Penultimate day: looking backwards

Coco loves to play with photo editors - I really liked this one.

So, it was a good year, overall.

Work consumed a lot of the year. I was named Interim Vice President of Instruction at my college on January 1, and was selected as permanent Vice President of Academic Affairs & Student Learning in June (same job, just a different title). I have to say (and have said) that for the first six months of 2018 I worked more and harder, and was further behind than I can remember being at any job in the past twenty years. Thankfully, summer gave me the opportunity to regroup, and fall has been less crazed - I have new deans and will be starting 2019 with a full complement of administrators, so things should be a bit more manageable. It's a great gig - I have said that I want it to be my last, best job, and I think we're still on that trajectory.

A day in the life

The next big item was the house. This was the year of Home Ownership Ascendant: new dining room set, new Smart TV, new kitchen appliances, new hardwood (bamboo) floors on the upper floor. Lots of fuss & feathers, and lots of do-re-mi out the door, but it seems to have been worth it.

Floors

 

I also did a lot of health care - started off the year with a colonoscopy and have been going to the doctor (as well as the dentist) routinely now. I am up to six pills in the morning: one for high blood pressure, one for thyroid, one for allergies, two vitamins the doctor told me to take, and a probiotic that Coco says I should take. As the saying goes, if I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.

And politics... well, the less said the better. High hopes for January and some checks on the madness.

But still, we had good times.

I played a lot of D&D; not enough, but a lot. I had to quit one game, a couple of others were strictly short-term, one long-term campaign ended, and I'm in one monthly now. The logistics can be challenging when half my gaming peeps are down in Seattle. I even took a manic weekend trip to Boston to play in annual weekend retreat game as guest of my friend Lyle - I was honored to have been invited and had a great time, but one weekend a year ain't gonna do the trick.

My current character, Just Joa

We had visitors - the selfsame Lyle (once alone and once with family); Diane (for Pride); Karmin; Jackie & Jeff (technically, we met in the middle); Erin & Tim; Margaret; and Jason & Emma & Sky.

I took a drawing class and made some pictures.

We got up to White Rock and Vancouver several times and of course we topped the year off with Palm Springs.

Click to embiggen and panoramacize the view of Joshua Tree National Park

And of course, I got to spend the whole year with this wonderful family:

Coco the Adorable:

Here she is in disguise as a Fly Girl:

And the bully-boy, Selkie:

And one last shot of me, participating in Turban Awareness Day at the College. The fellow who wrapped me said I have the perfect head for turban-wearing, and someone who should know said I looked like many of the older men in Northern India. What can I say? It's headwear.

I hope that looking back 2018 been as kind to you as it has to me.  Onward!