write « Robin Writes

I’m sure most people think about making those New Year’s resolutions, and many actually do. I’d like to know the percentage of people who follow through and keep them for a month, or six, or even all year . . .

I don’t need to make any this year, because I found the ones I’d written for both 2005 and 2009.

Let’s take a look:

2005—

Lose 10 pounds

Stop smoking

Do one fun thing with kids each week

Have one date with Dennis each week

Ten years ago. How did I do? Well, I’ve certainly lost those ten pounds; and found them, and lost them. I did not stop smoking. My bad. Do one fun thing with the kids each week? Can’t remember back that far, but currently my kids are 29, 23, and 18. “Fun” and “mom” don’t really go together anymore . . .

Dates with my husband? Well, in the past year those consist of things like laying floor tile or installing cabinets . . . Do we party or what??

Let’s look at 2009—

Buy one carton, stop smoking when finished

Lose 30 pounds – XXX start

Declutter and downsize stuff

Finish genealogy project

Finish novel

Finish degree

Hmm. Again with the smoking. Still not there. Lose 30 pounds?? WTH?? Well, the good news is that I also wrote down my current weight, and that hasn’t changed. And no, I’m not telling!

Declutter and downsize. Well, in November of 2010 we moved into this house, and now we’re moving to the farm, so yes, this is happening!

Finish my genealogy project. Okay, maybe in ten years . . . honestly, it’s such a huge project, and ongoing, and . . . well, I do still work on it. Sometimes.

Finish novel. YAY! I did this, three times! I did not do it in 2009, but 2012-2013, and that wasn’t the book I was talking about then, but yes, goal accomplished!

Finish my degree. Well, this one is a long story:

I graduated high school a year early, at the end of my junior year. High school was not fun, it was a PITA. So I went off to college.

Five times.

Never could manage more than a semester or two at a time, I don’t know why. So finally, around 2005 I think, I decided to look up how many hours I had finished. It took a while, since I didn’t quite remember all the schools I’d attended, but then I remembered the last one (okay, the third and the fifth, same school) and discovered they had an online program now.

Glory be.

I signed up and finished about 60 hours in a year. Almost there!

Then we moved back to STL, and I planned to CLEP the rest but that was about when my middle kid decided to go nuts. I was a little busy dealing with all that—police, DFS, juvie, military school, etc., etc. So I bit the bullet and enrolled again. 3.9. thankyouverymuch, until that damn algebra could no longer be avoided.

And try, I did—I emailed profs, deans, college president. No dice. But I did manage a D. As my daughter would say, “D is for degree!”

May of 2011. Finally. Only took me 30 years. Oy.

So there’s a brief, if incomplete, history of my New Year’s resolutions. I’m sure there are more around somewhere, but my computer can’t find them. And I’m equally sure I didn’t handwrite them; those kinds of things can be found by anyone!

Basically, each year, my NYRs are the same things: to get healthier and to get things done. I don’t think I need a list for that, I know what they are—apparently the same things I’ve been working on for years. Decades. Good grief. I should know them by now.

And I do. And I will.

So there.

I’m no stranger to flooding, having grown up in the Missouri River bottoms. One of my earliest memories is down on the family farm looking at the high-water marks left from 1953 onward. In 1986, I was no longer living at home, but we drove in to see the devastation. That one dampened the basement, but the flood of ’93 came up several feet into the house.

Since we moved into our current home, we’ve had a little sogginess in the bedrooms and garage, but then in June a couple years ago, we had to pull three rooms of carpet and replace a lot of drywall. Inches in the bathroom, and all over the edges of the living areas.

Basically, floods seem to follow me.

Now, this year, this month, Missouri is underwater. Mostly. Our plan today was to drive to the farm to drain the water pipes in the house before the freezing temps in a few days. Typically, if your pipes are in insulated walls, you’re fine unless the mercury dips below 20.

We’re not taking any chances, not with new tile and cabinets all over the place.

However, the best laid plans and all that . . .

My husband left an hour ago for the farm. His new plan is to heat up the house, drain the pipes, and head back tomorrow. Going down there has its challenges, as part of the interstate is very, very close to flooded roads, but the rivers are still rising in spite of the rain stopping yesterday.

Well over flood stage is expected over the next few days, so the timing of his trip back may be questionable.

Funny how, when prepping, we don’t often think of floods as an impediment to bugging out. Since most of the weather around here, and between here and there, is generally moderate for at least 9-10 months of the year, we usually think of manmade obstacles.

This is kind of a wake-up call, and I’d urge everyone to not only think about and plan for typical disasters, or even some expected ones, but really—who knew we’d be flooding in December?

Again, the getting there isn’t the problem, at least today; so, if we were bugging out now, we’d go. No questions asked. The time is now, as the rivers are still rising.

Kind of feel like I’m playing Oregon Trail.

In a snowfall situation, same thing. Sometimes you have to make a decision right away, and act on it. No dilly-dallying. Much, much better to leave and maybe come back than to wait until it’s too late.

Of course, you also want to know that where you’re going is safe. Our farm house, for instance, is on a hill. We have great visibility and good drainage, once you get there. That part can be tricky, but once we’re in, we’re in to stay and we have no worries about surviving from that point on.

And it makes it more difficult for anyone we don’t want there to actually arrive.