2021: the Year in Review
As the calendar for 2021 winds down to its end, I have been thinking about the last 12 months, and going through some of my notes and idea I had for it as it began a year ago.
It was a pretty significant and positive year. We sold the house in Southern California to our long-time tenants, so it's now their house, and that means I no longer have any ties of any sort to the area; we bought the house here in Silverdale, moved from California to Washington, and sold our house in Santa Clara that we'd lived in since 1994. Other than that, nothing much happened.
We love our new house, which was built in the late 1980's and is much larger than our Santa Clara house was, and on about 4.5 acres of mostly undeveloped woods. We have started tweaking it to shift it from being a great house to being our house, but for the most part, it's tweaking. There are a few oddities for us; for example, the mud/laundry room has a "big dog playing in the mud" bathtub but no sink, and we have no big dog. The woodshop out behind the garage has a toilet and no sink or running water, which... why is that a good idea? The first is going to be left alone, the latter, I may look at having a sink and wet working area added. We're replaced the drapes in the main rooms with more modern coverings that don't dominate the space, and we're working on adding or upgrading the wood stoves, hopefully mostly done by the end of the year. We've started a project to add a stair lift between the floors, but that's delayed by supply chain issues and just how busy the contractors are... Next year we'll update some of the appliances in the kitchen (again, supply chains are not your friend these days).
But overall, there's very little we feel we need to do, and the house is in great shape. We've been bringing in people to evaluate parts of it, and in general, with the exception of the really old pellet stove we're replacing, the house is solid and well kept up.
Snowpocalypse
We ended 2021 with the Seattle area being buried in snow. Temperatures here at the new place dropped into the teens, and we got about six inches of snow that has stuck around the better part of a week, although tjhe current forecast is we'll warm up enough that the next storm coming in will be rain (but still chilly), which will help melt this stuff, but probably also create some icing issues. As someone born and raised in Southern California and living most of my life in Silicon Valley, snow is new to me -- even my winter trips to Yosemite never needed me to put on chains, much less move around in the stuff. The one time I was taken skiing (about age 8) I hated it, and so I've never really spent much time in snow, or winter, for that matter. I have some some simple driving this week on the property and wandered around, but as in so many other parts of my clothing, I realize I need to upgrade my shoes for walking in snow, but it was nice to at least get a bit familiar with it. Although, I may have killed a windshield wiper I didn't realize was frozen to the glass; once we thaw out, I'll test again and head off to the dealer if I need it fixed. oops.
Birding
Birding was erratic due to the move and just lack of opportunity to explore post move, and I ended the year at 171 species, -12 from 2020. I was able to add two lifers, one down south (Hermit Warbler) and one here in the north (Purple Martin). My county list started at zero in May, and ended with a decent 80 species, with a White-throated sparrow popping in to eat at the peanuts in the snow on the 31st. I started a new yard list, and ended up with a very respectable 37 species so far (my yard list for Santa Clara was 56 over 2 decades). There's a possible 38th to that list, where we were visited by a Savannah Sparrow this winter, which is a quite rare sighting in this county in the winter months, and after discussion with the local eBird reviewer, I decided that while I still believed I was right, I didn't feel my documentation was good enough for that rare a bird, so it's officially listed as a mystery bird and possible Savannah (in eBird jargon, I'd have left the sighting if it was an orange dot (uncommon), but I'm didn't because it's a red dot (not seen) this time of year. It showed up just as the cold snap hit and the snow started, evidently motivation to go find calories wherever available, but didn't return to let me get photos. Sometimes it's best to not force an ID, especially on such an unusual bird for that time of year.
I miss the crew in Santa Clara County I worked with in trying to build a great birding environment for county birders, and I also miss the volunteer work I did with those folks. I've found myself a couple of times staring at volunteer pages for some organizations up here, but I'm far from ready to start committing time again quite yet. It's just weird to not be responsible to doing things for others, given how long I was involved in some way or another. I'll go back to that eventually, I think, but for now, I really need to learn the birding in this region before I start thinking about that again. I can invest that time in me for now. I have met and talked to a few of the local birders and it seems like a great group, and I've joined both the county chapter and regional Seattle Audubon, but my enjoyment of both groups is going to be passive for now.
