What Happened in 2021

 It's hard to tell if 2021 was better or worse than 2020. And since I haven't written anything here since the pandemic started - Jan 2020 last post - there's a lot of comparison to get through.

Pandemic aside, I finished the porch, herniated the L5-S1 disc in my back that required surgery to repair, and bought some land in Boone to build a house on so I can AirBnB it. The surgeon said I would never be able to run again, but the physical therapist said I would. Now, a year and a half later, I am actually running some again, but only maybe 3x a week at most and nothing long yet. And I still haven't broken ground on the new house, but Kelley did convince me to hire a mason instead of pouring the foundation myself after hurting my back pouring concrete. All of this around the lockdowns, and the pandemic, waiting on the vaccine, and the election. 

2021 started better (after Jan 6 of course), we all got vaxxed in the spring as soon as we could and I got to spend time with my family again visiting them in Greenville some. In August, my parents celebrated their 50th anniversary, then the kids started back to school in 9th and 11 grade. It's so nice to have them both in high school, and yet so hard to believe that Ella graduates in only a year and a half. Kelley also went back to grad school, she got into the Marriage and Family Therapy program at App State and started in August. She finished the first semester with straight A's, and they did actually still have her on academic probation from her first attempt at grad school when we met at App State back in 1996. So she's doing a little better this time around. We bought a townhouse in Banner Elk so she'd have a place to stay locally while attending classes, and I absolutely love having a place in the mountains again. The land is great, and eventually (hopefully in 2022) I will actually break ground and start building my house there. But this townhouse really brings a great local connection. 

The holidays started getting rough. My dad's health has been declining, first by Parkinson's disease that he's had for several years, then diabetes which he doesn't manage very well. Right before thanksgiving, they found pancreatic cancer. The surgery was not successful, and he's not going to get strong enough again to try chemo or anything, so this is terminal. He turns 75 in May, which is still pretty young for a cancer patient, and we all hope he'll make it to his birthday. Everyone, including Dad, is at peace with it, but it is still something incredibly difficult that I know we're having to get through. 

Also, I changed jobs a few times. After 4.5 years I left my tech lead role at a great company for an architect role at another fantastic company. It turned out to be not so much of an architect role as a developer position, so I only lasted about 6 months there. I also finished grad school with an MBA in Finance while I was there, with the objective of getting a management role at a financial company. Instead, I got a management role with a small consulting firm, which turned out to be absolutely awful. I had some reservations about getting into consulting again, and I don't know why I just couldn't handle the stress of a small operation like that anymore. It was awful. So I got out of there after a few months and did end up managing a team of software developers for one of the largest financial companies in the US and is really is everything I was looking for. Such a cool company, I have a great team of developers, and the work is interesting. I am planning to stay there until I retire in about another 6-10 years. Single dad-ing it while Kelley was in the mountains 4 days a week was really hard while I was at the consulting firm, and much easier now.

Christmas was kind of tough as Dad was in and out of the hospital. Now I'm trying to get down there as often as I can to spend time with him while he's coherent. The kids had a good time though. 

Also, I started an LLC for my woodworking business. I got to build some great furniture last year, my instagram (@flynnstagram3000) has all of those pictures. 

Pictures? Sure. Here's from the 50th anniversary and Christmas at least.

My kids came out of the pandemic looking like grown-ass adults. The little girl is Michael's kid and those curls are Morgan's first kid. His incredible wife gave birth in early Jan 2022 to their second boy, we are so thrilled. I haven't gotten my hands on that new baby yet but we're all super excited.

Ella is visiting colleges already! This is at Lees-McRae in Banner Elk

I built a kayak. It's super cool

July 4 at Sugar Mountain

First day of school!

First day of school!

Christmas in Raleigh

All of the grandkids in Greenville

Morgan's family

Michael's family

My Family

Ponder the track suit - I'm entering a new phase of dad level comfort

My brothers - Morgan, Michael, and me

 

Maybe I'll write another post in a couple more years. Thanks for catching up with me!

Recent picture update

 Just so you know we still exist, here's some proof of life (if you can call it life in the middle of a pandemic and election season). We're all doing pretty good. I'm 6 weeks post back surgery, so I can finally lift more than 10 lbs again. Kids are finishing their first quarter of the school year in the virtual academy, looks like the entire 8th and 10th grades are going to be online. Kelley is kicking ass and taking names, as usual.

Kelley putting in the last of the landscape lighting

The finished product of which is a well lit front yard

She added the lights on the right side of the steps to finish it off

The volume of meds that I have to take while my back was out and for the arthritis

Evangeline the cat is quite comfortable on the new bean bag body pillow

I got a new laz-y-boy recliner, super excited about that

Graduation day picture from my last day of grad school

Found one of these mugs from a business I used to own back in SC

Bunk beds with a climbing wall, slide, and drawers I built and sold

All of us at the state fair - it was only food this year

This was my first hanging couch, installed for a customer. Turned out really cool

Carving pumpkins for Halloween

Social Distancing

We're all handling this pandemic pretty well. The girls are getting a break from school just like they used to get with a track out. I can easily work from home, and my grad school has always been online so absolutely nothing has changed for me. Stay home! Practice social distancing!

This is not a problem for us. We can't even get the kids to socialize with us in person. What is hard for us is not going shopping regularly; the grocery store shelves are empty, I can't just go to Lowe's for supplies, that's all crazy.

