2022 The Good, the Bad and the Interesting

 I must get to 20!  As if creating my Christmas letter wasn't enough writing for this busy season, I noticed that there are only 19 posts this year on the blog, and I am not a fan of odd numbers...so one more post it is.  How is everyone doing this holiday season?  I, for one, feel like it is the first "real" Christmas season I have lived in many years.  We attended more parties in one week this season than we attended in the past two years combined!  Well, maybe there was a small gathering last year, but this year feels like we are celebrating together...for the first time in a while, and I like it!  

One trivial holiday observation this year was that holiday parties required a change in wardrobe.  Over the past two years I have gathered quite the athleisure wardrobe and have become very used to it.  This year I actually had to wear "real" clothes.  I missed real clothes!  I have even reintroduced myself to many of the clothes in my closet.  Those long idle "going out" clothes and shoes. Hello old friends...now let's see if you still fit and are still relatively in style. 

Initially, I thought I would take the easy way out of a blog post and just show you the year in photos, kind of like the Life magazine or National Geographic "best of" yearly summaries without the professional writing and photography.  I started out thinking I could just choose one photo of people and one of a place for each month.  This proved to be impossible. I guess that means it really was a good year and when it wasn't good, it was interesting.  I hope your year was one filled with good and interesting things. 

January through mid-September was a roller coaster full of highs and lows.  It began with TJ retiring and I think we both spent the next few months trying to figure out what to do with all of that new free time.  Funny how a person works for over 40 years and the goal is to eventually not have to work anymore, except after 40 years, all you know how to do is work!  Your identity is linked to that job and once the job is over you have to redefine yourself.  Once he got to the shore, he had no problem happily filling all that time and owning his retirement!

Here is a video (because if I posted each of them individually here it would take until next year for me to finish this post!) of the first 8 1/2 months of the year and how we filled some of our newly acquired free time!  The good, the bad and the interesting.  Turn on your sound for the soundtrack.

Once we left the shore it was time to do exactly what we had hoped we would be doing in "retirement"!

We also took advantage of being "of sound mind and body" and used it before we lose it!  The second half of the year was definitely more fun than the first half, at least for me!  TJ may beg to differ, but I doubt it.

Happy New Year to all of you!  Thank you for reading and allowing me this guilty pleasure.  When I reflect, 2022 was a pretty good year for us.  I hope it was for you as well.  We all have ups and downs; I hope between them things are still interesting!  Looking forward to what lies ahead.  May God bless you and your family.