The Year of Reflection: 2019 Goals & Accomplishments

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In my old age, time seems to be flying by. So when I started this blog, I began jotting down what I learned, read and experienced throughout a year to try and remember what that year involved outside the 90% of my mental energy that is usually spent thinking about work.

So my annual goals and accomplishments posts were born! The goal of these posts is not just to curate what I’ve been up to, but also document how I have changed from one year to the next and how I have grown as a person.

Last year someone commented that I sure did a lot, which helped me check myself because when I look at this list, I just remember the countless days and nights I read books I’ve read numerous times before, watched the same sitcom for the 50th time or went down a YouTube rabbit hole. I do that a lot, but I mostly want to remember the new bits, the pieces that make this life a little different each year. So let’s see what I got up to in 2019!

HEALTH

Every year I try to come up with health goals to make sure I’m constantly becoming a better physical version of me. Previous years have focused on losing weight and going keto. This year I had more specific goals:

Dental Health

I’ve had some run ins with dentists lately that resulted in expensive bills despite my dental insurance. As a result, I told myself this would be the year of the tooth! I had already bought a fancy Sonicare electric toothbrush and ACT fluoride rinse, but I wanted to make sure I kept up my routine and, if possible, avoid any additional cavities (though one dentist told me there’s a genetic component – if that’s the case I’m fucked). In any case, I wanted to do what I could to fight the cavity devil and try to not have any additional cavity fillings this year and I’m happy to report that I succeeded! No new cavities were spotted and my dentist says I’m looking good all around. High five for dental health!

My Relationship With Alcohol

This year I started to see a pattern with my alcohol consumption that I did not appreciate. It was increasing significantly year over year and I was more often looking to a glass of wine as a necessary stress release after work and the way to celebrate the weekends. The drug had infiltrated my life.

So in January I decided to take the month off with my partner, but halfway through the year I realized: We didn’t learn anything from it. We just muscled through a dark and dry January, but didn’t have any revelations or realizations about our relationship with this substance. So in May I decided to take it a step further and I went dry for 100 days and learned a lot about my reactions to this addictive substance and how alcohol’s chemistry affects a human body.

In the end I feel better equipped to decide how this substance will be incorporated into my life. I’m still trying to find the right balance, but, at this moment, I suspect that will include continuing to count calories (gotta lose those Thanksgiving pounds) and seeing if alcohol can even fit into those numbers (Hint: it usually can’t). I’m going to continue examining my relationship with this substance and if it actually enhances an experience. I suspect this will require some re-examination when every day is a vacation and a celebration with friends in retirement.

Bringing Retirement To Me

Working From Elsewhere

One of the revelations I had a few years ago was that I should not put off living now until retirement because tomorrow is not guaranteed. So I’ve been increasing the amount of time I work away from Seattle and my apartment. My position is technically at least 85% remote so I should be able to do this fairly often, but my worry about being there for my job held me back. Well no longer! This year I worked from other cities for a 2.25/12 months of the year.

I went to Atlanta to tan and visit my family for 3 weeks in August, enjoyed two waterfront houses in upstate Washington for 1.5 weeks this spring, working from the above lake house with a blogger friend and am currently in Atlanta for a full month to be with my family while I work during the holidays. I’m planning to incorporate at least another 6 weeks of working from elsewhere to see loved ones before I quit in September.

New Hobbies

There is a long list of hobbies that I planned to explore in retirement, but I realized I shouldn’t be putting that off for later. So last year I dove into Watercolor and Fauxligraphy and ended the year with a new present from my partner: an actual calligraphy set, which led to this masterpiece:

Then his parents gifted me more calligraphy pens for my 30th birthday when my previous ones ran out. I’ve become a calligraphy fiend and might become even more so. My partner has threatened to give me even fancier pens for Christmas. We shall see what happens!

Learning Spanish

Another aspect of retirement that I was looking forward to was learning new languages. I don’t have a brain for learning them, but I have been told I have a parrot’s ear for accents 😉 . I took 4 years of French in high school and attended an Italian university for 6 months, but neither really stuck. I needed another approach so this year I decided to dive back into Duolingo in order to prepare for my time in Costa Rica this February and Mexico in October.

