New Year

No plans to party.  It has been that way now for many years.  I don’t recall the last time we went to a NY party.  Although this year we will meet friends for lunch.  Yes, lunch.  No, not because we can’t stay awake in our dotage.  Midnight is about the time we head to bed anyway; it wouldn’t be much trouble to stay up later.  The main reason for staying in is this guy:

The fireworks and he don’t get along at all.  He is a nervous wreck and we do all we can to help him through it.  Not being home to comfort him would be cruel.  We turn up the TV, we give him some natural calming tablets, put his thunder shirt on and let him up on the couch with us.  We don’t completely mitigate the problem but it would be so much worse if he was alone.  We just can’t do that to him.

Since we are pretty much house bound, we usually get the Grandkids, and generally enjoy that more anyway, while the parents go out for a fancy supper with a group of friends and then return to their house to ring in the New Year.  They have a great view of nearly continuous fireworks from their house.  We get invited each year but haven’t been yet for the reasons listed above.   

I don’t see any changes in the near future.  Buster is very healthy for is advance years (12.5) and is experiencing one of his better winters.  Usually he gets pretty sore from arthritis and it is painful to watch him get up from his bed.  This year, he seems fine.  No idea why the change, unless it has been the weight he as lost.  Less to drag around and he hasn’t limped like he usually does.  

We might go visit with Kim’s niece and her family from Anchorage, but no plans have been made as of yet.  

Almost forgot to get our property taxes in the mail prior to the end of the year.  Got those in the mail.  Fortunately, there was no last minute scrambling to find extra $$ due to the taxes being raised more than expected.  

The taxes don’t really go up that much but our home value gets appraised much higher every other year or so.  Funny how that happens.  The politicos can claim they haven't raised taxes yet are able to rake in more since our appraisals are higher.   I don’t ever hear anyone complaining about it, so it must be slipping past the masses just like they intend.  That didn’t happen this year though like last year, they remained almost the same.  Hopefully they will stay that way for a couple years until we can claim and age exemption.  

 

Oh yeah, and I hope you have a great new year and thanks for coming by and reading my ramblings.

Happy Trails for the coming year to you and yours.