That Was The Decade That Was: The 2010's

So (as I was made aware of only a bit ago), this is not only the end of a year, it is the end of a decade - the 2010's.  While it is not often that one gets to celebrate the end of a year and a decade together (for most of us, it is maybe 8 times?), I thought a little retrospective for myself might be in order.

At the beginning of this decade, we were still freshly moved from Old Home to New Home. We had just managed to sell out house at the end of 2009 at the cost of our mortgage (and had lost all our equity).  We had debt.  We had three children, none of whom had started even middle school.  I had a single new interest - Iai.

What has happened in those intervening years?

- More Iai (more and more Iai), culminating into two training trips to Japan.
- Two children off and gone to college and the last one in high school.
- Paying off our consumer debts (yes, that happened at the end of this year, but it still counts)
- Being able to buy a house (and based on the current price, making up all our lost equity - your mileage may vary).
- Finding the rabbit shelter and a way to weekly volunteer with animals even if I do not have a larger place for them now.
- Persevering through a garden every year
- Traveling to Iceland (lifelong goal).
- Having the opportunity to go back to Old Home, maybe not as much as we liked but as much as we could.
- Finding out that Highland Athletics was a thing for me.
- Traveling to Montana (and going to Little Bighorn National Monument - another lifelong goal)
- About 2890 blog posts.
- A number of self published books.
- Performing any number of physical feats - running 5Ks, 10Ks, a Spartan Race, lifting weights - which I never could have envisioned.
- Experiencing an almost twofold increase in my salary and getting promoted far above what I ever could have anticipated.
- Passing the N5 Japanese language test
- Preparing to go to Italy.
- Owning actual swords (another lifelong goal).
- Having the luxury to think about the fact that the next stage of life is coming soon and being able to prepare.

Odd.  I never feel like I do enough in a year - but looking at that, a great deal really has occurred.

Here is to just a much in the Roaring Twenties.