Preparing for Costa Rica was a fail. I started doing Duolingo, but upon getting to the country I completely flopped. Luckily a few of my family members speak Spanish and could save me, but overall I was disappointed and embarrassed so in preparation for Mexico I doubled down and am happy to report that that experience was a success! I was able to speak enough Spanish to get us around and interact with taxi drivers and salespeople. I actually became the person my partner and Mom turned to for translations. I was so proud!

And when my Mom declared that we should only speak with each other in Spanish for 8 hours I was originally worried and thought it would be quite a silent day, but it turned out to be anything but. That was actually a wonderful exercise because instead of trying to translate perfectly from English I found roundabout ways to express what I meant, which was far from perfect but got the point across. Progress!

When I got back to the States I was even able to speak to my Argentinian college roommate in Spanish without her laughing in my face! My only real issue is that I keep getting confused with which words in my brain are Italian and which are Spanish. I guess I forgot less of Italian than I thought. Luckily I’m visiting my ex-roommate in Buenos Aires next year and she says they speak Spanish with an Italian accent and will most likely understand my Italian/Spanish combination so I’ll be good to go! I still want to brush up a lot more before going to Argentina for a month and integrating into the culture there.

Friendship

My main goal for the first few years of retirement is to spend more time with the people I love, but I realized waiting to do that was silly, so in addition to working from elsewhere to accomplish that, I’ve been continuing to schedule time with friends on a regular basis (despite my introvert tendencies…). I’ve continued with my monthly happy hour that I’ve hosted for 2 years now near my house. We even branched out this year to host one of them at a viking style bar and one on a boat. So fancy!

In addition to that, I’ve kept up with my weekly video chats with my ex-roommate in Argentina and, as I mentioned, am going to visit her soon for a whole month. It should be a fun time. Further, I’ve continued with my weekly Supper Clubs with a friend/neighbor and her partner. We rotate who hosts and cooks each week and it’s been an interesting transition since her partner is pescatarian and I’m keto (aka a serious carnivore), but we’ve made it work and continued to hang!

And last but not least, I’ve been to an abundance of FIRE meetups this year, which included travel to Portland, DC for FinCon and Nashville!

Finance

This year I helped a few friends (at their request) improve their financial lives. This included:

  1. Helping a friend move an IRA to Vanguard
  2. Assisting a friend with some questions to ask when assessing a medical school loan
  3. A friend asking for my advice for how to consolidate her student debt and apply for unemployment benefits
  4. Chatting with my boss about the pros and cons of robo-advisors (maybe I should be more discrete about my interests…)
  5. A colleague who I showed how to move into better 401(k) funds (that last year I got to start investing in the first place). We discovered that our company’s investment advisor had been lying about what funds we could invest in and had presented a choice that only included shitty funds with high expense ratios and loads. When I discovered this I. WAS. PISSED. I moved my money to a broad based stock market index fund immediately and told my company they need to make this a company-wide, known issue so others don’t lose out like I did.

Cooking

Since I became sous vide obsessed last year I’ve wanted to continue my streak of expanding my culinary horizons so I had the goal of cooking 12 new recipes this year and I did it! This year we made:

  1. Salmon Puttanesca with Swiss Chard
  2. Roasted Paprika Chicken With Parsnip-Pear Salad
  3. Oven Baked Chicken Wings with Crystal Sauce
  4. Arrabiatta
  5. Corned Beef and Cabbage in our Crockpot
  6. Tuna Melt Muffins
  7. Breaded Chicken
  8. Almond Flour Bagels
  9. Steak Fajitas in our Crockpot
  10. Keto Hamburger Buns
  11. Avocado Chips
  12. Keto Chicken Tenders
  13. Zoodle Salad
  14. A Keto Frostie
  15. Keto Cookies
  16. Bacon Crust Keto Pizza
  17. Quiche Muffins
  18. Chicken De Van

TRAVEL

This year I traveled to the below places:

Camping

We had a goal to go camping every month during the summer season and we reached that goal! This year we camped in these locations:

FIRSTS

Firsts this year included:

