross between New Hampshire and Leghorn who is getting arthritic, but still otherwise very healthy with lush feathers and clean skin. She had Fowl Pox a couple of years ago but didn't seem to suffer any problems from it. She's 'wild' and lives in her own pen, but very set in her habits and now allows Scott to pick her up. She will eat snakes, frogs, and lizards, and can fight like a pro.
Macy is a Black Australorp, a breed famous for being prolific egg layers, solid black from beak to toenail (excepting her comb and wattles). She missed one week of laying this year for unknown reasons, but picked right back up. She's never seemed sick, and she is the top of the pecking order. Her eggs have steadily increased in size until they are nearly as big as Jaizzy's. Very tame, allows petting, walks at my feet, inspects everything we do.
Dooney is a California White, a cross between Leghorn and California Black, bred to be super producers. She is mostly white with a few random black flecks, very energetic, very enthusiastic about food, particular about her nest, and always the first to try to fly out the pen door. She dusts vigorously and will get muddy like a pig trying to dust in wet dirt. In spite of frequently looking very dirty, she lays pretty white eggs, all identical every day right down to the small bulge near the pointy end. She lays through all kinds of weather extremes like a machine.
Spencer is a Brown Leghorn, a fancy breed that looks more like a wild chicken, and certainly acts like one. High strung, preferring natural wild food, obedient to 'herding' only when she feels the need to be part of the group. Panics easily, gets sick easily (seems to be anxiety-induced), but lays *big* pearl colored eggs with very pointy ends and giant yolks inside. If she didn't have a henhouse, she would roost in the trees, and if we had a rooster she'd probably go broody and hatch chicks out in the woods. She can fly 100 feet, and bursts into flight like a cross between quail and pheasants.
Bean is an anomaly. She is a Speckled Sussex, a quiet breed supposed to be a steady layer and good for brooding and hatching chicks, but 'twas not to be with the Bean. I believe she suffered an internal injury or illness of some kind that destroyed her ovaries. She laid very tough shelled small eggs for one month before suddenly expelling a mass of crumbly stones, and has never laid again since, and doesn't seem inclined to start back up or even care to sit on a nest. I can't tell if she's ill, seems fine and eats good. She keeps up ok with the others, but definitely low Bean on the totem pole. Just keeping her around as a pet, see what happens with her.
I'm not going to average how many eggs per month or week comes from 785 since each chicken is so different, and some of them have problems. I assume the egg production for Jaizzy will continue to go down a little over the next year, and that Bean will never lay again. Have no idea about Spencer or whether the other two will actually go into a molt of some kind or just continue to slow molt a couple of feathers at a time while they continue laying. But, I'm also not going to keep count during 2010 to compare to this year. Got a bit old about 6 months into it, and would probably be more fun if I had a bigger flock of chickens to run stats and charts on for fun. But I think we can see that I had pretty good production out of the ones advertised for that, and without experimentation with more of their own kind and changes in feed and whatnot, I couldn't be sure what affects it. The one thing that happened this year that stopped all laying instantaneously was finding a snake in the nest, but once a fake egg was put in the nest, they mostly resumed back to normal. Other than that, and besides actual molting, I can't point to weather, temperature, free ranging vs. staying in, or any particular foods that make laying better. I can tell the chickens ~feel~ better with more fats, non-grain proteins, and greens in their diet than just chicken feed, and they seem psychologically more 'up' when they can get out and run and scratch a bit. The fact that Jaizzy is still producing as much as she is might be testimony to good health care. Another point worth mentioning is that none of my chickens have ever picked up lice or mites from the wild birds around here. I've never had to treat them for parasites or infections, they've never had shots or antibiotics or medications in their feed. I've lost previous chickens to unknown illness that could only be ovarian tumor or possibly eating something like a carpenter nail. And foxes.
Enough of the chicken and egg report. Probably far too obsessed with it, but at least I've learned a few things.
1/1/2011 "2011 revolutions"
Some changes I'll prolly be making over the coming year, although I hesitate to prioritize them into my life as resolutions.
Unsub from the 'patriotic resistance' league of super heroes who have nothing better to do all day than reprint articles off other websites and freak out about them. Two years of people freaking out across the nation is enough to last me a lifetime. I seem to be the only one who understands the tongue in cheek sarcasm I do about the death of our nation as we know it and the end of the world. It's like the joke on the Futurama 4-parter about the spacetime rip showing up, the people screaming in the streets for two weeks until they're exhausted and can barely breathe out a quiet 'aaahh...'
