A List to End the Year No. 2

Hi friends! Well, there went the year. My bad. For the sake of keeping this update that has been 8 months in the making manageable, I'm doing another list with a photo for each month. I'm gonna leave one point for each month since April. Let's dive in!

• May: I finally got to ride Amtrak and sleep overnight in a roomette. My friend Kaya and I took it down to San Francisco last spring and it was a total blast even though we didn't really ever fall asleep on those shitty beds.

• June: I turned 31 this year. It was actually kind of a terrible day because I found out my close friend had died that evening. What an asshole for stealing my thunder like that, huh? Call me insensitive, but he'd laugh if he heard me say that. Miss you sweet Gage.

• July: I bought a Vespa and got my motorcycle license. That thing rules and I miss the warm days cruising around town riding it. Summer wasn't long enough!

• August: I FINALLY put doors on that built-in storage unit I built for our living room. My woodworker friend was just at our house the other day measuring our kitchen for new cabinets (for a future post) and said "huh. that's interesting." and I was like "I know. Your job is hard. This was me finding out." I'm going to pay him to fix some of the awkwardness of it.

• September: So the big news is Charlie and I got married in September. It was a really good day. People seemed to have a good time and our ceremony was fun. I meant to record it and as I was standing on that damn stage the thought ran across my mind “you aren’t recording this. You forgot” and it was too late. Perhaps some things are left undocumented though? If you were there, you were there. We then went on a road trip down to the LA area to see a Final Fantasy orchestra concert which was sick. The car broke down in the desert on the way home though. High highs, low lows.

• October: Mmmm... I can't remember much about this month. Charlie ran the Portland Half Marathon with zero training which was impressive. He cried when he finished. Poor baby. Oh! This was the month we started the process of chipping our front yard. You can see the whole process on my saved Instagram stories. And we bought a new washer and dryer which was life-changing.

• November: This was election month and I was relieved when Tina Kotek won the governor's race and Portland changed the city council format. Both are good things. We spent Thanksgiving with our friends Josh and Michael and I fainted on the bathroom floor from eating an edible. Food ruled though. Oh, and we went up the mountain to cut down a tree for the first time and it was a blast.

• December: That brings us to December! This month we went to a lot of holiday get-togethers and in classic Joseph form, I bought a new car. We got rid of Charlie's sedan and bought an SUV. It's fancy and we like it and I SWEAR I'M DONE BUYING CARS OKAY (famous last words). We also had to get a second chip pile to finally finish the initial chipping of the yard. The next step is to plant many many plants in it when spring gets here.

Another year come and gone. I was thinking the other day about how different life feels from 2020 when I started this blog which is probably why I've slowed down on updating it. I'm just busier. We've come a long ass way since May 2020!

warmth,
jt

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PS: I did my typical end-of-year song lists. A few of you asked me about it so here's the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music. Just shuffle it, baybay.