I saw a meme that said something like, "I've tried the 10 day trial and I'd like to cancel my subscription" re: the year 2025.  That pretty much sums it up.  

January was a whirlwind of out of town trips.  One big last minute emergency trip, a weekend caring for my parents (my Dad had a medical procedure) and then we did 4 trips to San Francisco (annual Sketchfest).  I was more assertive about number of shows and picky about venues this year, but of course I didn't know the month would be completely insane when we bought the tickets in November.  & then I went to a 4th show when MH's friend canceled last minute due to illness.  

The theme of this year has kind of settled into "Big money drains everywhere.  Nevermind."  Which is maybe just an extension of recent years of roller coaster.  One minute it's drama and the next minute it's nothing.  Medical stuff, dental stuff, vet stuff, etc.  (Nothing has come of any of this, but for a time I thought all of these things might cost thousands of dollars.  Vet and dental stuff was the same week.)  Oh yeah, and MM(21) is losing a roommate mid-year.  Again!  So far the roommate is still paying the lease.  Will we or won't we be on the hook for an extra few thousand dollars?  Who knows... 

The year started out really rough, but we have since had some good news.

January started out with some film festival rejections (MH's full length movie, filmed one year ago).  But then we got the great news that the film was accepted into a local film festival.  The film festival is excellent (lots of press, big audience, large IMAX screen.  & the people who run the festival are amazing.)  This is also great news because we expected we would have a local screening or premier.  We will happily buy up a large amount of tickets, in lieu of having to plan and pay for our own screening.  

The movie is not completed yet but it sounds like it's 99% of the way there.  They just need to lock it in.  I think it will be good to have a hard deadline.  

Oh yeah, and we celebrated GMIL's 100th birthday.  

Edited later to add:

The theme this year is going to be chaos. 

MH just found out that the Ohio film festival that rejected him, they un-rejected the movie.  ???  I don't why, I don't know anything.  It's causing much drama (re: planned world premier in our city).  Now we are scrambling to plan a last minute trip.  The airfare was reasonable but the hotels are sold out. 

I suppose this puts even more pressure for them to lock in the final movie cut ASAP.  Ohio (where movie was filmed) will be the world premier, this month.  Then we will have the west coast premier in April.

I am happy to report that today was very relaxing.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but maybe no last minute emergencies or dramas.  & didn't have to drive for 4-5 hours.  (I just looked it up and it was 8 out of town trips during the last 8 weeks.) We went to a local college arboretum.  It was a little early.  Didn't see so many baby turtles and baby ducks, like we usually do.  & didn't see the poppy explosion that we usually see in April.  Will have to go back next month.