Happy 2025!!!

 

My Year-End Letter to Jane

I thought I would use a letter to an old co-worker as an update of what is going on with us. 

Dear Jane, 

We just received your Christmas package and letter/card. Love the ornaments on the gift

(we’ll open on Christmas Eve) and what a beautiful card! It is great hearing from you and loved your letter. Your trip to Ireland sounded fantastic and it is on my list of destinations. Shane has previously been there for work, but I wasn’t able to go. The idea of sitting in an actual Irish pub and listening to live music sounds very cool to me. So glad the guidebook came in handy. 

 

Sorry you had to miss your mermaid experience. Heat stroke sounds serious, and Florida is very hot and humid. We know. With the political climate being what it is down there, it is probably best to stay out of the state of Florida altogether. We visit Shane’s mom down there, and the weather is nice in the winter, but we regret contributing to that state’s economy. 

 

We are doing well here in Baltimore. We are loving the new house, but there are constant projects to be accomplished. The big one this year was the downstairs half bathroom. We gutted and renovated it (actually hired a company to do the work), so it looks a bit classier. 

Unfortunately, since we focused on the house this past year, we haven’t done much traveling. We do plan on making up for it in 2025. We have a week-long trip planned in January to Copenhagen. We figured it wouldn’t be too crowded that time of the year 😊. Neither of us has ever been there and we kind of decided to go on the spur of the moment soon after the recent election. We have another trip planned in May… a Viking river cruise with our friends Debbie and Deborah through Germany to Amsterdam. We have a third trip also planned for September… a Holland America cruise around northern Europe. Even though we put down a small deposit (only $50), we are still on the fence about whether to go. 

 

Shane and I have both been busy with helping our moms. Shane’s mom snowbirds between Maine and Florida, and he helped her get her house in Brooksville, ME, ready for sale (a huge job) and move her to a lakeside community in Madison, ME, close to where she has family. She bought an adorable little cabin in a community with a theater and bar/restaurant. We went up and spent some time with her this summer and saw one of the shows. It’s on old theater where big stars like Carol Burnet and Humphrey Bogart used to perform. It is now more of a community theater. She is loving it up there… making lots of friends. Shane also has to drive her back and forth between Maine and Florida, so that is always a big adventure. 

 

I usually spend a couple days a week driving back to my old hometown, Rising Sun, MD, to help my mom. She is 87 and still lives on her own but needs quite a bit of help. I get her groceries, take her to doctor appointments, etc. My sister lives next door and my other brother is just a few miles away, and she keeps us all busy. 

 

Our dog Dinah is also doing well. She is spoiled rotten. I take her to a local dog park a couple times a day and Shane takes her for a long walk mid-day. She loves her ball and running around with the other dogs as they try and steal her ball. She starts staring me down usually about an hour before we’re supposed to go to the park. She is really a great dog… very sweet. 

We are also very disappointed with the election outcome of course. I’m so glad I’m out of the government now, but I can understand your concern. Crossing my fingers that the DOGE doesn’t affect you. The lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum. We are dealing with it by putting our heads in the sand. We have cut back drastically on watching TV news. We previously had CNN or MSNBC on all the time, but now read the newspaper online and just watch the local and national news occasionally… fast forwarding anytime the orange A-hole comes on. I believe it has improved our mental health greatly. 

 

To avoid future tariffs, I purchased myself an early Christmas present… a light blue 2024 Subaru Crosstrek. I had a 2017 Honda Fit that Shane referred to as the deathtrap. The Subaru does feel a lot safer, and I like it a lot. Merry Christmas to me!

Shane’s mom is flying up for the holidays this year. We take her to my family’s celebration on Christmas day. It’s what we did last year and works out great because it is the only chance our moms get to see each other all year. We get time to play with our great nieces (Nora ages 2 and Lucy age 3), which makes Christmas fun. Dinah gets to go to doggy daycare for the day, which she loves… playing with other dogs all day.

 

Hope you have a fun holiday. 

 

Merry Christmas!!!

Big Changes — Moved to Baltimore for One

Ok… it has been more than a year since I posted. As usual, sorry. Since posting last I have turned 63, had tears in my retina resulting in having needles stuck in my eyes, and we moved to Baltimore. Here is a pic of Shane, the hubby, sitting on our front steps.