READING

Another goal of mine this year was to read one non-fiction book a month and I’m happy to say I hit that goal! This year I read:

  1. Happiness Advantage
  2. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
  3. Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck
  4. How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul
  5. Crazy Rich Asians
  6. How To Be IdleMy review is here.
  7. NomadlandMy review is here.
  8. Work OptionalMy review is here.
  9. Billion Dollar WhaleMy review is here.
  10. Broke Millennial Takes On InvestingMy review is here.
  11. Digital Minimalism
  12. Get MoneyMy review is here.
  13. High Sobriety
  14. This Naked Mind
  15. Homo Deus (couldn’t finish it though…) – My review is here.
  16. Why We SleepMy review is here.
  17. The Science Behind Interstellar
  18. Eat Better On A Budget
  19. Quit Like A MillionaireMy review is here.
  20. Happy City
  21. The Not For Tourists Guide To Seattle
  22. How To Do Nothing
  23. 10% Happier
  24. The Next Millionaire Next Door

MUSIC

I listened to over 29,000 minutes of music in 2019, which was actually significantly lower than previous years, but I still found some new artists and albums that made my heart sing. Here are the best ones:

Albums

Eyes Closed – HAEVN
Hurts 2B Human – P!nk
Feel Something – Jaymes Young
When The Lights Go Down – Matt Simons
Suncity – Khalid
A Star Is Born – Lady Gaga
SMYL – Complete Collection
Elementary Soundtrack (All Seasons)
Hobbs & Shaw Soundtrack
Skyscraper Soundtrack

Artists

HAEVN
Mathew V – Let Me Go
Avicii – SOS
AURORA

PODCASTS

I found some real gems this year all from friends’ recommendations. My new favorites include:
Why Won’t You Date Me?
The Dream
In Bed With Nick and Megan
Bitches Get Riches

WATCHED

I absolutely love film. In fact, I wanted to be a film major, but that wasn’t ‘liberal arts’ enough for my college so I ended up just taking all the classes I could on the subject and declaring myself another major. Anyway, the point is that I love cinema and given the list below, I was all over the place this year!

In Theaters

Aquaman x2 (3.5/5) – My review is here.

At Home

Fyre (Netflix) (5/5) – My review is here.
Fyre Festival (3/5)
Colossal (4/5)
Polar (3/5)
Avicci: True Stories (4/5) – My review is here.
Amy (2/5)
Lady Gaga: Five Foot Two (4/5) – My review is here.
Always Be My Maybe (3/5)
Shazam (2/5)
Rocketman (4/5)
Wine Country (3/5)
Hot Girls Wanted (3/5)

Shows

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (3/5)
Adam Ruins Everything Season 2 & 3 (5/5)
Salt Fat Acid Heat (4/5)
Sex Education (4/5)
The Good Place S4 (5/5)
Stranger Things 3 (4/5)
Brooklyn 99 S6 (5/5)
Steven Universe (5/5)
Steven Universe Future (5/5)
A.P. Bio S2 (3/5)
Top Chef S16 (4/5)
Daredevil (3/5)
Ken Jeon Stand Up (2/5)
Umbrella Academy (3/5)
Abby’s (3/5)
Always Sunny S14 (4/5)
Good Omens (4/5)
New Girl (4/5)
Restaurant: Impossible S15 (3/5)
Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee (3/5)
Catfish (3/5)
Nailed It (5/5)
Jane The Virgin (4/5)
‘Til Debt Do Us Part (5/5)
Monk (5/5)

YouTube

I’ve been getting way more into YouTube lately. A lot of people are pumping out some amazing stuff. Most of it literally makes me tired to think about all the work that goes into it 🙂 . Here are the channels I watched regularly this year:

Conclusion

So that’s it: my 2019 in a long, long nutshell. This was the year of reflection because that’s basically what I did all year. I turned 30, decided I had to get my shit together and found myself quickly approaching retirement. I’m obviously still a work in progress, but I’m getting closer to who I want to be. It’s been a wild year and I’m excited to see what 2020 brings. To the new year!

How was your 2019? Did you achieve all of your non-monetary goals?

