2010 Inventory

Trip to Grand Coulee Dam 2010

I've been following this dude, Chris Guillebeau, from Portland, Oregon on his blog The Art of Non-Conformity for about a year now. He writes about strategies for life, work and travel but the main thrust of his writing is about changing the world.  I really dig that!  I picked up his blog from another blog I used to follow but have dropped, called The Happiness Project.  I'm not sure why I quit following Gretchen Rubin ... sometimes I just do that.  It seemed to be cluttering up my inbox and I had quit reading her so I unsubscribed.  But I did get a lot of offshoot blogs from her site.

My post today is a stolen idea from Chris Guillebeau's site relative to doing an inventory of the last year before heading into the New Year.  He says he sets aside a week (a whole week?) to think & write about two things:

What went well in 2010?
What did not go well in 2010?

So I got to thinking about those two questions and while I will hardly spend 30 minutes dwelling on them, it made me smile to think about the stuff that made up 2010.  Here goes:

• It really started in Dec. 2009 with a trip to Flagstaff to see Justin graduate, that happiness took me into 2010! Awesome trip to Honolulu with Gene in February. Took Missy to lots of agility classes. Took some over-the-top motorcycle day trips, including Grand Coulee Dam. Our grandson, Brevin, came to our house to stay for a week & he/we really enjoyed it. Another awesome trip to Port Orford for my annual cousins reunion. And, another trip to the Oregon coast with Gene's youngest daughter for possibly the best weekend ever at Cape Lookout. A day trip over to Coeure d'alene. Just recently celebrated Gene's 60th birthday in Portland. I started a hand-written letter campaign this year and I have two faithful letter writing friends who write me on a regular basis. Oh, a good friend invited me to the Tri-City Digital Photographers Club which started with a free, all-day class on learning about your digital camera. I have since been to two other classes and met super nice people who have taught me lots of new things about photography. That started a ball rolling & really sparked my imagination and I am now officially a shutter-bug. The photo club has gone on one scavenger hunt and another is scheduled for January. I've managed to keep the same job this year. I started this blog in September and I've been able to keep writing & combine my photos with it ~ which brings me a lot of joy. I've made new friends this year who have rocked my world with their own gifts & talents. I got to see my dad & Nancy twice this year! Justin and Amanda traveled to Richland to spend T-Day with us. What a joy!
• Things that did not go so well in 2010:  The biggest thing would be Gene's medical crisis in July. But, he survived it and feels so much better and I'd really rather add this to the "things that went well" list because it could have turned out so  much worse. Missy & Mr. Kitty got fleas. The big guy at work died in May.  Our friend from Yuma, Arizona (by way of Missouri),  Betty Boop, died. Hmm ... short list. I like it like that.

With all that said, I think it has been a stellar year for us.   I can harldy wait to see what 2011 has in store.