2010 Recap

So it's a new year already.  To be honest, most of 2010 was a blur to me.  Most of the last year and a half has been a big ol' blur.  I'm glad to say that by the end of the year, life seemed to finally be settling down and it feels great.  Looking back, even though 2010 was a great big roller coaster ride for me, I have to say all in all it was a pretty good year.  Sure, not everything was rainbows and roses, but I think the good outweighed the bad by quite a bit.

The first few months of the year were spent working our asses off to get the old house ready to be sold.  There was a lot of work to be done and Ken was amazing organizing it all.  Living in a state of flux wasn't fun for me at all, but I tried to keep my complaining and whining to a minimum and just focus on getting done what needed to be done.  In those last couple of months, we had tile guys in, ceiling guys, floor guys, carpet guys...  They all did the work we just couldn't.  We painted walls, stained trim, filled a self storage bin, decluttered, made dozens of trips to Good Will to get rid of stuff we didn't want / didn't know we still had.  

The house sold the first day on the market, which still leaves me feeling shocked.  First day.  In this economy.  We busted our asses to get it ready to be on the market in time for someone to cash in on the first time homeowner credit the government was offering and that helped tremendously.  The only problem with the house selling so quickly is it left us completely unprepared.  We had planned on starting to look at houses once the house went on the market.  So we had a firm offer before we had even thought about looking.  We talked to our real estate agent about what kind of house we were looking for, our price range and the areas we were interested in looking at and spent one Saturday looking at nearly 30 houses.  We found this one that day, but after a quick walk-through ruled it out.  Well, obviously we unruled it out because here we are.  I love this house and still can't believe it's mine.  

The best part of this house, for me at least, is my own personal space.  In the old house I had a small room to escape to.  In this house, I have a huge space.  I've turned it into my fantasy comic book room.  I can't tell you how much I love being in this room, surrounded by all my shit.  I've waited my entire life for a room like this and never thought I would have it.  

This year I watched the further deterioration of my body.  I really hate getting old.  I never thought I would mind it, but once my 40s hit, it seemed like my body wasn't having it and started letting me know.  This year I got my first kidney stone.  With that I also got my first ambulance ride, which would have been a whole lot more fun if they gave me something to ease the pain.  Well, they did give me something, but M&Ms would haven't helped better with the pain than what they gave me.  Also this year, I injured my feet and it's made working out a little more difficult.  Right now they're feeling much better and that enables me to get back to the gym, but I'm going to have to add "orthopedist" to my ever growing list of doctors.

I've now managed to keep over 100 lbs off for over two years.  August was the second anniversary of me reaching my weight loss goal of 190.  My weight has fluctuated up and down all year long, but I've kept it in the zone I want it to be all year.  I'm very OCD about my weight and I track it on a daily basis with an app for my phone called WeightMan.  Here is a snapshot of my year in weight.  That one big spike in the second half of the year is my first day back from my vacation in Texas.  But damn, it was worth it.

In 2010, I found my limit for social media sites.  With everything that was going on with the house, I just didn't have as much time to goof around online and so the first thing I did was dump my biggest waste of time.  Twitter.  And I haven't looked back once.  I don't miss it.  I like the concept of it, but all it is is a giant time suck.  I miss a bunch of the people I would chat with there, but I miss all the assholes I had to suffer there even less.  Facebook takes up more than enough of my time. 

I got to see old friends, new friends and friend friends this year and that made me happy.  I was really happy to be able to go back to Austin over the summer.  I wasn't planning on it, but out of the blue Ken asked me if I was going to go and that kind of set the ball in motion.  It was not-quite-but-close-enough to a last minute plan.  Because I waited, the flights I wanted weren't available so I had to extend the trip at both ends.  Darn.  I didn't take nearly as many pictures this year as I did last year (probably because I took 89,000 last year), but I took enough.

My social anxieties really get a hold of me sometimes and hold me hostage.  I don't like it and I do work at keeping them at bay.  This year I planned on hitting the New York Comic Con.  I knew one of my favorite people on the internet was going to be there and I spent some time debating whether or not to mention it to him and possibly meet up.  I had a moment of clarity and made plans to meet him in person and I'm glad I did.  This is Stevie D from the Comic Book Queers podcast.  I really think he's great.

I also met up with my friend Michael at the con.  I haven't seen Michael (in the center) in close to twenty years, if I had to guess.  George (right) I see much more often, though not often enough.

I got to meet up with the utterly fabulous boys from Danbury, Brian and Kevin.  I'd only met them once before in person, but that was in a group setting, so we didn't get a lot of time to socialize.  This time it was a one to one (two to two?) situation.  They travel to a point about half way between here and where they live to do some shopping, so Ken and I drove down to have lunch with them.  I hope we get to do it on a regular basis.

Being in a new house, Ken has been all about having as many people come visit as possible.  Our very first houseguests were Eric & Brett, up from NYC.

In December we took our second cruise.  I didn't think it was possible for me to enjoy a cruise more than I enjoyed the last one, but it happened.  This time, as opposed to the last time, we went with friends and actually met people on board and spent a lot of time socializing.  What, Walt socializing willingly?  Well, it wasn't willingly at first, but by the end of the cruise, it felt like the last day of school before everyone went their separate ways.

I know I'm missing some social activity, but as I said at the beginning of this blogpost, most of 2010 was a great big blur.

I've mentioned before that I use an iPhone app called iMapMyRide.  It tracks my exercise.  If I'm out walking, it's got GPS to map out the route I'm walking, how fast I'm going, how far and how many calories I'm burning.  For gym exercise, I can go in and log a workout after the fact.  I've been using the app on and off for close to two years now, but it wasn't really until May of this year that I really started using it.  I discovered all the bells and whistles at the website and got obsessive.  Since I started recording all my exercise, I have managed to walk (or run, either outside, on the treadmill or on the elliptical) 870.31 miles.  If I was tracking all my pre-May stuff, I bet it was over 1,000 miles.  My goal for 2011 is to hit 1,000 miles (or more.)  I've already got just over 7 miles under my belt and it's only the first of January.  I'm in the best shape of my life right now and I really want to maintain that, if not improve upon it for 2011.  As long as my body doesn't keep betraying me, that is.