What a year, am I right? Looking at my last year's post, one of my goals was to rededicate myself to going to the gym regularly. Another was to do something social every day. Well, that all ended about March 14th.
It was a really hard year for me emotionally. Last year I wrote that I was feeling "more optimistic about my future than I have been in a very long time." Despite my outgoing nature, I'm actually still pretty shy, and minor things discourage me. But I found that the more time I spend with friends, then the better able I am to ignore those things, and the more confident I am, so that was my plan. But with quarantine, I was back to my old self where I'm stuck thinking about the times I failed socially.
Putting that aside, I did do well on a couple of my other goals that didn't require being around people. My sister kept me good company this year, and I was able to work on my goal of cooking better. One of our other sisters had given us recipe boxes for Christmas, and so I got to get in good practice cooking for two.
Another goal I had was for some spiritual goals, including reading the Book of Mormon. Again, it was really good for me having my sister around, so we could discuss what we read together, following the Come Follow Me schedule.
Here are other things I did this year:
- I finally got the Board Game Stats app so I could keep track of the board games I play.
- It was a tough year to have board games as a hobby. But I did manage to play 273 times of 88 games with 141 different people in 28 different locations.
- New board games this year, I got Star Trek Panic and Quacks of Quedlinburg. I also bought the new edition of 7 Wonders, since apparently I'm a sucker for that game.
- Engineers were given a pretty decent retention bonus at work, so I was pretty happy about that.
- I've been working from home since March, and we've continued to do good work. We got a team bonus, so that was pretty nice.
- Despite my paragraph in my opening on my social frustration with myself for not always doing what I wanted, I actually did manage to go out with a few beautiful women this year, and I was happy about that.
- I only saw Doolittle and My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising in theaters this year. I did also see Mulan, Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul, and Monster Hunter that came out this year in 2020 streaming-style.
- Besides the Book of Mormon, I also read The Lost 116 Pages, Saints, Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand and Joseph Smith's Polygamy volumes 1 and 2.
- I went camping by myself for the first time. My birthday was in April and I wanted to do something special, even if I couldn't be social, so I just went to Antelope Island and pretended I wasn't lonely.
- I did have good outdoor adventures with friends, too, though:
- In March, before Quarantine, I went to Goblin Valley.
- In August after it was clear Quarantine would never end, I went to the Uintas,
- and in September to Beaver Mountain near Idaho/Utah border.
- In the Uintas, I got to ride a horse--I had only ridden one slowly around a small field before, so this was my first time to ride and go exploring, and that was pretty good.
- In lieu of my social hobbies, I worked on my family history: I wrote a combined family history of all my ancestors from 1820 to 1881 in chronological order and with maps. It took basically all year, but I finished, and I learned a lot.
- In the process, I learned a lot about how Family Search worked, and I attached a bunch of sources to my tree, and then I started connecting people in, so now there's more temple work to be done. It's pretty exciting stuff!
- For Memorial Day, saw a bunch of graves of the people I had been studying about. I also saw a few homes of my ancestors that are still standing.
- I went to the Salt Flats for the first time.
- I visited Cub Creek, Idaho, to see the autumn leaves.
- I visited Moab to go Jeeping with my Dad and we went hiking to see Corona Arch. It seemed appropriate.
- Also saw a couple random arches in northwestern Utah.
- Got to do some astrophotography with a friend, and got to use his star tracker to take a nice picture of Andromeda Galaxy.
- Went to Antelope Island to see the Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction
- Thanksgiving and Christmas were over Zoom, but it was nice to see everyone.
Goals for the new year:
Number one priority is increase socializing, but I'm not sure how to do that during a pandemic, so maybe that doesn't count as a "goal." Well, one thing I need to do is clean my bedroom. When I prayed about things I need to do, that's one thing the Spirit told me, and I've been ignoring Him.
Even not going to the gym, I need to take time at home to do some body-weight exercises, like pushups and stuff. I should probably eat healthier, too. I've been dealing with anxiety by eating candy, and maybe that's not the best idea.
This year for Sunday School, we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants, so I'm pretty excited about that, I hope to continue to keep up with that.
I would like to write a follow-up volume to my family history covering the next hundred years, up to before I was born. I'll also eventually want to write a prequel volume that just kind of briefly goes over the history of everything, and then another for just my own life where I can talk about all the details of my life. Because if it wasn't clear by this post, I do like writing.
Anyway, it's a new year, but that's just a day on the calendar. Although I can't control what happens on the outside, I can control myself, and I hope to look forward with a better attitude, and do those things that I can. I hope you and I have a joyous new year!