Start ~really~ throwing stuff away. Had a good talk with Scott today about going through the trash to pull things out that he might be able to get a quarter for at a yard sale, like a half skein of yarn I've had for 20 years. If I haven't used it in 20 years, I'll NEVER use it, and anyone else so badly needing to buy it at a yard sale is really pathetic, and Scott would only be enabling them, after holding onto it in the basement for another 5-10 years first, making him even more pathetic than they are. Yeah, throwing stuff away.
On a last year's resolution success note, I have successfully stopped all paid magazine subscriptions from coming through the mail over the last 6 months by refusing to renew anything. What a relief.
Just a quickie coming through, still working on the letter, right around the part about the blue jello. 
This came a couple days later. I edited loads of stuff out, but you can probably figure that out.
Such a joy being married into this family. So many good years down the drain. ...
Several errands to run while I'm out. Library, post office, Scott needs 'teeth glue'. Contemplating getting my hair trimmed somewhere other than Walmart. Seriously, I look like a troll doll with short hair on the back of my head. If I greased my hair back I'd look like the Fonz.
Oh, yeah, I forgot I was going to make his family imaginary this year. They don't really exist, it's a figment of my imagination.
Thought I'd take a look back at last year about this time, see what's changed.
1- The little cedar tree behind the deck is gone.
2- Started last year with a ton of snow, nothing this year.
3- I was running sci-fi marathons, this year I'm doing cooking show marathons.
4- I was on antibiotic for swollen glands, and going through that awful neck pain and nasty headaches. This year (so far) is much nicer compared to that.
5- The nurse of the corn made my life a living nightmare, this year I have a new doctor.
6- Went out to eat for new year's, this year nothing.
7- Chickens were laying real good last year at this time, this year nothing at all.
8- Last year a bunch of Florida manatees died of unknown cause, this year Arkansas blackbirds and drumhead fish are dying by the thousands around an area having lots of tiny earthquakes. Maybe a lotta methane and CO2 bubbles are suffocating them or something.
9- --- smashed furniture in gram's house last year, this year he's an angel after punching his mom in the face.
10- Last year we were still breaking ice off the water dishes, this year they're all electric.
11- Last year I could walk out in the bitter cold without having an asthma attack right away. This year I don't go out at all if it's under 30 degrees.
12- --- blew up all over Scott last year. A whole year has gone by and he's still not confronting her, even though we now know the reason last year with her was so bad was because she was boozing on the sly.
13- The neighbor who caught his house on fire down the street across from us is gone now because he died a few months ago.
That was just the first couple of weeks of January last year. I think we've had more change over this last year than nearly all the other years we've lived here.
I'm totally stalling. I need to eat breakfast and wash my hair and get ready to go.
1/1/2012 "the 'stuck in the middle with you' song has been on my mind all day"
I won't share, but we rang in the new year playing board games in an office a young PTSD Iraq vet had moved into because he was terrified to live in his own house for some reason. I just wanna go on public record for being there as a mother-in-law that night when his own mother wasn't. The next few months got pretty rough for him.
1/1/2013 Bunny was in the oven and Twink was moving in and out and Xanga had turned my life upside down... I finally got those new glasses just a few months ago, lol.
I've got to spend January going through the stacks of stuff I cleaned off the table and counter and just dumped into bags. All my medicare stuff, mostly. Nearly have all my old medical paid off now, only $200 left on one bill from 2011. First time in ages. Want to start saving money back for new glasses. Will be 3 years around May. Get organized on where my money will go this coming year so I don't overspend.
1/1/2014 I blurbed on 1/4/2014 at SyfyDesigns. Two days later I committed to a real public blog with Robot Test Site.
12/31/2014 That's today! Pinky blog hits finally ripped passed Pinky Stuff on SyfyDesigns this last fall. I look back on projections I had in 2012 and fall over laughing. I had no idea I would be doing all the stuff I'm doing now.
We have Bunny all day long. I've been up since 5 a.m. and I'll probably be in bed by sundown. I'll probably be back up in the wee hours tomorrow morning, like I was last year. I'm going to call my bluff and raise me double or nothing. Can't wait to see what 2016 is going to bring. Oh, yeah, another full Bunny day on Saturday. You guys won't be seeing me much, lol.
I'm still calling this week a braincation. Sorry social medias, I'm being mowed flat by a 2 1/2 year old. You didn't see me stopping and doing many things in between all the sentences here for the last 4 hours.
This is me and lappy going down together in our final hours together before I pick up the new laptop next week.
Quick look back.
My new obsession taking over my life.
Breaking open like a pinata last spring.
This #bencongruity kept me sane.
Khanlock drove me through the summer.
What the frak, tossed sanity to the wind over the holidays.
And I'm going out with this playlist jam. I hope you guys have awesome 2016s. Don't be stupid tonight partying, ok?
