Goodbye 2014 and Hello to 2015.....I Guess

Blah blah blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's just about the new year so you should know the drill by now. Every December 31st I write a new one year recap. So rather than muse about it with an unnecessary paragraph, I'll just jump right into it.

A year ago today, I was at Joe and Randi's for the usual party. I got there in time to meet everyone while they were sober and talk for a bit. But before I knew, Jeff had bought us all beer from Epic, which we consumed quickly. That beer alone got me very drunk. Beer pong was played, many of us stumbled about. Brennon, brought a stranger, Matt was the only one not in attendance, Kevin stayed conscious and everyone else was in a good mood. We brought in the New Year as we always do; in good company.

January 2014. Nothing too fun or eventful was taking place. I searched for a new car while battling acne again. My dad was inching towards dialysis and once again I resolutioned to get into shape.

February was interesting. I injured my knee running. My first sports injury. I decided to ignore it and keep going with exercising. I finally bought a new car after my old Nissan bit the dust. Dad finally got into dialysis. I started Accutane to get rid of my acne again. I got my dog Leela during this month.

March I got into the worst car accident I've ever been in, in someone else's car. Luckily no one was injured but it made me a lot more passive driving.

April I just dug my heels into the ground and just concentrated on school. Joe convinced me to run the Tough Mudder by the end of the month in September. It forced me to have to train harder.

May nothing too different from any other May. I started training for the Tough Mudder, despite my injured knee. Memorial weekend in Idaho was perhaps one of the best ones I ever had. The weather was perfect. Although the fishing was bad, it provided for fun the rest of the weekend. Getting a little drunk in the trailer with Hailee and her friend while playing Cards for Humanity. Running the show on my own. It was fun.

June and July were the same. I didn't get out much. I spent most of my time training and going to school. I started physical therapy for my knee injury hoping to be better by September. There were hardly any fishing or hiking adventures. I was in stellar shape preparing the Tough Mudder.

August I fell of the exercise wagon a bit and quit training for a few weeks. I remember going to Beer Festival and Oktoberfest with my friends. I remember enjoying the nice weather as much as I could, though I still had little hiking or fishing done.

September I ran the Tough Mudder with great success than I had hoped. I proved to myself that I had more grit than I thought. Afterwards, we all stayed in Snowbird, ate food, drank, got up the next morning for breakfast and Oktoberfest. It was one of the best days of the year.

October was an interesting month. Dad didn't get his transplant on a whim. I still had 2 weeks off of work anyway which provided for much needed time away.

November proved to be a difficult time of year with both my parents in the hospital for different things. My birthday was celebrated in the hospital. I took a lot of care responsibilities on myself to take care of them. My aunt was there to help which was a great relief.

December still proved to be difficult. With finals, my parents still recovering, and getting ready for the holidays, I was the most stressed I had been all year.



It's a brief recap and I'm sure I'm missing a lot. But that's just what I remember off the top of my head. 2014 was a stressful year. It seems as I get older the years seem to pile on more, but I suppose that's adulthood. When I was reading past recaps, It seemed I complained a lot about the years gone by. I want to do my best to not do that despite the overall hardship I endured. I'm hoping that I can take 2014 as a learning experience. A time where I learned to be a better, caring person. I feel that I've gained strength this year. I feel like a stronger more capable person than I ever have. Though I wish this year would have yielded better memories, I'm happy with how it turned out. In the long run, everything still came together. I still have my health, my family and my friends. I gained a greater perspective on life and how to deal with it and feel like I have a better purpose.

As always, I hope that 2015 will be a better year. I'm hoping I can still be a better man, exercise right, eat healthy, and be a positive influence on those I come into contact with. I'm hoping I can create better memories and good times. I'm hoping that whatever challenges come my way, that I can overcome them as I'm sure there will be many.


So here's to you 2014. You weren't bad. You weren't great. But you did a lot for me.


Here's looking to you 2015. Let's make this a good year.


Now I'm off to Joe and Randi's to bring in the New Year with my best friends.



See you in a year, starting with the party that happens today.

To the Santas in Family Pictures

It's no small secret that I'm not a fan of the holidays in any way, shape, or form. It's my least favorite time of year. There is so much pressure and stress surrounding the final 2 months of the year. But none of this is the point of where I'm getting at. (So why did I bother writing any of it? Who knows?)

While looking through old family photos at my grandparents house, I noticed several old photos of my dad and his brother with Santa Claus. I have several of these types of pictures as do millions of Americans. Everyone gets a picture with Santa at some point, right? Well usually anyway. But when I started thinking about it, who was this Santa Claus? Obviously not really Jolly old St. Nick. But a real man, who had a real life. He is in hundreds and thousands of family photos. Few people probably knew his real name or what he did in life or who his family was. Yet, here he was, adorned in a family photo we'll have for years. A man in a costume as a fictional character. It's weird when you think about it. There's thousands of mall Santas and millions of photos taken with children. Millions have the pictures stashed away as family memories. Our family photo with a nameless man who donated his time to thanklessly bring us that memory. No one knew his name or what his story was. I doubt he gets thanked often and probably deals with a lot of shit. But this nameless (and likely long dead) man lives on in our family calendar every year.

What better way to be immortalized than to be apart of thousands of memories, even if you don't get all the personal credit that you probably deserved.