2023: A Year in Review

Happy end of the year, friends! Charlie and I have come out east to see our families for the holidays. I hope you all are somewhere safe and warm and drinking something hot and tasty. In what is sort of tradition here, I'm gonna write a year in review post to close out 2023. You can read the 2022 edition here. Let's dive in!

• January: For the past 4 or 5ish years I've done a winter trip with a group of friends. This year we did a long weekend in the San Juan Islands northwest of Seattle. We stayed at a beautiful house, ate snacks, read, went on hikes, and showed our friends where we got engaged. This years trip will take us to the southern Oregon coast in February to do all of the same things mentioned above.

• February: This was the real beginning of remodeling the kitchen. The first thing I did was buy the fridge in mid February. After living most of the year with that fridge I have a love hate relationship with it. It's beautiful and fit's out space well but I wish there was more freezer space. You can't win them all I guess. This was also the month of the massive snowstorm that shut down the city for a few days. You can see me above right before I ate ass on a sheet of ice. I went to San Francisco for a few days at the end of the month to hang out with my favorite coworker Pete and rode the BART around listening to Tile by Tile by Alvvays on repeat.

• March: In March we took a trip to Palm Springs with a giant group of folks for my friend Cody's birthday. It was warm and beautiful and we just hung out in the pool most of the time while also visiting Joshua Tree. We started the beginnings of our backyard revamp by building chunky raised beds that turned into a beautiful garden by the end of the summer. Lastly I bought my first Tamagotchi in about 25 years and was shocked that it was still very hard to keep it alive. Thank god I don't have kids.

• April: I met my Mom in southern California in April because she wanted to go to corgi beach day in Huntington Beach. The dogs were cute but it was also an event for people to try and gain followes for their dogs social media accounts because like 6 people handed us business cards trying to get us to follow their dog. My mom had a good time though and that was what's important. I also took her up to Los Angeles to see the Hollywood sign and Beverly Hills signs along with some of the walk of fame. We had VERY good Italian food in Long Beach and I think Mom had a good first southern California experience. April also saw the beginning of the demolition of the kitchen. The dust was insane and all over everything even after I tried so hard to contain it to the work area. Shout out to the friends that helped us rip those soffits out of the ceiling. It took like two hours of constant pulling.

• May: I think May might be my favorite month. The depressing PNW winter is mostly over and summer is right around the corner. We play in an LGBT kickball league and this spring our team (The Golden Gays) actually won the championship in what was a major upset. I hadn't been that excited about something to do with sports in my entire life making this a highlight of the year. A lot of May was spent moving the kitchen remodel along. We did electrical, some plumbing, drywall, and about half of the cabinet install work.

• June: I turned 32 in June. Next year I'll be 33 which is the same age my mom was when I was born. That feels weird. I went to dinner at Bollywood Theater with some friends and then got dessert at Lauretta Jean's pie shop after that. It's the only thing I remember from my birthday this year. I took that entire week off and spent a lot of time at Charlie's aunt and uncles pool. June was quiet other than that.

• July: We wrapped up the kitchen in July. The last thing we had done was the backsplash which wasn't installed very well. The lines are pretty off and the installer had a hard time with the hand made tile we'd ordered. It was a real bummer since it was the last part of the kitchen remodel and it doesn't look how I envisioned and redoing it isn't an option right now. I've accepted it, but I was pretty upset for a few weeks about it. A highlight was getting to put up the painting for Charlie I had commissioned from my friend Maggie Hubbard. It's a painting of Charlie, his father, grandfather, and great grandfather. The composition is based on a few photographs that Charlie has of himself being christened and of his own father being christened.

• August: In August we threw a party to celebrate the completion of the kitchen and I somehow don't have any photos from it. I was in hosting mode so I suppose I just forgot. If you weren't there you'll just have to trust me that it was a great time. It was also the month we upgraded to a king bed which was worth every damn penny. I could never go back.

• September: This was our Japan trip! That trip ruled and I think about it often. You can read more about that trip in my post about it.

• October: In October I went to Salt Lake City to see some friends, we planted a new tree in our front yard, and I tried to work while cats sat on me. Kickball started up again in October. We didn't win a championship this time, but we still had a great time as a team. Charlie lost his wedding ring during the middle of one of our games while he was pitching. Everyone on both teams stopped and combed them field for about 10 minutes until we found it. Gays helping gays!

• November: We spent Thanksgiving in Canada had a really nice time in up in Vancouver. Vancouver is definitely the prettiest city in our part of the world and since the Canadian dollar is weak to the US dollar it doesn't hurt as much financially. We had "Thanksgiving" dinner at Maem (which was like a 5.5/10 to be honest) and ate our favorite meal in a long time at Baby Dahl (10/10). I would very much recommend the latter to the former. We went to the aquarium per Charlie's request and ate pastries at Liberty and Le Marché St George.

• December: Woooooo, we made it to December! This month I did my first competitive powerlifting meet. It was a small event at our gym where we wore pajamas and deadlifted. Our gym's hosting a more official event in March and I'm planning to do that as well. We also hosted a secret santa exchange party for some of our friends. I got a gift card to Broder (hell yeah) and gave my friend Gary a copy of my favorite Miles Davis record.

Here's to 2023! It was a great year. Onward to 2024!

See you on the other side,

• joseph

PS: I did my end of year playlist this year. Check it out on Spotify and Apple Music. I recommend shuffling it.