A Year In Review - 2025 - It's Turning Around!

 I'm not back to "Good" yet.  But I've at least turned the corner!

2024 - Another bad one

It shouldn't come to a surprise to anybody that this has been another bad year.  Let's get into it.  

2023 - And I thought it couldn't get worse

I keep hoping for that turn around year.  That 2013 where it was bad but it got better and then became good.  That year that was the 'first' in a long series of good years.  What was my last 'good' year?  2019?  2018?  Right now it doesn't feel like I'll ever get back to a good year and may just start hoping for it to stop getting worse.  

2022 - Yeah, this just isn't getting any better

I'm not even sure how to quantify this anymore.  The level that 2022 sucks is hard to compare to the levels that 2021 and 2020 sucked.  Let's take a longer view, then a true year in review.  

2021 wasn't any better

I guess 2021 was better than 2020, but we're not talking about major differences here.  2021 sucked.  2020 just sucked a little more.  

Fuck 2020 - A year in review

 

This whole ‘year in review’ idea came from Joanna on her Happiness blog.  This is an idea that I plan to do as often (annually) as I can.  It’s just a bit of a review of what happened over the last year and a list of questions.  The questions, over time, and their answers should be telling on how I’m changing.  I’m writing this without looking at the previous answers so they won’t bias my answers now.

A Year In Review - 2019

This whole ‘year in review’ idea am from Joanna on her Happiness blog.  I haven’t visited her site in quite some time (that's something I'm going to have to fix this year!) but this is an idea that I plan to do as often (annually) as I can.  It’s just a bit of a review of what happened over the last year and a list of questions.  The questions, over time, and their answers should be telling on how I’m changing.  I’m writing this without looking at the previous answers so they won’t bias my answers now.

A Year In Review - 2018

This whole ‘year in review’ idea am from Joanna on her Happiness blog.  I haven’t visited her site or really any blog in quite some time but this is an idea that I plan to do as often (annually) as I can.  It’s just a bit of a review of what happened over the last year and a list of questions.  The questions, over time, and their answers should be telling on how I’m changing.  I’m writing this without looking at the previous answers so they won’t bias my answers now. 

A year in review

I skipped over doing this last year, so sadly there isn't a '2016 year in review).  But this is something I've done for 2013, 2014, and 2015 and will hopefully continue on with in the future.  If for no other reason than it will be fun to look back and see what I was going through at these times.

Anywho, this is an idea I got from Joanna on her Happiness blog.  I hate to say that I haven't visited her blog in a long long time.  It's one of the things that I've just given up on... keeping up with all my blogging friends.  Anyway, on to the year.

Where I look back at most years (since 2013) as good, I can't say the same about 2017.  It started off on the wrong foot.... I was sick.  I mean damn, I was sick from late December 2016 until around March of 2017.  I finally went to the doctor, got some antibiotics and some allergy pills and kicked it but three months of sickness really gets to you.

I traveled.  I visited Detroit for the car show in January.  I drove down to Dallas to visit my friends there.  I flew down to New Orleans in September to hang with my friends.  I made some cool purchases from a new 55 inch OLED television, a new refrigerator, a new grill, a new computer, and a new car.  But that traveling and those purchases put a big stress on my finances.  For the past few years I found it easy to keep around $2000 in my savings.  That was without trying to do so... I'd buy what I want, when I want, and I'd still find myself with an extra two grand to blow on something.  Well... this year I didn't have that.  One of the first decisions I made in 2017 was to go down to Mardi Gras with a friend in 2018.  He booked us a hotel and a train ride down and I owed him $1000.  Oops.  It took me most of the year to pay him off.  Everything else just kept getting in the way.  And now, almost a year later, it looks like I might not have much cash to go down with.

Before we move on to 2016...

Just as I did last year, I'm stealing this idea from Joanna.  This is a set of questions that sum up the last year.  While I've intended to make this post for several months, I have specifically not re-read the questions so that I can answer them with a fresh mind this year.

2015 was strange only because everything in it felt ‘normal’.   There many highs and not many lows.  I traveled, I helped my family, I changed jobs, I grew in my job… but none of that had the newness that 2013 and 2014 did.  This year was just normal.  If this is my new normal and I can hold this type of good times close, I can live out the next 20 years or so a happy man.  And after 30+ years of NOT being a happy man, I think it’s a prize well earned. 

