And forget our year, anyway: Mark's sister had a year beyond anything we can imagine. She was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. She's just seven years older than Mark. Thanks to our church, who is actually doing what Jesus would do and not just wearing bracelets about it, we'll be flying up to see her and the rest of Mark's family over New Year's. Getting a week off at this time of year is unprecedented, and actually, a first for us in 21 years.

And one of our high school friends passed away this year. That was a visit that didn't come about, much to my bitter regret.

This is what our year was to us. The rest are just incidentals.

However, for those of you who want to know the incidentals as well, or would prefer the un-delved, we'll start with my sneezes. They're getting louder. Louder, and more violent. I used to have this polite little "choo!" thing, and now they measure as a Force 2 hurricane. Is this one of those aging things??? Are the things I'm allergic to more violent out here? Or do sneezes continue to grow all your life, as I've heard noses and feet do? (It's true about the feet; in my case, anyway.)

Rototilling is the next thing that comes to mind. It's something I would prefer to have keep away from my mind and every other part of me as well, and something I hope I never have to do again as long as I live, but something we chose to do nonetheless. We have been xeriscaping our yard, and the first job was to get rid of all the old Bermuda grass which was turning into some mutant alien species anyway, and to plant buffalo grass. For those of you who don't know, xeriscaping is low-water, low maintenance landscaping, using plants and such native to your region. There are things native to this region, I've found, much to my surprise. (Yes, indeed, yet another Lubbock diatribe. And while I fondly disparage the place, I forbid anyone else to until they've lived out here for three years. There's something.......something about the place that works on you if you give it a chance. Maybe it's those mutant weeds. Maybe because it's not for wimps. Maybe it's......there's a joke Mark heard on the radio: "Man, that wind blows out here all the time!! So much so that the one day last year that it didn't, all the residents fell over.") No Texas jokes, please. Redneck jokes permitted.

While we're on the subject of wind and weather, I have to say ah ha! I distinctly felt an autumn in there this year! Yes, for two weeks we had cooling, pleasant weather. Then it froze. Then it went up a little. Then it froze again. Then up to the mid-70s. This is fall. But I did wear fall clothes for those two weeks. Ha!

My father came out for a long visit through Thanksgiving. The visit started a whole flurry of 'old times' jottings and other projects. He has the most amazing memory of anyone I ever met. My memory is notorious among my acquaintances, but to say it pales beside his is a gulf of an understatement. I look forward to his completed memoirs, and meanwhile add to my family history collection. I didn't even know some of these pictures existed.

I don't remember if it was this year or last, but one day while sitting and waiting in a doctor's office, Daniel and I decided to count car colors. (We had been in there awhile!) You know, he had red and I had blue and who had the most.....only we noticed that cars are not colorful anymore. I don't know when this came about, but there were no blue cars. And not many reds. Everything was tastefully muted and boring. Now, I like a monochrome in a painting - I've always been partial to Rembrandt and Caravaggio - but a bold, delectable red on a '65 Mustang is essential to nourishing the eyes, don't you think? Or a racy yellow Camaro. Not mustard, not lemon, but a Steve Park yellow.

Speaking of which, we went to our first NASCAR race this year - we actually went to an actual race! Yes, Mark has lured me into the realm of screaming NASCAR addiction, and our necks aren't even getting ruddy. So the occasional twang is creeping into our voices. So the occasional 'g' is dropped from the end of a word......we are not yet rednecks. And hey, the race was in Phoenix, Phoenix Arizona, which as you all know is no redneck country.

Right?

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Well, think what you will, I find it at odds with the rest of my personality. Someone who loves El Greco, writing and ice dancing should not find bits of NASCAR vocabulary flying out from them. Then again, why not? I always did like to drive. (I'm sure some of you remember those donuts....) Anyway, the race was awesome, those rumbling engines were AWESOME, and I defy all you Mensa candidates to look down on it! While there in Phoenix we visited with my sister and her husband which was also awesome. We introduced them to geocaching and they enjoyed it to the point of going back home for a flashlight just so we could find the last stage of a multi-cache, and now their zest has surpassed ours - they're finding them every chance they get. And don't ask me what geocaching is, I told all of you about it already and you all ignored the enticement. ;-�

Our vacation to St. Louis and beyond was detailed in an email, and currently resides at my website.

David is now 18, ready to graduate and still immersed in computers, and he did a great job as a softball umpire last spring/summer. Daniel is almost 14 and playing both French horn and trumpet and wants to major in music, and finally got baptized this year.....one day he came into the room and complained, "Mom, David's trying to teach me sines and cosines!" I've never heard that one before....Megan is 6 and a spunky little original thinker, which her teacher also thinks and recommends she be tested for giftedness (is that a word? Apparently it is, since my spell checker isn't screaming at it), joining her brothers in this sphere. She gave us quite a scare this year - she was seeing colors "where colors aren't supposed to be." The only things I knew of that did this were epilepsy and migraines. But we eventually figured out that she was seeing light reflections, you know, when you look at a light and then look somewhere else. All three are maturing into pretty neat, fun people and I would like to close with a recent quote of Daniel's: "A bird on a bridge saves 9 apples."