I was talking to a friend here at the Canby House (I’m still in Portland for my Christmas Break) the other day and he was commenting on how 2009 was an eventful year. I proceeded to think to myself, “Wow. 2009 was a pretty boring year for me!” I mean, it’s not that nothing happened, but it really was kind of just a normal year (whereas the last several have been quite eventful). Moving to Alaska was kind of the only big momentous thing. So here’s a list of the top ten small but meaningful things that happened to me this year.
10. The Canby House community garden project was a success! Though I wasn’t there to reap many of the fruits of my labor, it was a great experiment that taught me a lot and allowed for
some great time and conversations with great people and plus it felt good just to spend a lot of time outside and getting dirty.
9. Spent a day with Cousin Shannon hiking around Multnomah Falls and having lunch at McMenamins Edgefield.
8. I spent a lot of good time with Cousin Jesse and Now-Cousin-In-Law Jen…two people who are great and who I hadn’t seen a lot within the past decade/hadn’t really gotten to know well at all.
7. I won a marathon. Granted there were only about 25 people in the race. Granted my time was twenty-seven minutes slower (that’s one minute per mile) than my previous slowest time…but I WON!
6. I traveled into the Alaskan Bush to the village of Shaktoolik…a very eye opening experience.
5. I took on a job that I actually enjoy! Let’s hear it for jobs with intellectual stimulation!
4. I got to spend several days with my whole family in the Methow back in April. I hadn’t seen my brother Ben’s family in almost two years and it had been three years since we had all been together.
3. East of Eden entered my list of the best books ever written.
2. When I was driving up to Alaska with my cousin Jesse, somewhere near the Alaska/Canada border at about 3am, we pulled over to the side of the road to look at the northern lights. It was pretty cool. But then it got even better when meteors were shooting across them. Spectacular.
1. Lots of good time spent with great people doing nothing particularly special but just enjoying wonderful fellowship. Thanks everybody!