2011--I did stuff.

• January: J had a birthday. I also wrote this letter to 2011. I have to say that for the most part, things went pretty well. We had weddings and babies (many announced, one arrived yesterday!). We also had funerals, fever blisters, and more cancer. So... mixed bag I guess. I did get a new fence, but no more animals.
• February: Faire got started... well, the workshop process at least. I taught people how to talk to strangers in an engaging and memorable way. I wore a lot of layers for the various levels of weather that Texas likes to throw at us at the tail-end of winter.
• March: My pants went missing. Not really. My careful husband had just PUT THEM AWAY, so of course I couldn't find them. It was like foreshadowing for all the pants-griping I would be doing this year. An omen of things to come--no pants to be had!!*
• April: I was attacked by MORE SPIDERS. This still haunts me. I sang with QAL and wore blinding amounts of pink. I talked to strangers in an engaging and (hopefully) memorable way.
• May: I did all the same things as the month before, only with less arachnid involvement. Honestly, I think I prefer it this way, thank you very much. Spiders, please kindly take note that we both are better off far, far away from each other.
• June: I reunited with my couch. Somewhere that spring, during recovery from some version of crud, I got hooked on Doctor Who, so I spent quite a bit of time working on my ass-groove and catching up on that.
• July: The great babysplosion of 2012! Well, things got started before July, but July was the month when I found out that 3 close friends were pregnant. And then, me too! I also hosted a clothing swap party and so did a lot of closet-purging and talking about clothes.
• August: My blog turned 1! I was very proud of myself for keeping this up that far. A small achievement to be sure, but still one I was excited about.
• September: J & I celebrated being married for 5 years. We made it this far, which is impressive to me, because it seems very long, and also completely unimpressive next to the marriages that surround us--my grandparents: 70 yrs on one side, 65 on the other. Both of our parents? 42 years.
• October: I went to San Francisco to see my family & have a mini-vacation with my husband. I turned 31. My brother became a sommolier. I went Austin and met a bunch of ladies whose lives I read about on the Internet! I got dressed up like a witch and sang songs at a haunted-house theme park with my friends! It was a fabulous month. Maybe the best of the year.
• November: I posted every day for 30 days. You found out way more about me than you ever needed to know.
• December: I made crafts. I went to parties. I sang carols in Victorian costuming. I published my 200th post with no fan-fare because I just couldn't be bothered. I figure 500 is the next milestone that I might make a fuss over. Don't quote me on this, because I might change my mind AT ANY TIME

*I actually found a pair of maternity pants, on the internet, that--according to the size chart provided--should fit around my expanding hips and also touch my feet and cost less than $70. This is a minor miracle. I have been searching for this very thing since... well, I think since the day I found out that I would NEED maternity pants. I have looked at every possible place for pants, but the intersection of tall and wide and pregnant didn't seem to exist. Then it did, but at prices that made my budget run away screaming. Then... a Christmas miracle. JC Penny! Bless them! They added the magical ingredient! Not all-the-way plus-sized-tall pants, but just my size. Falling in the overlap between what's considered "regular" sizes and "plus" sizes isn't a fun place to be. You get funny looks no matter where you shop. Still, I'd found some places that had pants I could wear. Enter the fetus and I was S. O. L. Tall maternity pants? Sure! No problem! The two maternity stores nearest me both have tall sizes. So long as you're just extra large. And I was. Am. Extra Large. I live in the land of the XL. But somehow a maternity XL is a size smaller than my normal Target XL. 16/18 at Target is NOT THE SAME as 16/18 at Destination Maternity, or JC Penny. Which, I'm not surprised, because sizes aren't exactly standardized across the whole retail world. So I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was disappointed to find that maternity clothes run smaller than my regular clothes. Yeah, where's the logic in that?! Let's make the ladies putting on weight for TOTALLY REASONABLE REASONS feel even fatter by making the clothes they need to wear smaller. WTF and STFU to you stores! Anyway, because of that little gem of marketing, the pants that fit my rear end were 1X. Well. You can get plus sized maternity pants too! So long as your inseam is only 32". *sigh* The 1X 34" inseam pants... they were not to be had at reasonable prices. And then... like MAGIC... they were! This is the longest footnote ever, and really could be a separate post, because you all know how much I love to bitch about pants. PANTS!!! So, the whole point here is that after the Christmas miracle of JC Penny suddenly deciding to carry pants for me, ON SALE no less, I bought a pair in every color. They didn't have any in stores to try on, so this could still be a bust, but I'm trying to be hopeful here. Hope--it springs eternal for pants.

**UPDATE**

THEY FIT!! I have pants!! And there was much rejoicing! *yay*