I even got the surprise of having Caitlyn come back into my life.  She’s completely re-arranged my free time, but it’s good free time with her so I won’t complain. 

Taveling wise, I took a cold blistery trip to Chicago, drove down to Dallas once and flew down for a second trip.  I had meant to fly out to San Francisco and had intended on another Chicago trip but those are things I can still plan on for 2016. 

I’ve made plenty of big and small purchases.  I can’t really talk about spending money without mentioning the new Ride.  Ginger.   I adore having a big sedan that gets 40+ mpg.   But what really struck me this year is how making purchases has changed.  I still research things, but the time scale has shifted.  I used to research things because I only had one shot to get it right.  If I messed up and spent a couple hundred bucks on a bad thing, it wasn’t something that I could correct.  Now I do the research because I honestly enjoy learning about things and making the right choise…. But if I make the wrong one it’s no big deal.  I can always correct it later.  For instance, my most recent ‘thing’ has been a media streaming box.   Specifically a Roku 3.  I wanted to not only watch Netflix which my bluray player let me do, but wanted to add Hulu, Amazon Video, and other streaming services.  I wanted to do them quickly which the bluray was just horrible at.  At less than $200 for every option, I could afford to ‘try’ one, but I still did my due dilligance to figure out all the differences, all the benefits and all the detriments or each option.  I compared Apple TV, Android TV (the nVidia Shield and Google Nexus Player), the Amazon Fire, and the Roku 3 and 4.  It took me about a day of on and off again research, but I made the right choice… the Roku 3 is everything I could have hoped for!

Before we move on to 2015...

Just as I did last year, I'm stealing this idea from Joanna.  This is a set of questions that sum up the last year.  While I've intended to make this post for several months, I have specifically not re-read the questions so that I can answer them with a fresh mind this year.

Before I get into the questions, lemme set the stage a bit.  Unlike the year before, December of 2013 was a very good time for me.   I of course was working as a nurse and had just 7 weeks before been  hired on as a state employee.  The only real 'down' thing at the time was transitioning from getting paid every week, to getting paid every other week.   I ended up going three weeks without a paycheck... three weeks just before Christmas!

While 2013 was all about that mid year change... getting a job... 2014 was all about celebrating my new financially viable life.  The difference between the years and years of financial hardship and making more than enough money to pay all of my bills was amazing.  Dare I say;  Life Changing?  The year I've traveled by plane for the first and second time.  I've made grand purchases both for myself and for others.  I've re-acquainted myself with friends from long ago, and while my closest friends have moved far away, I'd say our friendship has deepend.

Yeah... I think I can say that it was life changing.  The only real 'down' thing this year has been the complete exit of Caitlyn.  I still miss her and while it's not often, I do still pine for her return.

So with the table set, here are the questions and my quick answers:

Oh what a year!

I will freely admit that I completely stole this idea from Joanna (of Happiness blog fame).  She claims she came across this on her facebook feed, but I'm not going to discount the idea that she came up with this entirely on her own.  For the most part, it's a question/answer series about the past year (yea yea, I know... still 8 more days).  While I was reading the questions and Joanna's answers, I realized I was occasionally pausing and thinking about how I would answer a particular question.

After about 10 of the 40 questions making me pause and think, I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and write up my own 'year in review'.

First, let me set the stage.  In December of 2012 I was at a very low point. I know I shared some of this on my other blog, but I was feeling lower than I let on even then.  I believe at one point while chatting with greatgooglymoogy I contemplated suicide.  Not that talking to googs was making me want to off myself, but I couldn't come up with anything positive to say.  I had graduated nursing school over a year ago, and had my licesne for about six months, but was still finding very little traction on getting a job.

Instead of killing myself I started to hide away the negative feelings.  I tried to be a more positive person on the outside.... and that was a really hard mask to wear.  But I was afraid that if I would blurt something out lie that to googs, then I might just lose control and say the same thing to someone in real life.  Someone that could do something about it.  I figured though that if my internal self was that close to pulling the metaphorical trigger, then all I would need is another thing to weigh me down.  Like going to counseling for being that close in the first place.