22 thoughts on “The Year of Reflection: 2019 Goals & Accomplishments

  1. we don’t really have goals any longer. i did get fit and run a couple of races, but not really all out. this post must have taken a long time to put together.

    here’s my take and what i know about the sauce, as a true drinker: my usual resting heart rate (according to my pretty accurate dumb watch) is around 54 to 57 bpm on nights when i’m on the sauce. if i take a break from delicious and nutritious wine that same resting heart rate if around 44. that’s a big damned difference, but not enough to throttle it back more often. it’s very telling though that the results are so different and immediate in that you can see them in one single day. enjoy the holidays.

    1. That sounds like a goal to me! I did my first half marathon (walking) this year and almost died…you’re making me realize I need to add that to this post 🙂 . It actually didn’t take too long to put together because I keep a running list of this stuff throughout the year so it’s really just filling out the story a little bit.

      That is a big difference. I’m curious to see what happens with my relationship with the ‘sauce’ post-retirement. I have used it as a (supposed) stress relief in the past, but when I remove the main stressor in my life (my job) I’m curious how my relationship with it will change. We shall see!

  2. That’s one of those things a person realizes with languages – at some point you just have to do it and eat dirt a little. No matter how much preparation you do, at some point you have to will just have to try and suck until you stop sucking (and before that, stop worrying about it). I learned this hard lesson in Japan – with my Japanese girlfriend who decided not to speak any English with me, with her grandparents who didn’t speak English, and had to survive on my Japanese alone. It sucked. But by the end I’d gotten over a hump and just started speaking to people, no longer caring if I got the right word or had to stumble. It’s like you have to shove yourself from the side of the language swimming pool and start thrashing. So when I started really learning Spanish, I went through the same thing but it was a little easier. It was great though – allowed me to eat at the places the locals eat at, with much lower prices (insanely low) and delicious food.

    Funny thing is, I did the same with Japanese and Spanish, since despite being so very different in most ways, the two languages are nearly identical phonetically. When I went to Tulum I made friends with a young lady from Pueblo and she would laugh when I would sub in a Japanese word accidentally.

    That being said, preparation is still important – I don’t believe in immersion from day one. I’ve seen too many people fail through the method. I think you build a basis in the language, and then you dive into the swimming pool.

    That’s super awesome about your success in Spanish!

    1. You’re so totally right…but until Mexico and I was forced to do my perfectionist tendencies wouldn’t allow me too haha. And WOAH that sounds like quite a time in Japan. And yessss to this – please make it a throw pillow or something “you have to shove yourself from the side of the language swimming pool and start thrashing.”

      Awesome to hear the same thing worked for Spanish and I am SO looking forward to going back to Mexico and eating some of that wildly cheap and delicious local food mmm. That’s so interesting you sub Spanish and Japanese words! I’m not the only one haha 🙂 . The fact that they’re nearly identical phonetically is a great point because I’ve never really slipped in a French word when speaking Spanish or Italian cause I can hear the difference, but those two are so similar it’s tough for me.

      Totally agree that prep is important and then immersion. Before I lived in Italy I had an hour lesson every morning for 2 years and even then I barely survived haha. And thank you!

      1. Language is fascinating isn’t it? The Japanese/Spanish phonetic similarity always blows people away. The liquid R sounds, the vowel sounds, so similar. Otherwise they’re like polar opposites structurally.

        One difference – for a native English speaker, Japanese is HARD. It takes a long time to get used to the verb coming at the end of the sentence, and to how much is left to context. I used to translate manga for practice (NERD!) and then compare to translations and mine usually were horrendous. It takes a while to recognized even simple idioms that almost say the opposite of the literal translation.

        The other hard part about Japanese is that almost no one speaks the way they teach you in textbooks. But they teach it the way they do because it’s a safe way of speaking. Japanese has different words and conjugations for being really polite, and really casual. Using either in the wrong context makes you sound like you’re being a jerk. I had to learn the super polite level to ask professors to be my advisors for a grad program (got approval from three professors, but didn’t get accepted into the program). I had a Japanese friend look it over and fix all my mistakes, thankfully; otherwise I would have been perceived as super rude!