I will share a couple of pictures from before the pandemic took over.

I'm standing on top of a quad bunk bed setup that I built. I was taller than the power line into the house!

Got a night out at the coast with the family

It was a really fun trip

I had a sunset picture featured on the local news!

proper social distancing

Lena had her teeth pulled

then got braces!

They both have braces right there!

Got everybody hanging out on the porch

then Lena got blue hair!? what is that?

I had a gray beard

And then there was none. I never realized how much I touch my face. This was instant regret, I started growing it back 3 days later

Ella's smile

Now with less metal! Her braces are off!

 So Lena got her braces put on, then went with blue hair, then Ella got her braces off. Crazy! I've been doing a ton of woodworking. And we're starting to landscape the front yard. I want to get the hardscape in before it gets too hot, we've already had a few 90* days and I am not mentally prepared for another super hot summer.

Stay safe out there. There's a lot of scary stuff with the coronavirus right now. Controlling the spread is the key. How long do you think it will last? The hardest part for me is not being able to plan or travel. Here's an idea. I finish grad school on Oct 4, and there is a marathon in Kona, HI on Nov 7. Since the airline industry is in the toilet right now flights are actually affordable - around $400 compared to the $1400 flights that I usually find. I think a week in Hawaii and a marathon is a fantastic way to celebrate finishing the MBA than with a week in paradise. Does this seem rational at all?

The Break and the Streak

Yeah, but the break and the steak would have rhymed

I took one class session off from grad school to do other stuff and totally blew all of the athletic endeavors. Literally, registered for four races - a marathon, a 12 hour ultra, a swim race, and a 4 mile octoberfest run - and competed in exactly zero of them.Yes it is frustrating, the marathons were my chance to knock out the new states this year. I really should have gone to the swim race, I think I'm just done with those. I had several friends there who told me it was a great day to be in the water, but I had to be up working until about 1 am the day before and just didn't want to get up at 6 to make it to the race on time.

So it takes a reset. There has been other stuff going on. I opened an Etsy store and put out a Craigslist ad to sell the beds, and that's going really well. So far I've sold 2 sets of bunk beds and a loft from CL.

Also I started a running streak - as of today (11/18) it's at 40 days and exactly 100 miles. I'm doing at least 2 miles a day, every day. No idea how long it will last - my original goal was 10 days, then a month. Next goal may be the first of the year? It's getting hard to figure out how I'm going to get everything done.

Grad school is back with a Business Law class. Not only is it really boring, but it takes a lot of time. Really this class gives me a whole new respect for people who went to law school. Every day I learn a new way to get sued or break the law. The only way to stay safe is to never do anything, ever. As an empath, I totally sympathize with people who need lawyers. When I worked in PC repair the jobs would be pretty quiet until somebody else was having the worst day of their week (or month, or year). Everybody that needs a lawyer for any reason is scared, or protective, or otherwise having their worst day. Totally could not do it.

The family is staying busy too. Evil Genius got her ears pierced, overcoming a fear that she's had for a long time:

Ella WON a poetry contest at the high school. For all grades, as a freshman, a 50 word poem contest, and she took the grand prize of the whole thing. Unreal. I mean, the grand prize was a $10 gift card but it's still an amazing accomplishment.

The State Fair came and went. This year we had the unreal luck of having huge traffic problems. It was so bad this year that both Saturday's we were able to charge people to park in our yard! 10 years at this house and that has never happened before.

That's a full yard

Also I finally finished installing these shelves in EG's room, and she got bangs, then green hair, now it's pink!

Cool floating shelves I built for her

Green hair with some old friends. We didn't know the boy had green hair too when we met up

EG is now pink haired

I also got to speak at Ella's school. The high school brings in STEM speakers periodically, and I volunteered to come talk tech, education, how I got into the IT industry, and how we do so much cool shit at the company I work for now. It was a blast!

me with Ella at the high school

So I really don't know how I'm going to get everything done, and it's pretty stressful. I have been running early in the mornings, but now it's in the 30's here and/or raining every morning so that's out. I'm going to come home some over lunch this week for woodworking. Mother Nature's worst joke is that the one time of year it's actually pleasant to be outside now, it gets dark at 5:30. I have to build these beds & stuff outside, built a new deck for it and everything. I'm going to try going to work early, building beds over lunch, leaving early, run as soon as I get home then woodwork until dark, then dinner and 4 hours of grad school. And that's every day until thanksgiving. I'm grateful for being busy, but this is getting hectic.

I'll leave you with some of the cool projects I've been building.

Those shelves laid out on the 8' x 12' deck I built just to assemble & finish furniture

The state fair

I ran by the state fair - this is always one of my favorite runs of the year

Got a visit from my good friend Alison as she walked over to the fair

This is a charcuterie board currently for sale in the Etsy shop

Bottom of the board. It's cherry & walnut

A twin over full size bunk bed

I made this cool table for the front porch from a slab of stump I cut off from my front yard

Super nice cherry box I made for a client's wedding present. The finger joints are a nice touch

Slides! Used a boat epoxy on the surface of the slides for 2 of the bunk beds

oh yeah, we had our anniversary! 21 years of marriage

This picture deserves its own post. I commissioned a local artist to draw Kelley as an anime superhero

Also built a trundle to go under EG's bed since we're going to have company this year for the holidays

crap I can't believe I didn't lead with "it's our 21st wedding anniversary" - you can tell I'm slipping.