2022 - the year that was

 I missed a lot of the TV shows that looked back on the year. They usually cover who died, world events, local events, etc. I missed all that. So I decided to kind of do my own year in review and see what happened with me this year. 

So let's start with the obvious and the sad. Over the course of this year we lost Clusey, Bella, and Lola. Clusey was a shocker, he died suddenly. Bella we knew that was coming for a long, long time and Lola just seemed to go downhill really fast. So we went from 3 dogs and a parrot to just 1 dog. 

I started the year in extreme pain from a knee injury around Thanksgiving of 2021. That took a long, long time to fix and it is really only recently that I am finally living pain free. I can walk and do things now and not have a sore knee for a week after. 

I got myself an Oculus 2 for Christmas last year and was hot into that. That seemed to fade over the course of the year, but I think that was due to the knee. Whenever I would use the Oculus my knee would hurt for a few days. So I tended to avoid it. Recently I've used it without any knee pain so I think we may be okay. 

In February I ended my long time membership in DMSC. Over the years, this group has taken on many names and iterations, but in February I decided I was done with them. I honestly think there was a lot going on in my life at that point in time and I was beating myself up because I couldn't devote more time to it. So I stepped away. I didn't stop meditating or trying to take care of my self (the knee was still a huge issue) but I needed to remove myself from the group for a bit. 

So quitting DMSC led me to explore the world of diets again. I looked into Bright Lines eating. Considered WW again. It was right around this time that I got some shocking lab results and realized that I needed to do something. So I started looking at diets. They all turned out to be nonsense so I ended up not sticking with any of them. 

Next up was 75 hard. That is a little crazy and way to close to DMSC that I was trying to get away from. That did not even make it off the launch pad. 

This was quickly followed by lots of confusion about what I should do. Paleo, IF, WW, what????? In March we also made a quick trip to Lake Havasu to visit with a friend from Hawaii. 

I met with a nutritionist and immediately started falling back into old patterns. Eating, not eating, weighing myself, etc. It was not a good look on me. 

In April I finally went to physical therapy for my knee. I made great progress there and things started feeling good and looking up. 

In April I turned 63. I wrote then that when I was younger I never expected to live this long and it's the absolute truth. I didn't expect to live to 50 or heaven forbid 60. But I'm glad I did and I'm really in the best shape of my life in many ways. I do carry too much body fat, but mentally I'm in the best place I've ever been in. 

In April I tried a very expensive thing - the Whoop. I've since stopped using it and I'm on the fence about it. I'm not sure if I let what it said influence my day. For example, I would sleep really good and then it would tell me I wasn't recovered and then my day was crap. I can't let something like that tell me how I feel. Ugh, so that was discontinued. 

In May we said goodbye to Bella. That was hard. It's still hard, I miss her. She was a once in a lifetime dog. I waited so long to get her and she was absolutely everything I imagined she would be. She was absolutely my heart dog and saying good bye to her was one of the hardest good byes ever. 

In June some family came to visit. That was an experience. The rest of the summer passed uneventfully and school started again. 

Then, in September, I had reached my limit with Hubby. For the first time I was seriously considering separating and going our own ways.. Before that conversation could happen, he got some devasting news from the doctors and things started to change. 

In October we said goodbye to Lola. She was getting old for a long, long time but she really seemed to go downhill quickly the last few weeks. So we said goodbye. Then we hit the road for trip to Gila, NM. We stayed in a really old bunkhouse on a really old ranch. It was interesting and our first real trip since leaving Hawaii. 

In November, Mavy and I returned to the hiking trails. I found some great ones in Apache Junction. Then we spent an evening with Sir Elton John. What an amazing concert. November also was the renovation of the craft room. I had big plans in my head and step one was setting up a craft room that would work for me. The final piece of the craft room arrived at the end of November, my laser engraver. 

In December I suffered a bit of a depression. Thankfully, I was able to pull myself out of it fairly quickly. 

So that's the year. It's been a very sad year. But it's also been a very good year. I guess that is how life goes. So here's to 2023 - I'm going to make it a great one.