{"id":4626,"date":"2016-12-26T10:04:41","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T17:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/?p=4626"},"modified":"2016-12-26T10:04:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T17:04:41","slug":"2016-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/2016-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 In Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

2017 is fast approaching and, as has been my custom at this time of year, here is a quick review of 2016 and \u00a0our goals for the new year.<\/p>\n

Our daughter Felicity and son Toby visited us over the Memorial Day weekend. We hadn’t\u00a0been in one place for many years and it was “interesting” to visit and catch up with all of the news and events that had passed. During this visit we took a tram ride up a mountain (near Glenwood Springs), where we\u00a0enjoyed an outdoor concert and views of the town and valley below.<\/p>\n

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Fields family and dogs, May 28, 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

After the visit Toby returned to his home in South Bend, Indiana, where he works several\u00a0different jobs. He recently started a position with Better World Books, a company that specializes in reselling used books of many kinds. This company is quite large and has warehouses in foreign countries. Toby also continues his refereeing jobs in the summer and works as a waiter part-time\/year round.<\/p>\n

Felicity enjoyed another year of international locations, including Malta (in the Mediterranean) plus Ireland and Switzerland, and a visit to the Galapagos Islands. She recently\u00a0returned to Portland, Oregon, for the winter. Felicity is employed by an internet-based training company and can work wherever she has an internet connection.<\/p>\n

As for Pam and myself, we continued\u00a0two long-term projects. The first was to further develop\u00a0our recreational property (The Lot) located in central Colorado. The work consists of removing dead and down trees, salvaging what we can for firewood and hauling the rest to a \u201cburn pit\u201d for disposal. While we finished a few areas this year, a late spring shortened the working season and we didn’t clear as much\u00a0as I would have liked. Still we enjoy the activity; it gets us out of town and into the high country (working with Big Boy Toys) most summer weekends.<\/p>\n

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Salvaged firewood, August 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

The second project, still in progress, is a search for a retirement home. We had decided to try to find a home that has a bit of acreage, a few trees, and relatively short commute to the nearest town with services. Various properties have been viewed in multiple markets, but we are still looking for \u201cthe one.\u201d We didn’t think the search would take so long!<\/p>\n

The summer was a good one for recreational activities. I rode a few ATV trails and attended a Colorado-based motorcycle rally.<\/p>\n

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My ATV at the Magnolia Mill on the Wheeler Lake Trail<\/p><\/div>\n

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Motorcycle club members at the top of Pike’s Peak. I am at upper right.<\/p><\/div>\n

Pam took on another litter of foster cats (#26): 4 kittens and mom cat Juliana.<\/p>\n

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Mom cat Juliana (left) with one of her 4 kittens, Ernst.<\/p><\/div>\n

Juliana and all the kittens were adopted though our local animal shelter.<\/p>\n

Combined with all the regular around-the-house work, we kept a busy schedule, if not a particularly exciting one.<\/p>\n

Goals for 2017 are not exotic. We plan to continue cleaning up The Lot and looking for a retirement home. (I hope to locate a brush chipper to help with the lot cleanup, another “Big Boy Toy” to add to the mix.) A trip to the Midwest to visit family may materialize,\u00a0but\u00a0that’s more of an idea\u00a0than a plan at this point. Otherwise we’ll just keep plugging along, starting to strategize\u00a0more intensively for retirement and staying active for another year.<\/p>\n

We wish everyone a Happy New Year.<\/p>\n

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!<\/p>\n

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:<\/p>\n

I look at 2016 and I see — disappointment. \u00a0Disappointment in the national election results, disappointment in various health diagnoses for ourselves and friends\/relatives, disappointment in the retirement house hunt. \u00a0I evaluated my 15,000th incoming [transfer] transcript at the community college, a\u00a0disappointing\u00a0benchmark\u00a0(more deserving of\u00a0sympathy than recognition).<\/p>\n

2017 strikes me as having the potential to be both a pivotal and volatile year, personally and nationally. I find my resolutions for the next 365 days to be: 1)\u00a0our household’s financial survival during\u00a0the Trumpies take-over, and 2) some attempt at mental balance and inner calm to sail through the obstacles (health, pets, family, money, work, retirement planning) that are \u00a0likely to present themselves.<\/p>\n

(My resolution of several years ago to “drink more wine” was an easier resolution to accomplish. \u00a0Mental balance? \u00a0Inner calm? \u00a0Good luck.)<\/p>\n

Happy Trails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2017 is fast approaching and, as has been my custom at this time of year, here is a quick review of 2016 and \u00a0our goals for the new year. Our daughter Felicity and son Toby visited us over the Memorial Day weekend. We hadn’t\u00a0been in one place for many years and it was “interesting” to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4626"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4645,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626\/revisions\/4645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}