Themes of These Past Four Years

It is so interesting to go back and read the posts written in late 2008 in light of all that has transpired since then....was thinking earlier this week that each of those years seemed to follow a kind of theme...if I had to name them it would be:

2008/9: Cheerful oblivion
2010: the black hole (all time lows in personal life and career)
2011: Health & Renewal
2012: Stability & Focus
2013: Travel & Exploration

Feels like a pretty good sequence....taking small steps, building on successes....

10/11 were rough....fall of 2010 marked the point where I realized my marriage could not be saved after years of trying, and in 2011 the dissolution was final.....throughout that time I was so lucky to have faith, family and friends who helped me get through it all.

My sister challenged me to train for the 2012 Disney half marathon toward the end of 2010, and I began run/walking using the couch to 5K training plan and made pretty major diet changes and completely eliminated alcohol consumption. That provided a really solid base to rebuild my life from....getting back to a healthy body, actually probably healthier than I have been in my life.

With the help of a very dear friend who kind of took on a "life-coach" role, I set goals for getting my home and work environments purged and in order, and knocked items off one by one, and established better systems for maintaining that, and established routines....set wake and sleep times and meal/clothes/schedule planning for the week ahead by Saturday PM.

In 2012, my job responsibilities changed to a much more current business focus, and I needed to travel internationally for work, so personal travel was put on hold except for the marathon and a quick trip back East so Ben could go on a canoe trip w dear friends from my college days.

Also helped my oldest get settled in at college (tho really he was probably perfectly capable of doing that himself!)

This year holds more personal travel, with the Disney Princess in Feb already, a spring break trip to Turkey, High School Reunion/Canoe trip for boys in July and an Alaskan cruise w my mom in August.

Still a lot of growing to do.....never finished......