The Year 2014 in Adventures

I was hoping that I could squeeze in one more adventure in 2014 – welding, but the weather did not cooperate at the farm.  The candlemaking still took a couple more days however, to fill in the central air cavity that forms in a big candle, let cool, and then top off again – but making the candles with my Dad was a wonderful way anyway to end 2014 on a good note. So now what?  As one should do on New Year’s – it is time to reflect on the past, and make plans for the future.  And 2014 has been a good year for me – because of last year’s resolution to have an adventure each week.  So this last blog for adventuresacross2014 is to take note of the resolution’s impact on my life.

First, the main reason I started this resolution was to help me look forward to each week, and to my life.  I had lost my job two years before, and though I was employed again in a great new job with fantastic colleagues, I was still struggling with the impact of having been laid off.  I also was missing an old love, and was way too much caught up in renovating my 99-year old home.  I just needed to get back out there and experience life more.  So Adventures it was.  Great adventures, mellow adventures, different foods, and new places.  It was f-ing FANTASTIC.  I admit that I will be glad to not spend each week blogging in 2015 (see below though), but this is what the resolution gave me:

• New activities tried:  29, including activities I had never even heard of before:  creating plasma in the microwave, samulnori, and snowtubing.
• New places visited: 20
• New foods eaten: 9

• Opportunities to hang out with family and friends: 29  (so wonderful!)
• Opportunities to meet new people:  4 (next year will be better).

This resolution, and year, have been amazing.  Thanks for sharing it with me. So will I continue in 2015?  Yes, but at a different pace.  Instead of something new every week, my goal is three new things each month:  one new activity or place, one new food, and, this time, one new volunteer event.   I found that when doing this blog that I was always writing about:  “I did this…”  “Look what I did….”   The blog was mostly about me – although I tried to bring in some of the history of a place, or facts about the food.  (And did you notice I often had an environmental message?)  Next year, I want to make my efforts have a little bit more payoff to other people/the planet as well.  So wish me luck, and check out my new blog starting next week:   https://adventuresacross2015.wordpress.com. Okay, now the count of all the thrilling things I’ve gotten to do: Activities:

• Candlemaking with my Dad
• Glassblowing
• Simply through a Lens
• Sharks at the National Aquarium
• Emergency Drill Actor – Part 2
• Woodworking
• Hamsterball
• The Festival of Vegetarians
• Created Hot Plasma in the Microwave – with Grapes
• Threw a Pot
• Demolition Derby, or Violence via Vehicles
• The Segway Experience, or How to Accelerate using your Toes
• Acupuncture
• Biked from Work
• Fencing
• Chemical Peel and Kayak Roll
• DC’s Gay Pride Parade
• Samulnori
• Biked to Work, and to Shop
• Storytelling at Speakeasy DC
• Joined a Bikeshare
• Charm City Roller Derby!
• Ballet – Live!
• Modern jazz at an old joint
• Faint in Boss’s Office
• Snowtubing
• Snowshoeing

Foods:

• Juniper and Elder Berries
• Ghost Squash
• Tatsoi
• Malanga Root
• Fenugreek and Marshmallow
• Red Bean Ice Cream and a Korean bathhouse
• Dandelion Root

Places:

• Longwood Gardens
• Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
• SE Oklahoma, aka Indian Nation
• Seneca Rocks and Canaan Valley, West Virginia
• TechShop
• Batting and Birding
• Cold Spring, NY
• Women in Art
• Franciscan Monastery
• Mini tourist sites DC
• The Day of the Panhandles, and Liberal, Kansas
• Peirce Mill
• A new Oklahoma
• Discovery
• The Five Statues of Lafayette Square
• Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
• Quebec

What a year.  Whew!