Sad and Bougie

Wow. It's been over a year since my last post. So it seems as though I've fallen victim to my usual old problem, trying to do all the things. In doing so, as always, I've done none of the things.

Well that's not true.

Off the top of my head I can think of a few, that I just never found the time to write about...or...in my case...was too distracted by other necessary things to procure the time to write about.

I had planned a blog post called "A Little More Yeast", as a sequel to my excursions in yeast, in which I would talk about my adventures in brewing - specifically, I brewed a clone of New Glarus Brewery's Spotted Cow (famous here in Wisconsin), and I also made a batch of Dandelion Wine.

Yeah that never happened. And by that I mean the blog post; the actual brewing occurred mid-year.

In August my family and I took a weeklong family vacation, something we have never been able to do. We went to Mackinaw City, Michigan and had a wonderful time. We will have to go back when I find my dream job and/or money is no longer (or much less of) an object.

In April we bought a Jeep. I have a higher car payment now, but I'll take the car payment over having to worry about car repairs. Being a single car family (in this town at least) really sucks, but I've been making do since October of 2016. Public transportation in this area is lacking, save for a bus, which I rode once, but honestly, I got spoiled by the Metra/CTA of Chicago.

Late March I got introduced to Rhett and Link via Good Mythical Morning, and it could not have come at a better time. Just two weeks prior, my family and I suffered a loss. Something that subconsciously may have been the cause of my apathy of last year and which may have sparked another round of depression, now that I actually think about it. Something that we'd been hoping for, for quite some time, was given to us, and in just two weeks' time was taken away. Given some time to think about it, I know it was for the best and God always knows what he's doing, but it still hurts when He takes people away from you, especially before you get a chance to meet them.

Oh! And a big thing that happened which allowed us the ability for the above-mentioned items. My wife and I quit smoking. As of this writing, it has been 1 year, 1 month and 2 days for me. As of late I have been having days where I really crave some, but not enough to throw away a year's worth of being able to say I'm a non-smoker. Most of that is due to poorly managed stress, so if I can find a way to better manage my stress, I think the cravings will stop altogether. I couldn't have done it without Chantix and the fact that my wife wanted to quit as well. Guarantees if that weren't the case we'd both still be smokers. But oh what a world of possibility being a non-smoker opens up.

I have a problem, well, actually, something I'd just like to discuss as it has infested my life lately, but as this seems to be more of a catch-up post, I think I'll give that its own post. I'd like to dive more in depth into the topic, and I don't feel like that can be done with this post here. Plus I mean come on, we're 3 months into the year already and I ain't post nothin yet.