Well… that was a year, huh?
It certainly wasn’t my best year in a lot of ways, but at the same time, it wasn’t the worst. A year ago, we were in the middle of construction hell. I wrote about it back in February, talking about how we were in the process of renovating the whole apartment. Our Christmas holiday last year was cooking on hot plates and doing dishes in the bathroom sink.
Thankfully, a lot has changed since then.
The living room was finished and Monki’s bedroom is now her self-picked shade of cotton candy pink. In both cases, she and I had a good time building all of the furniture, with only a few mistakes. Sure, I had to take one apart and rebuild it, but hey, that’s how you learn, right?
We even redid the office room (which is basically my room, since the bedroom is Rasa’s and Monki has her bedroom), painting it a calming blue and having a desk and bookshelves custom built for the space. They look great, but I have a feeling when the rest of my books show up from Vegas, we’ll be needing another set of shelves somewhere.
The bathroom was a whole issue in itself. The two guys we brought in to do the plumbing weren’t the most reliable and made some errors we had to have fixed, but I’m the end, it all came together and we’re now able to once again take baths. On a side note, at some point between when this place was built and today, the standard size of a bathtub must have changed from 160cm to 170cm. Now, that 10cm difference, approximately 4 inches, may not seem like a lot, but trust me, it is. The downside of this change, though, meant that the number of tub options available to us was negligible at best. There were all sorts of cool 170cm tubs, with jacuzzi jets and hand holds and underwater grottos, but in the 160cm range, we had a choice of 1, pretty much. Yes, it was a little wider than our previous model (due to the lack of built in arm rests) but otherwise, not much difference.
Then we had the debacle of the washer and dryer. We figured that since we were redoing everything, we might as well get a new W/D set, a stackable one so we could move the dryer out of our bedroom. The only problem is we forgot to measure the rather narrow doorway and while the washer fit, there was no way to get the dryer into the small room. C’est la vie. So we still have the dryer in the bedroom and it seems like that’s where it will stay for a while. This also meant we needed to reinstall a cabinet above the washer, so we had that built as well.
Now that it’s winter and the sun is only above the horizon for a couple of hours, we were able to get a good deal on window shades, so those are now installed and ready for the long summer days. The only major renovation which needs to still be done is our (Rasa’s) bedroom and the hallway. We joke that we’ll schedule it for when we’re away for a while so we can avoid the bulk of the construction woes.
Aside from the house, there were other things to deal with during this long 2024. I had serious health issues going back to last November. I woke up one Sunday with a severe pain in my left arm, pain so intense I literally couldn’t think straight. I mentioned it my last end-of-year report, and ultimately, we discovered it was a pinched nerve, but the physical therapy didn’t do much to help so my index finger on my left hand is still numb a lot of the time. I have some exercises I should be doing, and one of my goals for this coming year is to actually accomplish them. In May, I developed Bronchitis, which lead to several months of horrendous coughing fits and sucking down lozenges like they were candy. I’m still not 100% over it, and anytime I get out of breath or laugh too hard, I cough like a demon is trying to get out of hell through my lungs, but we learn to live with it.
Last January, my annual trip to London had to be cancelled last minute due to Rasa and Monki coming down with COVID (and I succumbed to the dreaded disease myself not long after) so that was a bummer. I look forward to these trips as a mental refresher and general reset button. They allow me to clear my head and see theatre and hang out with friends and I think the fallout from not going last year had me always feeling a little a behind this year.*
In February, along with start of the Spring semester, we all got to see Rasa graduate with her doctorate. Talk about an exciting day! When she and I first met, she talked about the things she wanted to accomplish in her life:
Now, here we were, watching her stand and be recognized as a Doctor, checking off the last item on her original “to do” list. There’s certainly something to be said for that kind of determination and focus. She completed her Master’s while taking care of an infant and her doctorate while raising a small person. The process forced us to postpone travel and refigure priorities and daily duties, but here it was and it was all worth it.
Also in February, Rasa had a work trip to Finland. This was the first time she had been away from Monki for an extended period of time. Now, me, I’d been gone for days or weeks at a time for work since Monki had been born, so she was used to me not being around for a few days, but having mommy gone was a new thing. There were a few hiccoughs but ultimately we all survived. Enough so that when Rasa had another work trip to France several months later, we were all good with no problems at all.
The semester itself was fine. I was still dealing with fallout from my November illness but it was tolerable. Also, Monki, who had gotten a pink, ¾ size guitar for Christmas last year had been taking lessons and had her end of term concert, which was fun. She liked performing but not enough to actually practice playing.
Then came May and we were back to Vilnius for Comic Con Baltics, but I’ve already written about that, so no need to go over it again. Except to say that I’m already looking forward to the 2025 edition, happening in just 5 short months.
Summer was a blast. My folks visited and we spent a delightful week in Crete (which Monki is still play acting and definitely wants to go back again next summer).
Aside from a few day trips, that was pretty much it for our summer holidays. My only other trip was a 24 hour jaunt to Warsaw to catch Fish on his farewell tour.
On the personal front, once again I’m not writing as much as I’d like. I’ve been doing a fair bit of freelance work, and I do have one big project coming up, but haven’t really done much of my own creative work at all. I’m giving myself permission to not worry about it until summer, so I can finish all the other things on my plate, but by this time next year, I’m hoping to be back doing creative stuff solely for me.
I’ve also been a bit more social this year. My friend Huw and I have been meeting regularly for lunch or movies and, along with his wife, we’ve also been trying to go to pub quiz a couple of times a month. Monika and also still get together as often as possible for coffee, but with kids, our schedules can get a bit hectic.
At 8½, Monki is a delightful handful, she’s learning new stuff and discovering her own likes and tastes. This year was the year of Harry Potter as well as the usual suspects of cartoons and movies. She’s enjoying books (but would rather be read to than read herself) and I’m even teaching her a bit of magic, which she’s having fun performing.
So that’s the state of Jaq. 2025 marks my 14th year here in Lithuania and my 15th as an ex-pat. None of us have birthdays ending in a 0 or a 5, so no major milestones to celebrate. It’s just going to be a year we do our best to keep doing what we’re doing. And I’m okay with that.
*Next January (two weeks from when I’m writing this), instead of London, I’m taking myself on a cruise around the Mediterranean. Watch this URL for details.
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 