Year end wrap up

Let’s see how we did:

• Mental – I’m happy with how this year went mentally. I do struggle sometimes with controlling negative thoughts or fixating on things which I can’t control, so I went back on Effexor in April, I think? I feel very lucky that these meds work pretty well for me and I can regain firm footing mentally and deal with things with equanimity and humor which is really my goal. I can tell that my brain is aging, not in a terrible way, but in a regular way. Some short-term memory issues like more frequently going upstairs and then promptly forgetting why I went upstairs or not quite remembering if I packed a certain thing in Edda’s backpack.
  • Physical – this year, I really change from running a lot to lifting a lot. I focused on gaining weight (hopefully muscle) so I put on about 10 pounds this year which is probably the heaviest I’ve been since I’ve been pregnant. I feel…big. But I’m trying to work with it. I still am maintenance running, about 4 miles three times a week. For the first time in about a decade, I’ve cut back the time on exercising – I try to aim for about 45 minutes a day whereas in the last decade, I’ve easily done 10 hours of exercise a week. I just have other priorities. I’ve really enjoyed getting more into Olympic weightlifting, I love the folks at the gym and enjoy lifting improving my technique.
• Marriage – Jeremy and I are doing well in our “half empty nest” phase. We continue to learn to work with each other and really enjoy spending time with each other. The marriage is calm and fun. We continue to improve on “working together”, home improvements, kid issues, car buying snafus, I feel like we really know each other well and are patient with each other. We also have very different interests, and with Edda always needing someone with her, we are figuring out how to spend our time apart as well.
• Family – Vince did so great this year, we helped him through a really rough patch in the first half of the year, but he carried through that with flying colors and is now figuring out young adulthood well. Edda graduated from high school and we found an adult program that we love and they seem to love her, setting that up took up a lot of my time this year. We also hosted Felix for about 7-8 months, which was both fun and a little bit stressful because for the first four months, it wasn’t going that well, but it ended up being a great success in the end and my house still smells a little like spray sunscreen. I’m happy that I got to spend time with my parents – we had a vacation to Arizona that went well and I also helped them travel to LA for a funeral, both were meaningful to me. I love that I’m back in touch with my cousins. I’m also very happy that my brother is back in touch with my parents, even though he may not be in touch with me.
• Work – work has been challenging this year with the new administration. I won’t go into too much, but mainly I’m grateful I have my job and that I still get to work from home. Jeremy and I did spend a little bit of time thinking about what would happen if I had to report to the office everyday (I would have done that – 90 minutes each way), but thankfully, that did not happen. I met my newish boss in person this year which was lovely, I really like her. There are many new requirements for her regarding us and she’s implementing them with as much fairness as can be expected given the current climate. I’m implementing some new-to-me process checks to help me improve my performance at work which is what I always want to do.
• House – We worked really hard on decluttering this year, and Jeremy got really into it – diving into his office and our mountain of electronic waste which was not really my domain. We are constantly evolving our systems – laundry, cooking, cleaning, dog walking, and I think we are doing things more efficiently than ever. I think we really got into “resetting” the house each night, so we walk downstairs to a clean and organized house. So much easier without kids! Lol. We really went electric this year – heat pump dryer and we got an all electric car which I’m enjoying. We are using every last inch of the house all the time and are continually moving stuff around to optimize things for our life. I’m still thrilled that the basement apartment remains rented and that we are able to provide housing to a young adult. Our yard is still a work in progress, I really started planting trees and spending some money and learning how to stop deer from eating the baby plants.
• Relationships – this year was a big year for friends, I’m more social this year than I’ve been since the pandemic. This is a big reason why my exercise time has gone down. I went to a yoga retreat this year with a friend and will do it again next year. I hosted a Missoula trip with my godchild and another family. And I have weekly things at the church and gym and am spending lots of time with other people. This is certainly a priority for me right now.
• Hobbies – I’m also spending a lot of time on hobbies – guitar, baking, singing, olympic weightlifting. All fun things. I’m adding sharpshooting to it next year, I’m going to try to add 15 minutes of reading next year as well. I’m always always trying to spend less time on my phone, this year – towards the end of the year, I uninstalled youtube from my phone and installed Opal – an app time limiter on my phone. It’s going well so far, we’ll see how it goes in the future.

Mostly it was a good year!