Snowstorm and end of year thoughts.

Last night we had a snowstorm at home.  Weatherguessers had been forecasting about 2-3 inches around my home.  We ended up getting about eight.   But I had purchased five gallons of gasoline for the snow blower, and the little bottle of gasoline stabilizer to add to it yesterday.  So gas for the snow blower and generator were set.   Didn't have anything planned for today anyway, so I slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, and was just contemplating getting dressed to go out and deal with the snow when my cousin stopped by and ran his plow up the driveway a couple of times, clearing the majority of the snow.  
this left just the front walk, the snowbanks in front of the mailbox, fireplug and street drain to clear off, and a few bits in the back yard in front of the barn and around the cars to deal with.  

  Also, I'll put in my sporadic winter shoveling plug here.   If you have a fire hydrant and or street storm drain on front of your place, when you go out to shovel your property, also clear off the street drain and around the fire hydrant.   The street drain so that when the snow starts melting, it flows away properly rather than creating a huge dirty puddle of ice water to mess up your street and cause accidents.   The hydrant for that off chance that there is a fire on your street, possibly even in your own house, the fire department can get water flowing onto the fire that much faster.   Seriously, that two or three minute delay of getting that water available can make the difference between a small fire contained to a single room and a total loss of the building.    If the snowbanks are high enough to bury the hydrant entirely, then that means that all the water they got is the little bit that's in the tank on the pumper.  and that is not enough.   Do that little bit of extra effort to clear those two things up and leave them accessible for the fire department and maybe save your house.  

Tomorrow is the last day of 2012.   Another year into the history books.   Still working at ALPS.  I'm happy there, although I am always interested in making more money.   worked the folk festival in Bangor again.  Cons attended were Arisia, Boskone, connectethon, and FurFright.  Not going back to connectethon though.  Pretty much hard core gaming con and not really my thing for the price.   I'm running the con suite for Boskone again, and that is fun, and as I'm getting better at it, not as much work.  Still mostly debt free, just the auto loan outstanding, but cash reserves and retirement accounts are still very low.   Need to put more into them, so another year of living frugally for 2013.   But I am gonna splurge a bit more next year.  trying to figure out a way to afford going to Anthrocon this year. 
    Still living with my parents.  Dad has Alzheimers, and watching his mental decline is horrifying.  Mom is still dealing with her depression and not handling well.  I fear that we will have to put them into some sort of assisted living situation in a couple of years.  Their health is otherwise good for people in their 90s.  Im pretty much stuck at home with them.  I don't actually have to do much around the house.  Dad takes care of all the house maintenance stuff when mom reminds him to do so.  I do any heavy lifting and some of the outdoor chores.    I don't think dad will be able to drive much longer.  He only drives in the daytime now, and for errands around town.  Anything further away and we are worried that he will forget where he is going and get lost. 
  The house in Marlboro is still sitting vacant.  With dad unable to drive that far, there is nobody really able to work on fixing it up.  The housing market still sucks, so offers for it are appallingly lowball.   I fear it will sit vacant until we finally find a buyer for it.   It's also possible that that may be my future home if the family cannot keep our house after my parents move out. 
   With mom's depression, bringing any strangers to the house is pretty much out of the question.  This rather severely cramps my social life.  I experimented with hosting a 'not the end of the world' party at the nesfa clubhouse a couple weeks ago.  It actually went fairly well, but the psychodrama from certain members of NESFA over someone wanting to host a party at the clubhouse was really obnoxious.  I don't know if I am willing to try this again.  But it's possible that having done it once, it won't be so difficult to do it again.  have to see how I feel about it in the springtime.     

  So, not a bad year, but not all the great either.   Hope that next year is better.