2010 was a huge year. It was a year of abundance, especially in the arena of change. I'll try listing the big changes even though most everyone has probably already heard of them...
1) Moving. Its amazing how exciting and heart wrenching moving can be. In the last 14 years, I've lived in 9 different places, but they were all in the same city (if you don't count those summers I went back to Gillette during the college years). Over those years, Laramie became my home. Even though I didn't like the weather much, I knew that i could handle the fact that it would be cold and miserable 7 months out the year and then it would change to cold and bearable for 2-3 months, and the rest of the year would be quite comfortable.
I could go to the post office and knew two of the guys who worked there and be greeted almost every time I walked in the doors. I could go to walmart and catch up with any number of old friends who happened to be walking the aisles. I had friends who I could call up and within hours be doing some bocce ball, halo carnage or eating with. I remember once taking my wife on a date to a restaurant and while we waited for our food to arrive some friends of ours showed up celebrating their anniversary, and they joined us at our table, then shortly after that some more friends showed up mourning a loss in their life and they joined us at our table too. There's something comforting in the ability to mourn and celebrate accidentally with friends.
Of course I'm sure that after 14 years of living here it'll be somewhat the same once again. Its been a good move, just somewhat lonely at times, but that seems to be changing with each day.
2) Home ownership. Out of the last 14 years, I've only lived one of those years in an actual house and even then I only rented a room. So now I own a whole house which needs grass mowed, leafs raked, painting, plumbing fixed, and the list goes on. I miss the lazy nature of apartment living for the mere fact that I didn't worry about any of those things, including not worrying about paying for all those extras. But the benefit of owning something should hopefully gain value makes it worthwhile.
3) Fatherhood. Over nine months of the year I grew to accept that I had some responsibility to this bulge that sprung up in DaNae's abdomen. This growing bulge garnered our love and was named Charleigh. It was strange after her birth to hear a nurse talking to her and call her Charleigh, all I could think was "hey, thats what we named DaNae's bump!"
Everyone warned me that I would never sleep again. No one warned me that my heart would be so easily attach to her. I get plenty of sleep but enjoy sitting around holding her. Poop filled diapers bother me just as much as I knew they would but I'll still change them in order to serve my wife and daughter.
In all of the this I think I miss date nights with my wife. We've had one since she was born thanks to some friends who gladly watched her. We may not be able to do the weekly ones but with our friendships growing here we should be able to do once or twice a month.
2010 has been a major growth year for me, but I find myself stuck in some ruts that I had hoped I would've overcome by now. So with that I have decided to make some new year resolutions (which I won't get into on here just yet) and writing this blog is a major step fullfilling one of them. SO, with all of this I'll list some of the things I've learned through all this change:
1) Sink springing a leak right before a date is not an excuse to have a bad attitude.
2) Living in a hotel room and eating out every meal for two months is a quite way to pack on the pounds. and isn't as fun as it might sound.
3) If your daughter is crying while your wife is holding her and she passes her to you, and she quits crying, its a good idea to quickly pinch her so that your wife doesn't think she is a horribly mother.
4) Your own child is far cuter than anyone elses.
5) Scraping paint sucks, never do it! (I should've learned this lesson in 2006)
6) Going to the store to get a christmas tree isn't as fun as hiking through waist high snow to cut one down.
7) facebook, the internet and anything attached to my tv consumes too much of my time.
8) Boobs are no longer playthings once they have a purpose.
9) You shouldn't close the flue on a fire place until all the wood has stopped smoking.
10) Finally, its ok to be proactive!
2011 may not be AS adventurous as 2010, but I'm excited to see God has in store for us this year.
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