Health
I entered 2021 at 339 pounds, and despite the pandemic and the move, exited the year at 221, for an 18 pound loss. that's my second best annual loss in the last decade and my eight straight down year, so yay me. It puts me at down 94 pounds from my high of 415, and I can't tell you how much nicer life is now because of that. I have not been this weight since sometime in the 1990's, FWIW. Next goal is to get under 300, and then to 280, which is what I weighed when I was 30. I hope to accelerate the loss again this year, but it depends a bit on time to go walking, and I'll have to see how I can carve that out from work.
Overall, for someone my age and weight history, the things going on are generally easy to manage and really damn minor compared to others I know, so I have to remind myself I have little to complain about here. Hoping that stays true in 2022.
Overall, things are going well, with the knees (thanks to meloxicam and voltaren) being more or less a non-issue, other than lots of stairs or a ladder are still not a lot of fun. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with positional vertigo, and this fall, it started acting up, and we've had to spend some time sorting out how to put it back in its box. After a medicine change and some tweaking of the dosages, I have hopes we finally have it most or less solved, although I think I'll need a couple of weeks of no drama to really feel comfortable.
I got my two shots of Moderna in the spring, and a booster of Pfizer in December. So far both Laurie and I have avoided catching Covid, and I do hope we can continue to do that, despite Omicron. Since we're both considered high risk if we catch it, I do take some of the shenanigans that the anti-vaxxers are doing a bit personally. But stupid people will be stupid, I guess.
Photography
Weird year for photography; with the move, very little free time for a long time, and then I was limiting my driving due to the vertigo (one reason I did less birding, too). Hoping 2022 opens up the opportunities for me again. I have a number of places in my list to explore next year, especially some stops in Olympic National Park once we're done with winter. I did a separate write up on my favorite images for the year, and I was happy with the results, but for the first time in many years none of the images were of the quality I consider worthy of adding to the portfolio; it was all solid work, but not special. I'm okay with that, all things considered.
Writing
Like my photography, I wrote less than I planned for or expect to do. Partly due to lack of time, partly due to the vertigo, which (because god has a sense of humor) can make staring at a computer screen uncomfortable at times. I am hoping that's now past, and I've been having some good productive sessions again recently.
I was able to -- months later than I'd hoped -- get my 2020 photo chapbook published, but I had other ebooks planned and none of that happened. Resetting into 2022, I'm starting work now on two projects, my 2021 chapbook I hope to have out early in 2022, and a new e-book project that I think will stretch me in some interesting ways.
I keep thinking up projects that would be nice to do in video, and I keep convincing myself I have other priorities than putting in the time and effort to bring that into my content workflows. I expect to eventually start adding video components into my creative work, but only when it can add to what I'm already doing, not replace it, and right now, that requires a time commitment I'm not really able to do.
I would like to get the blog back into twice a week mode (plus the wednesday and friday images), and add some new content items to the monthly 6FPS newsletter. I also would like to get a third e-book in this year. I do have a concept for that, but it requires a lot of new content, rather than organizing and sharing older images. So, if I can get out and get shooting, maybe it'll happen late in 2022. If not, whenever it's ready.
Onward to 2022
I find myself, after a few weeks of feeling rather worn out (mostly, I think, due to fighting the vertigo to a truce), with the batteries recharging and the motivation returning, and so I enter 2022 happy and hopeful, with a much better frame of mind than I entered 2021. The pandemic problems still concern me, and I'm still trying to be careful and thoughtful about that, but it seems like it's just not going to go away, either.
2021 was a year of massive transitions, successfully handled, I think, and Laurie and I are both quite happy with the choices we made and our new home and region, and are pretty well settled in and slowly learning this new area for our next phase in life.
Here's hoping 2022 is a better year for all of us, and that it brings you joy and allows you to be happy and thrive.
