Season's greetings!
First things first, if you're not on my mailing list and you're not on my email list, you can still access my 2025 holiday letter here. I can't guarantee it's worth the click—it's pretty much entirely about how I didn't write a holiday letter last year—but here it is anyway. Also, the pictures will look pretty familiar because ... they're my favorites of the ones I included in this blog post. Don't judge me.
I know my blog posts are usually pretty long, so I'm going to try to pick one thing I enjoyed from each month and add a picture about it. Let's see how we do.
January
The first holiday letter Vic and I ever wrote started out like this: "In January, we ... well, OK ... we didn't do anything." So all I'm going to say about January is, "Ditto."
February
There were three noteworthy events in February: Bella got a hamburger, I hung up my puteketeke and I visited my stepmom. Since I didn't put anything in January (or March, as I found out when I looked at my pictures from March), I'm putting all three of these in February. This is not going to help make the blog post any shorter.
Smashburger is a favorite lunch destination for me when I am out and about doing chores on Saturday. (Or, I should say, was, because my local Smashburger is now defunct.😞) I mentioned Bella on one of my visits, and on my next visit, the manager gave me an extra hamburger just for her. (Maybe this is why the Smashburger is no longer in business?) She loved it, of course.
In 2023, New Zealand ran a contest to choose the bird of the century. The comedian John Oliver wanted that bird to be the puteketeke, and he ran a heated campaign to get the vote out. To no one's surprise, the puteketeke won! The company Metalbird immortalized the puteketeke in a steel sculpture, and my niece and nephew gave it to me for Christmas that year (complete with a little John Oliver who sits on the bird, which you can see if you click on the picture—it'll open in full size). It took me a while to get it hung up, but now it's there, and I love it!
February wasn't my favorite month. My high school best friend passed away unexpectedly, so my sister and I went to Nebraska for the memorial service. But sometimes sad things lead to happy things, and we were able to visit our stepmother in Lincoln while we were in Nebraska for the service. It's always great to see her, and she'll make another appearance in "November" below. 😊 (Apparently, Laura is the only one who knows where the camera lens is on an iPhone.)
March
See "January" above.
April
In April, Bella got a kerchief from the groomer (I know, this is really bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, but she's so cute in this picture!), and I went to lunch with my sister- and brother-in-law for his birthday.
In May I went to my great niece's musical theater production. I took one million pictures of her on stage ... and not a single one came out good, so I'm putting in a picture of everyone at the lunch we had afterward.
June
June was my birthday month! So I took Bella for a walk at one of Vic's favorite places, Fairgrounds Lake (or, as we called it, "Ron's Reelection Park" because it was built in a year when one of our county commissioners was up for reelection). It was hotter than the sun that day, as evidences by the picture where Bella is taking a break in the shade. And that's literally all I did.
Just kidding! My niece and nephew took me and my sister to the Weird Al concert at Red Rocks for our birthdays! I had never seen Weird Al's costume concert, and I had never been to a concert at Red Rocks, so it was two bucket list items for the price of one!
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July
Vic came to visit me in July! (As you may recall, the day Vic passed away, a hummingbird visited me in my garden, and we decided that was Vic. But why would Vic stay in one form when he could be a goose honking overhead, a heron gliding by or a hawk landing on my porch—all of which happened in July? (But I only got a picture of the hawk.) I think he just wanted me to know he was here for me as my "lady parts" health travails were getting more serious. Read all about that here.)
August
My great niece and great nephew visited in August (along with their dad, my nephew), and I got to have lunch with them (and my sister and brother-in-law)!
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| Not an expert selfie taker, obvi. |
September
I got my lady parts removed in September (full story linked above in "July"), and since I always made Vic put a picture of himself getting ready for surgery in The Scallion, it's only fair to make myself do the same.
October
I put together my last birthday gift from Vic—which you can read about here.
I also finally got my stained glass piece hung up! (It was a big year for hanging things up.) This was made for me by a dear friend of mine, and although I've had it sitting in the window since I moved, I really wanted it hung up in the window. Thanks to another dear friend, it finally is. This picture is special because you can also see the puteketeke in the background. 😁
November
Since I want to get my letters out and my blog post written, November will be the last month I feature here. It's also the month that had the most Scallionesque story and two fun activities—three, actually, but I didn't get any pictures at Thanksgiving—I saw the aurora borealis (it was a good year for bucket list items) and I (again with my sister, of course) went to my stepmom's 90th birthday party.
I'll start with the activity pictures first so that if you're bored by now, you can skip the last story.
Now, here's the Scallionesque story. Please try to imagine how much funnier it would be if Vic had helped me write it. 😊 In early November, after my eight-week posthysterectomy appointment, my sister and I went to Fort Collins to take our niece out to lunch. We arrived earlier than she got out of class, so we parked at the Colorado State University library. It was a beautiful day. We had the windows open in the car and even opened the moon roof so we could pop out, yell "Hi, Audrey!" and embarrass her to death. (We did, and it didn't.) Even though the battery had just worked 10 minutes before when we opened the moon roof, by the time Audrey jumped in the back, the car was dead. No tick-tick-tick sounds, no zhuzh-zhuzh-zhuzh sounds, nothing. Now, when my sister's battery died in my driveway in September, I called my dear friend (yes, this is the third friend I have called "dear" in this blog post—I love my friends!), whose husband has a portable battery jumper pack—like a power bank for cars. It was magical. So I ordered one for myself. I'm so brilliant. Or am I? Because although I ordered it right away, I hadn't charged it or put it in the car. (I mean, really, who could have predicted my battery would die?) Vic would be so disappointed. So I called AAA. What do you have AAA for if you aren't going to use it? Well, it was going to take an hour and a half for them to get there, so my sister and our niece trekked home to get her car, where she had jumper cables. (No, I also didn't have jumper cables in my car. I have a thing that fills up a tire, but no jumper cables. Again, Vic would be disappointed. 🙄) Long story "short," we got the car jumped and then had a lovely dinner followed by an ice cream dessert. The next day, I plugged in my battery jumper pack and, when it was fully charged, put it in my car. Vic would be so proud!
That's it!
Or so I thought.
When I went to put my selected 2025 pictures into the Holiday Photos album on my computer, I found that I had actually selected some pictures from 2024! So I'm going to end with:
- Three pictures of Bella (no kidding)
- Two pretty sunset pictures I took when I was on walks with Bella
- A picture of me and my sister at the only real thing I did all last year: go to her brother-in-law's wedding (no Bella).
