2014 a year of addition and subtraction

Before I rack my brain trying to recap the last 365 days let me just recap the last 18 hours.  Cindy and I (much more Cindy) continued work on the deck project yesterday.  With my wrenched back the scope of work I was able to do was severely limited which was frustrating.

Cindy went around and painted the entire floor rail of the pool cage Rustoleum white and touched up the edge of the deck where some paint pulled off with the painters tape. In total I bet she spent 3 hours plus doing the tedious work. In addition she did the first coat of hammered black paint on the old lawn furniture as well as staining the two wood pieces on the deck with the same ebony color we used on the kitchen corner countertop. She busted her ass, plain and simple.

My contributions were minor.  I applied the second coat to the furniture, I replaced the broken outside receptacle cover and moved some stuff back onto the deck.  I felt like I was walking a tight rope, if I moved just a fraction of an inch the wrong way I was impaled with a spike of pain that took my breath away.  It was and is pretty miserable.

Sadie was absolutely thrilled when we allowed her out on her cherished pool deck.  It was the only birthday gift she needed although she of course enjoyed the homemade cupcake with cream cheese frosting that Cindy made both for her and for Nicki’s birthday which was on the 28th.

Ok so let’s get on to the moment you all have been waiting for, the 2014 recap, where I do a poor job of trying to summarize an entire year of my life in several paragraphs.

Of course as is customary, I first need to list my stated goals from the end of last year and see how well I did at accomplishing them.

Paint the garage – check courtesy of Cindy.  Cindy painted the garage herself in Eagles Midnight Green with matching silver accents.  It was just one of the countless examples of the acts of generosity that she bestows on me on a regular basis.

New appliances – nope, maybe this year

Fitness goals of 400 pound dead lift, 30 pull ups, 5 clean muscle ups, one arm pull up, blah blah, blah – all fails, all in a major way but I will be going into detail about my physical deterioration later

Expand my online presence/ ad revenue – Nope, things have pretty much stayed the same, I still have not captured that elusive viral video gold.  In general I have posted far fewer videos online this year, mostly due to my significant reduction in exercise at home.

More road trips – YES.  Cindy and I had a very memorable winter road trip to see my dad and step mom where we were knee deep in the birthing of three sheep. We followed up with the Durango trip in late summer which I will expand on later. We also flew up to PA in mid-summer for my sister Meghan’s wedding.

Continue good times with Cindy – Check.  Cindy moved in with me in late March and has brought unbelievable amounts of good energy and smiles into my life.

Ok let’s dive in.

In the past I used to go month by month and try to do a chronological recap but I think that is tedious both for me to do and for others to read so I will try to deal more with categories of things.

There have been several big things that went down in 2014, Cindy moving in, my health problems, and my mom passing away in August.  Let’s cover them in that order.

Cindy moving in was not something that was carefully planned out.  It was more of a reaction to some problems she was having with her daughter which just happened to coincide with the lease on her apartment coming up.  It just made sense from both of our perspectives.

Of course I had hesitation about having someone living with me full time, even someone that has treated me as wonderfully as Cindy does.  There was a part of me that had a chip on my shoulder and didn’t want to allow anyone into my life in such a permanent way as living together.  Although at first there was some speed bumps, quickly Cindy proved her moving in was a big positive all the way around.  Her willingness and happiness to help in any way possible made my day to day existence significantly better.  Nine months into her moving in I still feel very, very happy in our decision.

So in early April I developed some sort of awful GI disorder that resulted in more than a week of feeling miserable accompanied by debilitating diarrhea.  I went to the doctor hoping for some sort of relief.  The visit included me performing one of the most disgusting things I can ever remember, using a “hat” to collect samples for testing.  Despite having numerous testing, nothing definitive was determined as the cause of my illness.  Everything that was tested for came back negative.

The ailment just sort of faded but seemed to leave my body altered in a permanent way.  My body functions are different ever since the illness.  To make matters worse, for the first time in my life I had an issue with hemorrhoids even though I didn’t have the other factors that typically lead to that condition.  I more or less have had that under control for awhile but I have another annoying issue in the same region.

I didn’t put the correlation together for quite awhile but it seems like strenuous exercise has a direct effect on me being sore down there.  Well this is a major problem for someone like me who considers strenuous exercise as a basic building block of healthy living.

All year long I suffered frustration after frustration as I would try to restart tougher and more regular exercise and be punished for doing so.  It has affected every aspect of my exercise routine, strength, endurance, and calisthenics.  If you know me, you know I value what I have been able to do physically despite advancing up the years ladder.  2014 was the first year where there was a clear and steep drop off of what I could do and it all coincides with the illness in April. I have tried countless shifts in my diet and exercise choices to try to find my way back to normalcy.  Unfortunately now I am still lost in the weeds and hoping to find my way out in 2015.

