Dang, Not Bad

So I've been busy this year. The neglect suffered by this blog is probably evidence enough of that, but I haven't just been grocery-store post-office busy. I've been scratching my name on some pretty important milestones since January 2012, many of which you only do once (or at least only want to do once.) Namely:

I started working at Central. First 9-5, 5-day a week permanent full time job I've ever had, and I plan to keep it. I pay into a pension, have my tax deducted automatically, buy an annual travel-card, am entitled to sick days and am required to take my allotted holiday leave. I have a desk and a computer that no one else can use. I manage the supply inventories so I control how much of everything we need and know where it all belongs. (Well, I know where most of it belongs. A lot of it, anyway.) I fix things when they break. I teach students good work habits before they develop weird ones on their own. My employment end-date is my 65th birthday. It really is not a gig. It's a career. That's cool.

I prepared for and followed through with Getting Married. It was fun. It was pretty. Boy and I are happy. And we never have to do it again.

I visited Devon and Deal for the first time. They were both very lovely in their own ways. The sea around England is so much prettier than the beaches of South Carolina and gulf coastal Florida. The sea is always a dark, muddy green there, if not simply brown. I realize it's the algae in the area and not strictly South Carolina's fault, but cold water is so clear and blue and beautiful, or such a clear emerald tone, it's just absurd. The first time I put my toes in clear seas was in Honolulu in 1999, and I thought I was doing something rare and special. How was I supposed to know that the sea is clear or a pretty colour most everywhere except where I grew up?

My family is going through a hard time on several fronts, difficulties that I sincerely hope none of us ever have to deal with again. I have little excuse to feel sorry for myself in these trying times, as it's not really me who's sad, and the stories are not mine to tell, so they won't make their way onto these digital pages. Why blog if not to fling complaints into the void? My little home is happy enough--Spouse has been ill but is 80% better, work is cracking on, it is nearly April but no one has bothered to tell the snow--in other words, nothing to report, sah.

Poor neglected pages. I have nothing to tell you.