Goodbye 2013

This was me 10 days ago. This was the first day of winter break and I spent it in Urgent Care getting some treatment for my fresh case of pneumonia.  Good Times. I'm nowhere near back to normal yet, but 10 days makes a big difference when you are talking about the ability to breathe.  Ending my year like this makes me forget all the great things that happened this year. I keep catching myself in a negative mindset from frustration. This post is to help me remember all the good that happened in 2013.

My biggest achievement of the year, honestly my biggest achievement of my life was finishing my master's degree. So much work, so much stress and so thankful that it is done. However, it's all mine and no one can ever take it away.

This year I also got a PR at the Corvallis Half Marathon. I think we finished in 2:16 ish, which was about 8 minutes faster than the previous year. With my ongoing foot issues I'm not sure if I'll be half-marathon worthy again, so I'm sure proud of that accomplishment.

Tiny and Tab!

This year we got really, really smart and we sold the monstrosity toy hauler trailer and the big diesel truck. They netted us a really nice profit which we used to pay off some old debt. We additionally sold my car and consolidated down to the Honda Pilot (Tiny) and a Tab teardrop trailer. Hands down this is the best move we have ever made. We have already had countless adventures and have camped more in the past 6 months than we have in the past 20 years. We look forward to many more adventures in this little piece of heaven in 2014.


Friends and Family! These crazy folks! I count my blessings every single day that all of these people are close enough to see on a daily basis if I want to.

And finally, the best part of 2013. I am lucky enough to continue to be a member of the Ross pack. There is nothing I would rather be and while we certainly have our moments where we could throttle each other, isn't that what living passionately really is all about?

2013- It really was a good year. 

Cheers!

Cabin Fever

Fast forward 5 days from the "Snow Day" and you arrive at Day 4 of school canceled due to this fantastic weather. Yes, that's right, 4 days of no school due to the 9 inches of snow we received last Friday. No, we haven't received one additional flake since then. Instead we have received 5 days in a row of sub freezing temperatures resulting in no melting snow. Apparently we have no infrastructure capable of handling this and thus this town has given up any sort of fight to restore our lives to normalcy. It will rain soon. That is their snow removal plan as near as I can tell. Great. I'd like to know what the "restore my summer" plan is because while I'm sitting here watching every Christmas movie ever created on all networks, my summer slowly is tick, tick, ticking away to snow make up days.

On a more positive note, I've got the house nice and clean as well as completely decorated for the holidays. I resorted to cleaning my closet today. I may even tackle the spare room before the day is over. It's funny, I'm so excited for winter break, but this is different. Winter break is when we are all off together and can spend fun free time with friends and family. This however is a time where I'm trapped in the house with no car and nothing to do but chores. I'm ready to go back to work and earn my winter break.

I never thought I'd say this, but come on Oregon winter rain. We need you.

SNOW DAY!

This is what it looked like outside my house at about 7:15 this morning. What a fantastic treat for a Friday morning with two weeks still to go before Winter Break officially starts. It didn't let up and soon my front yard looked like this.

OSU made the brilliant call to remain open so Sean scraped off Tiny and headed in to work. They quickly realized their mistake and closed and sent everyone home at noon.  This give us the unexpected opportunity for a mid day family walk.

What a beautiful day! It is supposed to be down to the single digits tonight so I expect we will have this 8 inches of beautiful scenery around for a few days to come.  Fine with me. I've got no where to be until Monday morning.