With Cindy being in the house to happily help me we have tackled a number of projects this year.  I already mentioned how she painted the garage for me. In addition we recently made a kitchen corner countertop and just this past weekend completed repainting the pool deck after months of failed remediation promises by the Rhinoshield guy.

My race timing has undergone some changes in 2014.  After a big blowout with the running club president for a brief period of time I thought I was out of the timing business altogether. It would have felt good in a lot of ways as it would have pulled mountains of responsibility off my back.  After some reconsideration of the collateral damage it would cause along with a reconciliation I was back in the saddle with some changes implemented.  I am no longer a board member but still the timer for all of the running club events.

The shake up actually resulted in my taking steps to establish an official timing business outside of the boundaries of the running club, Green Machine Timing was born.  I bought my own timing box and logo’d shelter for the business.  I have no desire to fill every weekend with event timing but it could give me opportunities to take on some small events to help pay the bills.  I already have one employee named Cindy, that works for free.  🙂

Every year I have rants about various people/businesses that do me wrong in some way or another. This year the three that come to mind are Comcast, RhinoShield, and IX Webhosting.

Comcast has been more of a problem at work then at home.  I actually reinvested in cable tv once Cindy moved in, discarding my decade plus affiliation with Tivo in favor of the Xfinity X1 hardware platform which I generally am quite happy with.  Of course who can forget the installation of the equipment which included one of the installers spending more than 15 minutes in our bathroom doing presumably disgusting things.

Rhinoshield has been in my crosshairs all year long, trying to get them to honor the two year warranty on the painting of my pool deck which was performed in March of 2013.  The guy that did the work repeatedly would drop the lines of communication with getting the work done.  After more than 6 months of broken promises I had enough and contacted the main office.  The owner wrote me a $500, get out of my hair check, so I could have someone else do the repainting.  Little did he know that someone was me.

IX Webhosting has been a thorn in my side repeatedly over the years.  I have vowed repeatedly that I was going to get my site hosted elsewhere because of the problems.  Finally this year I took the steps to partially do so after they decided to move their phone support exclusively to an India help desk combined with one too many TOS (terms of service) warning email where they abruptly shut down access to my web sites.  I migrated all of my WordPress based sites to GoDaddy WP shared hosting and have been delighted thus far.  It has been an upgrade in every way imagineable.

2014 had it’s fair share of automotive repairs.  We said goodbye to Cindy’s Miata in 2014 which was chock full of problems, replacing it with a 2007 Prius which has been a simply wonderful vehicle.  I replaced the rear hatch actuator in the Prius and threw a set of tires on it, but that was all it has required.  There was a Tacoma front brake/disc swap video in there but all in all, Duf’s Garage had significantly less business in 2014 which I guess is a good thing.

The SSR once again spent most of it’s time sitting in my garage.  In total less than 2000 miles were put on the truck in 2014.  In some ways that is good and some ways it’s bad.  When I bought the truck it was definitely serving a role as a happiness supplement, something that was lacking in my life.  Since Cindy has entered my life the SSR no longer needs to fill that role.  It’s gotten to the point where I consider if I even need to own the truck at all from a cost/benefit perspective, something that three years ago would have been pure blasphemy.

We made an odd addition to the family in 2014, adding 3 buff orpington chickens to the backyard.  This was more Cindy’s idea than mine.  I really had no idea what I would be getting myself into. After buying a second coop when I overpaid for what was a glorified dollhouse we were officially in the chicken business.

I didn’t expect to enjoy having farm animals in my backyard as much as I have,  The chickens are funny and endearing in their chicken kind of way.  I love that the dogs and the chickens are able to mingle freely in the yard.  Each species seems to realize the other is part of the same extended family.

Cindy and I made three out of state trips this year.  The first was in the van with Sadie to the frozen tundra of western PA.  It was Cindy’s first exposure to real snow.  She loved the snow but also struggled with the bitter reality of single digit temperatures.    The unexpected birth of multiple sheep turned the trip into a barn animal centric experience where both Cindy and I helped my dad and stepmom deal with the needs of newborn lambs.  It was an unconventional but memorable visit.

The trip to PA for my sisters wedding was very brief but fun as well.  Meghan and Paul are a great couple whom seem to have a very bright future in front of them.  Both Cindy and I were very happy to be able to be part of them making their lifelong commitment to each other.

