This year has been possibly the most difficult of my life, although 1976 may still top it. It’s hard to compare experiences at such different places in my life. Nonetheless, I’ll look back on 2011 as the year that I buried two very dear family members. The weight of that loss is exquisite (and also not that unusual–we should all be gentler with each other). I wish I could say to hell with 2011, and leave it all behind for 2012, but you don’t shake off losses like that just because the calendar turns over. On a personal level, what I can say about 2011 is that I survived, that it was a difficult year capping a string of very difficult years, and that quite frankly the universe owes me. I hope 2012 is a year of gain–finally–rather than loss.

On a professional and financial level, 2011 has been a banner year. I’ve written 140 articles for BWT, three quarters of a novel, and a handful of articles for other magazines. I’ve made four short fiction sales. I began blogging “for real” and am gaining readers and visitors. And in spite of being the sole breadwinner in the house since April, have ended the year on stronger financial footing than at the beginning, in keeping with our long term household plans and goals. I am also two cats richer.

In 2010, I set myself the goal of making a “comeback” in writing. I had stopped writing and submitting for several years. With all that was going on with Mom and in other parts of my life, I had let it slip away. I made sacrifices to find the time, and I wrote seven new stories. I’ve sold one of those stories, so far, and the rest are in circulation. I knew it would take about two years. Coming in at the 18 month mark, I would say I’ve achieved that goal. I feel like writers and readers are beginning to be aware of me again comparable to 2004-2006.

Everyone have a safe New Year Celebration, and I wish you a year of abundance and gain in 2012.

Here’s a great project for the start of a new year: clean out your spice cabinet and your medicine cabinet. We did the medicine cabinet at my mother-in-law’s place and ended up filling several trash bags with old, expired, and no-longer-usable meds, and clearing out a lot of space in the cabinet.

A lot of people get paralyzed about discarding medications because they either don’t want to waste a medication that might still be good, or are afraid that there is some kind of legal liability. I will save you some time. In general, there’s no system for recycling prescription medications that are still good or not expired. There may be clinics here and there that do that, and I wish more of them existed, but in almost every case, there is nothing you can do with those medications but throw them away.

I was told to try veterinary clinics, but I did that with some of my mother’s meds and it was a total failure. I called and at their behest drove the meds all the way to the clinic (30 minutes). Later the same day, they called and demanded I come and take them back. I refused, and had a brief argument with them until they finally agreed to just throw them away. Again, there’s a mistaken belief that there is some legal and appropriate way to throw them out. There isn’t. Just throw them out. (The exception may be some very specialized medications. For example, my mother once used a medication that the company explicitly insisted must be sent back if unused.)

For the spice cabinet, after you’ve cleared out the obviously old stuff, take a Sharpie marker and write ’12′ on the remaining bottles. Then you’re all set for next year.

I had vivid dreams last night about bringing Mom home from the hospital. She had a pretty new scarf to cover her bald head. She was still dying, but we’d decided to bring her back to my home instead of the group home where she was living for hospice care. I set her up in a room that does not currently exist in my house. We were sad and worried about the end stage of cancer, but it was some months off, yet, and she was feeling tired but reasonably well. We were relieved that she had made it out of the ICU. Maybe we could even look at that experimental treatment we were considering. “Wow, dodged another bullet!” we laughed. I couldn’t believe she had almost died.

We survived the break-in. The police think they can identify the culprit by the clues he left behind, including three copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, a potted bonsai tree, a Le Creuset French oven, and a strange mutant animal that can be used as a pillow or as a “chum” according to the police notes. They lifted some fingerprints from a glass of milk, and are sending a DNA sample from some blood we found in Courage’s mouth. (The home invader apparently wears a hat. People shouldn’t wear hats around Courage.)

They put an APB out on him. The preliminary description, based on partial eyewitness reports, is that he is about 5 foot 8, 250 pounds, French, may go by the alias John “Soap” McTavish, and really likes a well-pruned shrubbery. If you see him, please call the Ann Arbor sherrif’s department immediately. He is considered armed and dangerous.

I’m a couple days late in linking to this, but I’d like to invite you to enjoy an audio production of my futuristic Christmas story, “Long Winter’s Nap,” over at Escape Pod. It is an extremely nifty sale that went through the acceptance to publication cycle in record time this week. Although the story has a child protagonist, you might not want to listen to it with small children around who still believe in Santa. I wrote it when my son was seven, and it was several years before I let him read it because of that. Then again, when my son put the facts together at the age of nine, he was actually a little bit angry, so I’m rethinking the whole “lying to children about magical teleporting Christmas dudes” thing. Maybe you SHOULD sit down and listen to “Long Winter’s Nap” with the whole family. Either way, enjoy!

Yesterday my son came home from school and told us that he had committed to a bake sale for that evening, and needed some cookies or something. He and his friends had planned it, but he’d forgotten to mention it to us. The time was 4:20.

Now, it is a little-known fact that forgetting to tell a parent about a bake sale commitment is a leading cause of mortality in school-aged children. However, the Shaffer family rocked this out. By 4:50, we were in the car, with a Longaberger basket filled with individually wrapped home-made, frosted mini-gingerpeople. We made it in school in time for the fundraiser, and I got some shopping done while the guys worked and socialized.

How did we pull off this miracle? It’s because we’re normal. Yes, we finally made it. Normal families do stuff like this. They make cookies just because they feel like it, and when a spontaneous opportunity for socializing occurs, they show up with home made cookies in hand. We’re normal like that.

Nobody had to go to the hospital. Nobody had to get online for five hours to deal with a production emergency call from India. We just grabbed the cookies and went.

As a bonus, yesterday I decided to try a new thing. Instead of shlumping around all day in my favorite work uniform–gray yoga pants and a gray long-sleeved T-shirt, I decided to embark on a new life of actually getting dressed, styling my hair, and putting on makeup every day. I took the necessary equipment to yoga class with me, and afterward combed my hair, put on makeup, and put on some real pants.

That meant that we showed up with home made cookies looking good. Looking good with cookies is normal for us. Oh, yeah.

I heard from a friend recently that she’d been selected as a possible match for a person who needs a bone marrow transplant, and I was pretty jealous. She’s been in the registry for a couple of years and been contacted twice. The first time didn’t work out. I’ve been in it only six months, but I’m sitting by the phone waiting for my turn.

If you’ve had the experience of helplessly watching someone succumb to cancer, the desire to save a life and make a positive different can be very motivating. But you don’t have to wait for a personal tragedy to nudge you out of your complacency, because I’m here to do it for you.

Now don’t argue with me. Just follow this link, for the National Bone Marrow Donation program, and start filling out the questionaire. It’s very short, just a couple of pages, and at the end of it, you find out if you qualify to be a donor.( Don’t feel bad if you don’t, you’ve done your part by going through the steps.)

If you qualify, you get to do science at home. Be the Match sends you a cheek swab kit. You do it at your kitchen table (or you bathroom or in bed or whatever), put it in a postage-paid envelope, and send it back. Voila! You’re done.

Optionally, you can send a donation to defray the cost of processing your sample. It’s a standard, tax-deductible donation. You can send any amount you like, or nothing at all.

On average, one in 540 people in the registry is contacted to actually donate, so most people will never get a call. People between 18 and 44 are ten times more likely to become donors, because cells from younger donors are more likely to be successful. The donation process involves a minor procedure that is done under anaesthesia or peripheral stem cell collection done through a needle in your arm, so negligible risk to you. Just a couple hours off from work.

Go do it! This is the easiest way to save a life you’ll ever be offered. You don’t want to get all sweaty running into burning buildings or riding around in ambulances to do your lifesaving, do you?