Here’s a rundown of my year. It’s not in any particular order: not chronological, not prioritized. Also, a ton is missing. It’s just what came to mind when I sat down to write.
Here are the moments I remember:
- Traveling to California with my brother, William, and my grandparents
- The five police officers waking us up in the Gatlinburg parking lot
- Seeing the frozen lakes when we crossed into the upper peninsula in Michigan
- Eating a whole apply pie the day before my birthday
- Starting to attend Roger’s Bible study
- Staying up all night doing things I loved
- Starting to jog again
- Building up my calluses for barefoot jogging
- Having the wart on my foot frozen off… twice
- Frisbee at the park by IUS
- My blog getting hacked… twice
- Relaunching bondChristian.com
- Launching this blog
- Posting over 100 days in a row to this blog
- Reading about 50 books
- Posting my 1,000th tweet on my father’s birthday
- Teaching on Sunday morning
- Writing letters
- Trying to train for 100 pushups in one set… and never reaching the goal
- Cutting Ted’s hair through out the year
- Starting to wear V-neck shirts
- Receiving a netbook laptop for my birthday
- Watching Jimmy Fallon take over after Jay Leno
- Watching my sister’s first ballet performance
- Walking across the stage at graduation
- Talking with friends waiting to walk at graduation
- Taking pictures with friends waiting to walk at graduation
- Meeting new people online… lots of them
- Leaving hundreds of comments on blogs
- Spending 100s of hours on facebook
- Investigating Toastmasters (and planning to join one in January)
- Taking pictures with my family… and none of them turning out
- Playing Go Fish with Madison
- Meeting my grandpa’s son’s wife for the first time
- Going to the San Diego fair
- Going to Sea World with my uncle and aunt and brother
- Getting a not-as-amazing grade on a paper because I didn’t cite sources
- Not rising early regularly at all the whole year
- Writing an ebook
- Applying for jobs
- Working as a printer installer
- Becoming more involved on twitter
- Swimming in the Cohn’s swimming pool
- Running out of paper in my journal and not getting a new one (yet)
- Quitting facebook chat
- Grew my facebook friends to over 300
- House sitting at the Cohn’s place for a couple days
- Realizing skydiving might not be as scary as I once thought
- Starting a bonfire at Timothy’s birthday party with Matthew’s gasoline (aka milk)
- Home schooling Raquel
- Reading The Little Pilgrim’s Progress with Raquel
- Watching my brother, William, do 200 pushups in one set
- Listening to my brother, Ted, talk about his movie ideas for Fable
- Filling water balloons with Grace and Ashley for the graduation (?) party
- Climbing the boulders at the New Mexico rest stop
- Climbing Chimney Tops in the dark
- Listening to Ted and William playing Bon Jovi songs
- Laughing so much (but not remembering the specific things anymore… the way laughter often is)
- Letting my body ride the waves in the chilly Pacific Ocean with my cousin, Blaine
- Reading not quite 50 books
- Riding in the back seat on the way back from Michigan reading books
- Seeing my cousins, Carrie and Heather, for the first time in years and their kids for the first time ever
- Realizing just how little GPA really even one month after graduation
- Meeting Colin, Brooke’s husband, for the first time
- Being amazed when Brooke said I was her best high school friend
- Not playing drums much at all
- Almost quitting guitar
- Plotting with Ted and pulling off his Surprise Surprise Birthday party
- Making a list of 100 posts I’d like to write
- Having too long conversations on chat
- Chatting with Robyn at odd hours of the night because I’m a night (freak) owl, and she’s finally in Israel
- Learning to say the ABCs backward in under four seconds
- Watching my brother, Zach, turn into a gaming junky
- Stalling and sweating while learning to drive a stick shift
- Discovering Gary Vaynerchuk through his personal video blog
- Discovering Seth Godin through Purple Cow
- Discovering Anthony Robbins through Awaken the Giant Within
- Thinking about Polyamory because of Steve Pavlina
- Rethinking humility because of Andrew Murray
- Starting to read the Bible and learn much more from an others-oriented perspective
- Emailing James Marshall’s brother about coding (but not really following up on it much)
- Coining phrases like, I’d rather be hated than forgotten; Love is a noun; If you hate Mondays, you’ll hate a seventh of your life; and many more.
- Asking, “If you knew you would die tomorrow, would you feel cheated today?“
- Answering, “If I knew I would die tomorrow, I wouldn’t feel cheated today – but I’m not sure I could say the same if it were instead my mother dying.”
- Enjoying the best skiing experience of my life
- Falling really, really hard during the best skiing experience of my life
- Joining my first blog carnival
- Hearing about Michael Jackson dying through portable Internet at the San Diego fair
- Sending in my first guest post and anxiously waiting to hear back
- Feeling awkward for the first time seconds after midnight on the 1st of January
- Paying attention to kids growing beards
- Discovering a number of new blogs
- Talking with my parents a few months ago about rather serious things (who does that anymore?)
- Uploading hundreds of pictures to facebook
- Trying to upload dozens of pictures to facebook only to find them fail after 45 minutes of trying
- Commenting on every post on bondChristian.com and emailing followups
- Thinking bigger with bondChristian for the first time (as in membership sites and tours etc.)
- Leaving for the New Years party late because I was writing this (William: stupid) list
- Using lists on twitter
- Not buying many clothes
- Seeing myself in the same clothes I’m wearing now in pictures from a decade ago
- Taking pictures every couple seconds in the Sea World tower
- Loving Aunt Christine’s new house
- Enjoying good times with friends at A&W
- Quoting movies
- Discovering The Sasquatch Gang and sharing it for the viewing pleasure of others
- Planning for January 2010
- Deciding to call 2010 “oh-ten”
- Looking back over the past decade (even though it’s only supposed to be over the past year) and wishing you a happy new year!*
And hundreds more I won’t include because something I’m still afraid to share even with you.
*By “Happy new year,” I mean, may you be thankful all year.