Our second western roads trip in as many years was epic and fun.  It was much different taking a long road trip in anything other than a conversion van.  I had big concerns that traveling 5000 miles in a Prius would be sort of miserable.  I was very happy it was not a big deal at all plus the incredible gas saving we reaped from driving the hybrid were HUGE.

Our trip included a very bizarre experience with edible marijuana products in Durango.  After feeling nothing from 420 gummy fish I over did it on pot granola squares and felt like I was transported to another universe.  We also had a very dangerous, unscripted climb while in Durango where Cindy thought we were literally facing possible death if we traversed any higher. (she may have been right) During the rest of the trip we had a ton of memorable experiences which further cemented our desire to make yearly road trips a staple of our existence.

I didn’t add a lot of tech to the household in 2014.  The new Neato BotVac 65 and my crazy LED pulsating Xmas trees are the only things that are coming to mind right now.   Of course I have bought lots of stuff this year but very little of it is the tech/geek variety.  Most of my dollars went into things that would be more categorized as home improvement items.

Cindy made a huge change this year, leaving the post office after nearly 20 years.  The job, while well paying, was making her miserable from dealing with horrible management and the repetitive movements it required was really taking a toll on her physically.  It was very brave of her to make the jump and I was happy to be able to encourage her to make the change.

So I wish I could say I was leaving the best for last, unfortunately it is the worst thing that occurred in 2014 and probably in my lifetime in terms of how it changes things.  When I got the call from the ER room that Sunday morning I felt like I was in a dream, a horrible dream.  Hearing the words that came out of the doctors mouth describing mom’s heart attack and the tone of voice he used when relaying the circumstances surrounding it instantly added boulders of weight to the news.

My lifelong fears of death and all that surrounds it were shoved inches from my face as I saw mom laying in the hospital, present in body alone.  I felt helpless, scared, and lost as I held mom’s hand, hoping to feel something, anything to indicate that she was still there.  I never did. Once the details of the timeline surrounding mom’s heart attack were more defined whatever miniscule amounts of hope I had evaporated.  You just don’t come back after being down for so long.

It was tragically ironic that mom’s passing was the first time in years that all three of her children were present at the same time.  I think she would have been happy we were all there helping to support each other, we all needed it in one way or another.  If there was anything positive about mom’s passing,  it was that it happened in the way she always desired, with no long and painful descent into an age where you no longer can perform even the most basic functions to support yourself.  She was here one moment and gone the next.

Of course I am still wading through the aftermath of mom’s death.  For the most part I sort of feel like I have put much of it behind lock and key, very rarely will I dwell on how I feel about everything surrounding it.  The raw emotion from those days is something that I just don’t like reliving in my head.

Sorting through the estate settlement part of this has been a learning experience as well which has been filled with hurdles since my mom did not have her finances set up in a way that was easily resolved in case of her death.  Of course this could be said of most people I assume.  Nobody really wants to think about what happens when your moments on this planet have come to an end. I assume I will be continuing to deal with the aftermath of mom’s death into 2015 and beyond.  It just is something my brain can only process in very small chunks at a time.

Ok now that I thoroughly bummed you out lets set some 2015 goals.

Physically I just want to be healthy, at least as healthy and active as a 47 year old can expect to be.  Aches and pains will always be my companion at this point in life but hopefully I can eliminate problems that have been dragging around my neck like a 200lb chain for most of 2014.  I’m not setting specific exercise goals for 15, I just want to be consistently active without having to pay a penalty that sidelines me for weeks at a time.

More road trips are hopefully on the docket for next year, when and where is yet to be determined.

As far as home projects go, new appliances would always be nice but I think new flooring in the house would offer more bang for the buck.  The original, shitty builders grade,  approaching 14 year old carpet should be replaced. Whether that would be a better grade carpet or some hard surface is up for debate.  I did see some kick ass high tech toilets the other day that would make a nice addition to my bathroom experience.

I am hoping 2015 will see the real launch of Green Machine Timing.  I already have one event that may be on board for early 2015.

There will be some significant changes going on at my regular job.  Just how those changes play out could be a significant part of the upcoming year.

I hope that Cindy and I can continue to grow and improve over the next 365 days.  We have a very symbiotic relationship where we each provide the things that the other likes/needs not out of obligation but out of love, respect and appreciation for the other.  Things just flow naturally between us.  We both consider ourselves lucky to have such a person in their life.

So although there were some significant downsides to my 2014, having someone in my life that is always pulling you upward makes even the darkest days a little brighter.

I hope you have a fun but safe New Years celebration and thank you for sharing my near daily glimpse into my corner of the world.