Archive of posts with category 'Year in Review'

Dec 29, 2023 Here's to 2023!

Wow! 2023 is ending. Another pretty good year…especially as I feel like the pandemic is fading. I got a covid booster last month, along with my flu shot. It feels like this is going to be a regular thing, but I’ll let the doctors and scientists who study these things exclusively to recommend what I should do. In general, I trust the experts.

Dec 31, 2022 Goodbye 2022

In general I’m pretty happy with life these days, so 2022 was a good year. Looking at my resolutions for last year, I see that I had no overall plan or theme for the year. I think I’m just finally accepted the new normal of life now that the pandemic seems to be a bit more under control. Personally, I’ve gotten all the vaccine updates and the last one (which I got a few weeks before Thanksgiving) didn’t even make me sick. So while I don’t want to get covid and I still do wear a mask when I go in stores and other crowded indoor places, I’m not that worried about it. Because if I do catch it, I think it’ll be something where I just need to stay home for a while, like any other illness. I know a number of people who had it lately and none of them had to go to the hospital. They weren’t happy they got it and they felt awful, but it was manageable.

Dec 31, 2021 2021 is a wrap

Not a bad year for me personally, I know I’m very lucky, but 2021 is probably not a year I’d choose to repeat. I’m very grateful for the scientists in the world who didn’t hate biology (like me) and ended up developing a life-saving vaccine to save so many lives. And while it’s not (and probably never will be) eradicated, has let me do many simple things, like go to the grocery store and continue to work without worrying about my health.

Jun 23, 2021 Half Year Check-In

It’s definitely been a while since I’ve even looked at my website. The past few months have been kind of crazy with me working a ridiculous amount and not having much time to do almost anything. However, back in March, I made a decision that I was going to change the main focus of the year. I wanted to see if I could lose enough weight to no longer be classified as clinically obese, so get my BMI under 30. I joined Noom, which has helped. And I’m happy to say that as of the other day, I was down 20 pounds and made my first target.

Dec 31, 2020 2020 Year in Review

2020 has been a year like no other in my life. And I know it’s popular right now to describe it as a dumpster fire, but it hasn’t been that for me. I got two new nephews this year and my first grand-nephew. So personally, it’s been a good year for me. And I’m one of the fortunate ones who has a job that I can continue to do without much risk and my family has stayed pretty safe. Most of the people I work with are working remotely, so when I go to the office to take care of some things, I’m one of the few people around. So I feel it’s pretty safe. I wear my mask a lot and generally try to avoid people as much as I can. I feel like people have an understanding of how the virus spreads, so we just need to follow the rules. I’m pretty happy that, for the most part, the people in my neighborhood are good about this. And I’m a rule-follower, especially when I understand the risks involved. So limiting physical contact with people hasn’t been that difficult for me.

Jan 1, 2020 On to 2020!

I worked yesterday and have a somewhat pressing deadline for a server and website I need to have up soon, so I didn’t think much about it being the last day of the year. We’re also waiting for the arrival of my brother’s baby which could be any time now, so my thoughts were elsewhere. And one of the things I wanted to do last year was do more with physical objects. I’m going to call that an unquestioned success. And the idea of continuing to do these blog posts is not as appealing anymore. I may switch over to doing them in my journals which I’ve been using a lot more. For the first time, ever, I think, I even ordered a planner. It should arrive in a few days and I’m going to try it to even more organize by thoughts and days.

Dec 31, 2018 2018 Year in Review

Another year has gone by. It was a fine year. I have no complaints. Took Jack and Annie to Europe and I turned 50. I think those were the highlights. This is also the year that I’ve put the ‘pay off the mortgage’ idea into overdrive. For the past few months, I’ve basically been paying two payments each month to get it paid off. If I make a big payment tomorrow, I think I have around 18 months to go. This makes me very happy. There’s really no reason that I need to pay this off so quickly, but I like the idea of being completely out of debt. Financially-speaking, the year has been good. I’ve saved 37% of my take-home pay, which is good. Not great, but good enough. I’d like to say that I’m about 15 pounds lighter than I was at the start of the year, but I’m exactly 1/2 pound lighter, which is basically a wash. I had been doing good up until my birthday, at which point I proceeded to regain all the weight I had lost throughout the year. Oh well, I’ll try again. Let’s take a look at my goals for the year and see how I did.

Dec 31, 2017 2017 Year in Review

The years just seem to be flying by. 2017 went by pretty quick. I have no complaints because I know how lucky I am. I’m in pretty good health. There are people who like to hang out with me, though I’m never really sure why. And while I’m not crazy wealthy, I can afford to do what I want and still give to causes I think are important. So, life is still definitely good. Let’s look at the details of how I hoped by year would go with how it actually went.

