Closing Thoughts on 2022

Friends, this has been kind of a strange year. 

Hannah has been away at college for her sophomore year, and Emma has become a senior in high school. Sally’s been back at work full-time. This has left me to do a comparatively out-sized portion of the work managing the household. I feel like I spent most of the year running in place, just trying to sort of keep up. But I told myself when Hannah left that I would try to embrace the challenges of Dad Life while I still had them full-time, and I’ve tried to stick with that, even when the challenges themselves have come fast and furious.

Sally and I celebrated our anniversary at Mount Snow last week.

Goals for 2020

As I've said before, we don't call them resolutions at Casa Cabeza.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! #2020 💫 pic.twitter.com/D5pC8WMuOF

— Gina Carano (@ginacarano) January 1, 2020

2020: The More Things Change...

Earlier this week, I told my wife that we're not celebrating the end of a decade, we're turning the page to a new beginning.  And yet, I somehow found myself scrolling through old blog posts yesterday, trying to get a feel for how much life has changed -- and how much it hasn't.  

It was a little depressing.  After a life full of whirlwind changes, the last ten years have been amazingly static.  I've been with the same woman since 2002, nurturing the same kids since 2003 and 2005, in the same house since 2007, and in the same job since mid-2010.  None of that is bad, but it doesn't make for some kind of sweeping narrative of hope and change, either.  Given the turbulence of my previous decade, I suppose that a quest for stability -- seen clearly only in hindsight -- was a natural outcome.  But going back through some of my older writing, I also felt keenly that the thing I've done most is to keep on keeping on.

Goals for 2019

I refuse to call them "resolutions".

Blog in Review: Top Posts of 2017

New Year’s Eve is a time for goal-setting and reflection.  As we’ve done for the past few years, let’s take a moment to look back on the year that was before moving on to something new.

2017 was a successful year on the blog, especially once I started going through the numbers.  This past year didn’t have any super-hits on the scale of 2015’s “The Mystery of Malvern Manor,” but readership was up, often by 50% or more.  Most posts got at least 100 readers and many did considerably better than that.  200 reader posts were once a rarity; now I see them at least once per week.

5 Things on a Friday: #ArmyTop25

Happy Friday, folks.  And Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Stay with me today.  This may get a bit involved once we get into some of the math down below.

Goals for 2017

I hate calling them resolutions...

Happy New Year!

Blog in Review: Top 20 Posts of 2015

I enjoy this blog quite a bit, but it can be frustrating, too.  A certain tension exists between the subject matter that I personally enjoy and the stuff that I know will bring in readers.  This is nothing new.  I’ve known for years that the parts of my own work that I myself prefer are only rarely favorites of others.  By contrast, I’ve written things that I think are obvious or pointless and had literally hundreds of people tell me how amazing they are.  This is one of the reasons why I write a lot.  I never know what’s going to strike a chord with others.

Very occasionally, I’ll write something that I like that other people also really like, and those are the days—rare though they may be—that make me love writing.  In the meantime, I hope to balance the need to write what I enjoy with what I think other people want to read.  

This list seeks that same balance.  It chronicles a very good year of blogging.

5 Things on a Friday: The SEC gets whupped and other stories

It’s a new year, and that promises new struggles and new opportunities.  As I write this, I’m sitting on an empty train on my way into the City, feeling like the only commuter in the entire Northeast.  I still haven’t written out my goals for the new year, so with less than 48 hours under our belts in 2015, I’m already behind.  On the other hand, we had an awesome day yesterday, so who’s complaining?

Happy New Year!

New Year's Notes

Sally and I still haven't sat down to hash out our goals for 2015.

It's maybe worth noting, however, that she took issue with my characterization of 2014 as a basically unsuccessful year.  Sally herself got raises at several of the places where she teaches fitness classes, she thought that Hannah's turn in the play was a really big deal that deserved more celebration, and we took a ten-day vacation to Maine that was totally awesome.  My work and support of our family made all of that stuff possible.

Sally also noted that even if the year wasn't particularly goal-tastic or glorious, it was still good.  We were happy.  In real terms, that is at least as important as anything else.

2014 in Review: Assessing Last Year’s Goals

Setting goals is a good way to focus one’s efforts.  However, goals are no good without reassessment afterwards.  We therefore need to reexamine 2014’s goals before setting new goals for the coming year.

These were my goals for 2014:

Goals for 2014

It's a New Year, which means it's time to set new goals.  Here are mine.

1.  Average under 8:30/mile for a half-marathon.
I've been enjoying running this year.  I'm not great at it, but maybe that's why I've liked doing it.  I don't try to hold myself to standards when I run, I just run.  Anyway, I don't know how much triathlon I'm gonna do this year, but I would really like to put together a decent half-marathon.  And while I'm not sure what a decent half would actually look like, averaging under 8:30/mile for early two hours seems like a good goal.

Happy New Year: 2013!

I confess that I didn't stay up last night.  In fact, it's been a few years since I've actually rung in the New Year.  We got invited to a couple of parties last night, but I had to work a full day yesterday, and after having been stranded on the train for something like two-and-a-half hours, truth is, once I got home, I just did not want to go anywhere.  Instead, Return of the Jedi was on Spike last night, and I watched it with my daughter Emma.  Overall, I have to say that it was the best time I've had on New Year's in a long, long time.

Beyond that?  Well, I'm watching ESPN, and I have to say that Andy Reid looks happy to have been fired--finally.  He looks relieved.  Well, why shouldn't he?  It's been miserable in Philly for the past few years, and his contract is guaranteed next year for $6 million.

Marty Schottenheimer was the
coach of my favorite Chargers team,
the Drew Brees, LT Chargers.

Personally, I hope he takes a year off and then goes to the Tennessee Titans, but I'm not holding my breath on that.  I mean, I think the guy probably will take a year off--he'd be crazy not to--but I don't think there's a chance in Hell that the Titans make his Top Ten list.

Still on football: now that Norv Turner is gone in San Diego, can we please have Marty Schottenheimer back?  Can we likewise admit that firing him after a 13-3 season was an idiotic move?  Argh.

***

I usually do new fiction on Tuesdays, and indeed, I have something ready to go, but this being New Year's Day, I kind of have this feeling that if I put up something new today, 90% of my regular readers will miss it.  So you can look for that next week if you're so inclined.

By the way, if you're reading this and you have an opinion, you can also let me know in the comments if you're rather see more of The Sorcerer's Tale or if you'd like to read the short novella I wrote for my girls for Christmas using their D&D characters.

Anyway, in lieu of actual fiction this week, here's the poem I wrote for my wife for our 10th anniversary.  Sally's decree this year was that we all had to make something for everyone else in the family for Christmas, so the poem was what I "made" for her.  She seemed to like it.

The stars, they sparkle in the night sky.

How they shine! Glittering celestial stew.

And yet, for all the beauty up on high,

I’d trade it all to spend more time with you.

And the City, it holds infinite charm:

Glass towers, endless promise, forever new,

But I’d rather live on some rustic farm

If it meant I could pass my days with you.

Oh life, it holds all these wonders unseen:

From highest mountains to oceans of blue,

But I’d stick to just the places I’d been

Were that the price of staying close to you.

Life: a journey we’re taking together;

I wouldn’t change it, endless days, forever.