2013 was full of ups and downs for our family, but I think we mostly came out on the balance of good.

January: Our niece and nephew came to visit from Vegas, stopping through overnight on their way. We hadn’t seen our nephew since 2006, so that was lovely (our poor niece got clipped off in the thumbnail here). January also started what turned out to be nine months of intensive dental work for both D and I; starting with a root canal and crown for a cracked molar that was diagnosed in late January and fixed in early February. Turns out a cracked molar is some of the worst pain I’ve ever felt. In total, we got a whole mess of fillings, intensive cleanings, and I ended up with a second root canal and crown, after a painfully failed filling. There was also an extremely surreal small-town pancake breakfast tucked in at the end of the month, where we expected to see David Lynch furiously scribbling notes in the corner.

February: Lots of tough family medical stuff going on. Several trips to PDX to hospitals, etc. Everyone’s doing well now, but it was a pretty tightrope of a month. At the same time, we had three visits from the plumbers, first to fix the hot water to the shower, and then repeat visits to diagnosis and replace the water heater since it started throwing the circuit breaker.

March: March is kind of a blur. I think we continued dealing with the fall-out from February’s family health issues, and then spent about two weeks crashing with exhaustion after putting a few hundred miles on the car. We had planned to go see our nephew play baseball but unfortunately had to cancel that trip. I knit myself a very warm and squishy sweater.

April: D’s birthday passed without a ton of hoopla, although I gave him some lovely gifts and we spent the day marking things by visiting some of our favorite places. I was laid up mostly after squashing my middle finger in between the panels of the garage door; it took me about 6 weeks to be able to write or knit or cook or do most anything with that hand, and it took months for my damaged fingernail to grow out.

May: May was the month of the failed filling and emergency root canal two days before a weekend trip to PDX for webvisions. I ate entirely inappropriately for someone who has just had a root canal (since we were at the mercy of restaurants) and spent most of my time there in pain.

June: I turned 32, and because of a looming deadline at work, we took just a short afternoon to celebrate, before I went to the dentist for more work. My mom had day surgery done on my birthday, so it was an interesting birthday all around. Much of June was full of stress and worry for a bunch of reasons, including that big deadline at D’s office, but they launched Platinum out of beta and we took a few days to house-sit for friends in PDX during which time we saw a They Might Be Giants concert, visited with other friends and then slept. A lot.

July: We went cherry picking, celebrated the fourth of July on a low-key scale with good friends, and muddled through the rest of a hot and sunny month. We broke down and bought a portable air conditioner in order to be able to get some sleep.

August: We took a long weekend in Medford to see Cake perform at the Britt in Jacksonville, Oregon. Great weekend, great concert, and Jacksonville is a lovely little town. We stayed in an airbnb property for the first time and it was a great experience, for about half what a hotel would have cost us. We also went to a Eugene Emerald’s game and to tailgating at Autzen stadium with D’s company.

September: Was rainy. I started taking long walks every day and bought my first raincoat to help stay dry. It didn’t always work. I had a paying gig as a photographer; taking headshots for an author-friend. I started my first quilt, which is only partly done and which I hope to finish before my husband’s birthday in April.

October: More of the same. Behind the scenes crazy and awesome started up on the 15th which has lead to us learning a bunch of new skills and tested some of our future plans (I feel like I always have to specify that I’m not pregnant). We went to the first wedding we’d been to in awhile, which was lovely. Generally life was pretty good despite the awful crud that we both came down with, and the early-in-the-month deluge here.

November: November is a month of crazy for us anymore. Wedding to attend early in the month, the day before we were scheduled to fly to Vegas for 10 days for a conference. However, we spent a lot of time at the airport before they sent us home to try again the next morning, where were spent a lot of time waiting before finally getting into Vegas 18 hours later than scheduled. D and his coworker spent the next few days busy at their conference, and we explored in the evenings. During the day I took lots of photos, did some sketching, and met up with a friend I knew from the internet. We were able to attend a perform by deadmau5 at the conference. We stayed after for 5 days to spend time with family, including a day trip to Hoover Dam with D’s father. It was a good trip and a good visit, although a little long.

December: December seems to mostly have been a blur. Getting prepped for Christmas we both had moderate colds which made things interesting. The motor died in my stand mixer while making torrone (just after I had burnt myself on boiling honey caramel.) A replacement (more powerful) mixer was acquired, I won second place in the annual mochimochiland photo contest, we had a big snowstorm that dumped over 5″ of snow over the city, delayed our garbage pick up by a week and took many days to melt because we had record low temps (as low as -10 F overnight.) The holiday was lovely, and that brings us to now, starting a new year.

In general, this is the year we got way better about managing our money. We started using You Need a Budget  to budget and track our expenses and we love it. It’s been so crazy useful and I just can’t recommend it enough.

I hope that 2014 brings amazing things for everyone out there.