Jul 2, 2017 Year is Half Over

That was quick. 2017 is already halfway over. Thought I’d take a minute to see how the year is progressing so far.

Dec 31, 2016 2016 Year in Review

2016 was a year of extremes for me. It didn’t start off great with the passing of my Aunt Lu, who was one of my favorite people. However, it also included my brother’s wedding which was the nicest wedding I’ve ever attended. Like most years it had good and bad parts.

Dec 30, 2016 Things I’ve Learned About Myself This Year

Since I usually wrap my year up on the 31st and make my plans for the coming year on the 1st, I’ve been thinking about this past year. Know Thyself is a common saying, so I think I should take a somewhat critical look at me. So what have I discovered about myself this year?

Aug 11, 2016 Been A While

My summer has been pretty crazy with a big work conference that is finally over. My life is now my own again. Yay! I’ve been very behind in doing my monthly checking, but that’s ok. The good news is that I don’t have to go back to work for over a week. So I’m trying to do a bunch of projects around the house.

Jun 1, 2016 May Check-In

May was a good month. I biked on 25 days and drove on 16. Four of the driving days included a trip to Nashville, which was fun. I did the Tour de Nash, which was my introduction to NashVegas Nashville. Also had my longest ride, when I did 40 miles on Bike the Drive, including the ride to the drive. I biked 312 miles for the month, which made it a very good month. As for driving, my odometer reads 37599, which means I drove my car for 621 miles in the month. But I took my Mom’s car to Nashville, so I have to add the 1068 miles for that trip. So my total in the car was 1689. That’s quite a lot, but it was worth it for the trip.

Apr 30, 2016 April in Review

Since the weather today is very rainy, I know I’m not going anywhere. Figured I’d take a look at April.

Jan 31, 2016 January Check-In

Normally, I only review my entire year to see how I did, but I thought I’d maybe check in at the end of each month. I may not do this again until the end of the year, but I had some time so let’s take a look at how the year is going so far.

Dec 31, 2015 2015 Year in Review

I’m trying to come up with a one-word summary for 2015 and am having some problems. All that pops into my mind is ok, which is sort of a lousy word to sum up a year. Perhaps acceptable would be better? Anyway, there’s no need to dwell on a one-word summary. Let me look at things in a bit more detail.

Jan 1, 2015 A Closer Look at Finances

As part of my year in review and upcoming year plans, I like to take a hard look at my finances and see how things are going. This year, instead of just looking at the past year, I’ve decided to take a look at the past decade…really the past eight years or so. Why? Because that’s when I started doing all my finances on my computer and they’re all in my banking software. And, of late, I’ve discovered the Mr. Money Mustache blog that does a really good job of talking about the way I’ve been trying to live my life.

Dec 31, 2014 2014 Wrapup

One word to describe my 2014? Fabulous! Really, I don’t think that I’ve had a better year. Why? Well let’s take a look at my plans for 2014 and see how they turned out.

Jan 1, 2014 To 2014

I’m hoping that 2014 will be as good of a year as 2013 was. But I like to set specific goals/resolutions/whatever you want to call them. So here are some things I’d like to accomplish in the coming year.

Jan 1, 2014 My Yearly Wrapup

2013 was a pretty good year for me. My health is good, I bought a new car and I’m pretty happy overall. So I have no real complaints. I set some goals for the year, let’s take a look at how I did.

Dec 26, 2013 Getting Ready for the Wrap Up

For the past couple of years, I’ve done a sort of year-in-review post with my thoughts about what went well over the past year and what I’d like to do in the upcoming year. I don’t really refer back to this list at any point during the year, but perhaps I should. In general, I like to see things that I think would be helpful/fun to know/learn/do in the coming year. And if I see things that I’ve had on my list for more than one year, I’d like to think that I make a bit more of an effort to do them. Anyway, as the end of the year is coming up and this is how I sort of like to spend my January 1st, I’ve been starting to think about the year in general. By and large, I’m pretty happy and think I had a pretty good year. I may have gotten a bit lazy toward the end, but overall, I’m not complaining. I’ll go into more details next week.

Jan 1, 2013 To 2013

Here are my goals for 2013. A lot of the same things as last year, but hopefully I’ll get further along with them.

Dec 31, 2012 2012 in Review

Being the last day of 2012, I thought I’d take a minute and check out how I did with the goals I set for last year.