I like this so I’m using it again, because it really describes my year!
2012 started out with a bang and went up and down all year. The world didn’t end, so I’m saying it’s going out in a good way. I didn’t start blogging until June and didn’t really start seriously blogging until fall. Here’s an itty bitty summary of the Year of the Sadder But Wiser Girl:
2012-The Highs and Lows of the Year
January-The hubs took his degree he was awarded at the end of 2011 and put it to work at a wonderful corporation. The downside? Loooooooong hours and a loooooooong drive. What degree? What are you talking about? Are they giving away degrees somewhere? Where do I find one of these things called “jobs”? Three years prior, my husband was laid off at the company that he had worked at for thirteen years. They basically announced one day that “Yeah, we’re closing”. He took a huge pay cut as he went on to another job at another factory. When things were looking similarly dire over in that place, he made the ultimate decision: he went back to school, full-time, to pursue his mechanical engineering degree at the tender age of 35.
February-We went roller skating for the first time since I graduated from college. Since my husband has to drive an hour up and back to work each day, we had to buy a car that wasn’t old ant that we could trust. Hello huge car payments.
March-We made our first attempt at compost. It was a moot point, since we then had a drought and it really didn’t matter what we did…
The kid is cute, so what if we never really used the compost? 😉
April-Our fourteen year old kitty passed away on Easter Sunday. In happier news, at the end of the month we went to our first live NASCAR race at the Kansas Speedway.
May-I turned 38. My little girl turned four, and I attempted my first fancy birthday cake-a princess castle cake. Someday I will blog about it and horrify millions of people. My son survived first grade and lived to tell about it.
June-I started a blog. If I didn’t start this blog, I was going to be mobbed by people who thought I had a real penchant for storytelling. My first attempts were pretty bad, but eventually I caught on. Read my June archives for my first and really lame blog posts.
Mid month I was informed my job was being taken over by a taco that would work on call for pennies. No unemployment, just the promise of jobs falling out of the sky with great recommendations. Neither of these materialized, by the way, and I progressed upon the path that brought this lil ole blog to what it is now. With over 400 Followers, I can say it is almost a marginal success.
July-The day my job poofed into thin air, my husband achieved full time status. Since then he is a minor celebrity at his workplace-I believe they could possibly build him a litter so he never has to walk through the plant again.
August-We got a dog. My husband contracted shingles. And my son started second grade. All totally unrelated things, thank goodness.
September-We quietly celebrated our 13th Wedding Anniversary and I was buried under the artwork in my house.
My daughter made what she called a zamboni. This is what started the nonsense with all the boxes.
October-I find that Halloween and Halloweens past provides almost unlimited posting potential. All kinds of people come to my blog looking for costume ideas. Nice.
November-I am dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming thanks to The Bearded Iris. In other words, I actually start using my Twitter account for something other than just that mysterious entity that shares my posts with the world. One Mom Dragged Into the 21st Century
December-I entered a Christmas tree contest and didn’t win, my kids made Christmas cards that didn’t get sent, I saw Elvis, and we didn’t die in a fiery apocalypse. Merry Christmas.
And then, the year was over.
Stuff that people looked at a lot: Man this Home Page/Archives post must be really amazing millions of people seem to visit it… I can’t tell a lot from the stats, but I Peed My Pants at Wal-Mart was probably the most popular post this year. Hooray for incontinence!
Some of My Favorite Posts: The Sadder But Wiser Girl…Poop Detective, The Five Stages of Dishes, Yo P.E.E.Ps and P.O.O.Ps, The Recessive Gene: My Pool Needs A Lifeguard.
Search terms used most to find my blog: Fantasy Football, which is TERRIBLY uninteresting to me.
Funniest and Most Disturbing Search Engine Terms of 2012: I pee funny, evil houses, glue sniffing crack, unicorn fart ffpp, I’ve just peed in my big knickers, image of every single pillow pet in the world, I think I have diarrhea from green bean casserole, naked pumpkin man costume, turkey toilet paper, girl poops out a mouse, the brain and people, bucket hoarding, garbage hums, and naked Chad Knaus…
I’m sorry, but anyone who’s looking for naked pictures of Chad Knaus has some serious issues…
Oh I LOVE it when google fills stuff in for me! The results are quite hilarious, just like my search engine results.
My Favorite Blogs of 2012-Now keep in mind that I JUST discovered blogging this year and I’m still a newbie. I read a lot of blogs. As a matter of fact, the more I discover the harder it is for me to keep up with all of them, because you know I have to do stuff like pay attention to my children and (occasionally) do housework. Here are some that I have found myself reading the most. You know, the blogs that I just can’t wait for new posts from and rarely miss reading a post? My Top 20 in no particular order: Menopausal Mother, momtimes4, atlantamomofthree, Motherhood is an Art, Funny Is Family, Cloudy With a Chance of Wine, Debie Hive, Diapers… or Wine? Divine Secrets of a Domestic Diva, Miss Banana Pants, Lady or Not… Here I Come, Ninja Mom, Baking in a Tornado, The Tao of Poop, Rants from Mommyland, Marj Hatzell is the Domestic Goddess, Go Cheap or Go Home, Mom’s World, Something Clever 2.0, You Know It Happens At Your House Too. And of course Parenting, Illustrated with Crappy Pictures-but she doesn’t really need the publicity, now does she? There are others I’ve just started reading… Maybe you’ll make the list next year, which at the rate I’m going will be the top 100. Don’t hate me if you blog and read my blog and you’re not on my list. I bet I read your blog too! Bloggers are awesome people, and the best circle of folks I know. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings!
Bloggers in my Top 20 could receive this beautiful handmade, um, thing. She says its a weapon…
So here it is, the New Year. Did anyone actually, you know, go OUT and stuff? We didn’t… details on how we spent our New Years will be coming. For now I need to publish and be done. Happy New Year everyone!
The Sadder But Wiser Girl 