        Hmm, a FrugalWheels series of throw pillows. My mom would approve of this plan! (And probably buy them lol)

        1. It truly is. I wish I was better at linguistics because I find it fascinating, but it really didn’t click in my mind. I seriously struggled through that class. That’s really interesting about Japanese – I didn’t know that so much was up to context. That sounds double difficult. And LOL that’s awesome you used to translate manga!

          And no one speaks like it’s in the books?! Oh mylanta. I’m shocked you got as far as you did! It’s not how it’s taught AND context is key AND idioms can be the opposite of what they say? Oh boy. I’m going to give myself like a year to get basic phrases down before I go to Japan (I’ve never been). Yes please on the throw pillows – you already have your first customer!

          1. Haha FrugalWheels throwpillows – now on sale! lol

            I think the thing to keep in mind with Japanese is that what they teach you isn’t incorrect and people will understand you, and you won’t get in trouble. And most people will expect foreigners to sound that way. But when you really get into the language you realize it’s sort of splitting the difference – too formal for casual conversation and too informal for polite convos.

            Anyway Japan is a lot of fun, it can be super baffling, like many places there is English everywhere (everyone learns it and can usually write it but those who speak it well are rare) and Japanese people will usually act super impressed if a foreigner can use even a little Japanese. I’m still fascinated by the place. It’s so quiet in so many ways, yet in others overwhelming to the senses. Even simple things become a new adventure. I went to the movies once and was surprised to find A) assigned seats, and B) about half the audience were people there by themselves.

            Damn, now this is making me want to go back…

            1. Lol – where?! I have Christmas shopping to do!

              That’s so interesting they had to do that with Japanese – I wonder if there are other Earth or fantasy languages that have to do something similar. Sounds like I’ll definitely need to make it to Japan soon (and learn some Japanese before hand). And ooh I love assigned movie seats – we have those at a few theaters in Seattle (even the large chains). The by yourself thing is cool. I think I’ve only done that once and it was AMAZING!!! And haha I’m sure there are some holiday flight deals – just sayin’ 😉

  3. Hi! I just wanted to say how much I love your blog. I also really liked the idea of linguistic immersion you did with your mum. As a Uruguayan (our accent is essentially indistinguishable from that of Argentinians) and fellow language enthusiast, I would highly recommend that you watch a video on youtube called “que difícil es hablar el español” (there’s a version with English subtitles). It’s a really funny song about regional differences in Spanish. 🙂 Cheers!

    1. Hi Leticia! Thank you so much for stopping by and telling me that – it made my day!! I’m excited to do more language-immersive living in retirement and have added that video to my YouTube queue! Thanks so much again 🙂 .

    1. It was a good one! I’m glad I wrote this stuff down so I actually remember it haha! And yaaaas Gail is my spirit animal. I also LOVE that it’s in Canada – like I thought they were way smarter than us, but no – debt, putting your head in the sand and making assumptions about money is a slippery slope! Do you know any other shows like that? After I binged all 7 seasons I have a hole in my life!

  4. Wow, that seems like a really full (in a good way) year to me!
    You have inspired me to watch more films again. And also to read Why We Sleep, which has been sitting on my book pile for a few months now…

    1. Haha I’m glad you think so 🙂 . It is nice to look back and see “no – I didn’t just binge Always Sunny for the 90th time – I did new stuff too!” So happy to have helped inspire you! What films are in your queue? And YES Why We Sleep is so interesting – I couldn’t put it down and my Mom read it in one sitting. Let me know what you think!

    1. It’s a fun way to keep track of what I get up to in a year haha – not exhausting at all. You’re not seeing the countless hours I napped or just lay on the couch. I just have a running list in Evernote that I add to once I’ve finished a book for example.

  5. Wow you really accomplished a lot in 2019.

    My big accomplishments in 2019 was getting a promotion and making keto a lifestyle.

    You’ve given me some ideas of what I should look to do in 2020 🙂

  6. You are my role model. If I can be half as productive as you are in 2020, I’ll be doing more than I ever have in one year.

    That is all. 🙂

    1. Haha – I think you do more than you realize. If you wrote it down I know it would be a lot 😉 . Happy 2020!

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