is this thing on?

Well, I’m officially in the last week of my 30’s and this time next Monday I'll be 40. It feels like that is worthy of a reflection blog post, but I don’t know that I have anything super insightful to say. We’ll see what happens… I entered my 30’s with dread, but also expecting it to be a noteworthy decade. 2011, in Vegas for my 30th birthday (with a wax Justin Timberlake, obvi) I felt like 30 was so old at the time, but everyone told me it was a great decade for really solidifying who you are, so I decided to make an on-going list to document things. I named the list “Productive 30’s” and I added to it throughout the years. It eventually evolved into two lists: Productivity - tangible things I accomplished, some examples: learned to light the grill by myself, learned to mow the lawn, hiked 100 miles, lost 40lbs without really trying (i.e. lifestyle change, not a diet), did the work to build our family through adoption, etc. Learning for Life - things I learned about myself, some e

Happy New Year! 2020 was the fastest year of my life, but all indicators point to the fact that it really is January 2021 and I’m due for, and feeling somewhat ready for, my annual reflection. I first want to say, for what it’s worth, I wasn’t all that surprised by the pandemic. While I didn’t know it would be brought by a virus, I’ve long predicted our generation was overdue for a truly disruptive event/disaster. I remember reading once that people couldn’t get chocolate during a world war and I realized nothing that extreme and widespread had happened in my lifetime and I figured we weren’t getting off that easy. It turned out to be things like toilet paper and yeast that no one could get, and when everything started going down I was confident this was what I was anticipating and that it would be a long, uncomfortable experience that would define a generation. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, just pointing out that my anxious thoughts were right for once. Speaking of my anxiety, i