Looking back at 2010

The holiday season came and went so quickly, I cannot believe it is over. I found myself in the holiday spirit much more than ever before and I rode it for all it was worth--the tree, lights and decorations were up before Dec 1, I hosted a Christmas party at my home, followed by an early Christmas the week before the actual holiday with my mom and her husband (who were leaving for a long trip to the Dominican Republic), as well as my sister and brother in law, then a Christmas eve celebration here as well with my sister and brother in law--we have always done our gift exchanges on Christmas eve, followed by our main presents and stockings on Christmas day, so we decided this year should be no different. We followed up with a Christmas day celebration at my father's home near Oakdale, with a prime rib dinner and a timely power outage that lasted about three hours--how ironic since my dad and his wife are both retired PG&E employees. I attended a half dozen other holiday parties in addition, so it was a very fun and busy month.

Santa brought me additional means for the home improvement I enjoy so much by way of a new compound miter saw for trim, moulding and custom cabinet work and Home Depot gift certificates that will certainly be used sooner rather than later. I am starting to feel embarrassed that one of my spare bedrooms still has two pink accent walls, and that's after a year and a half of living here. Painting work is in the plans this winter.

I learned some really good techniques for painting. In order to produce sharp lines at ceiling interfaces or areas where two paint colors come together, follow this technique--let's say your east-facing wall is eggshell white and you want your north-facing wall to be green. Lay your painter's tape down on the white wall, right to the wall corner. If you follow the normal technique of starting with the green paint, it will certainly bleed under the tape and it will be visible on the white wall. Instead, paint a strip of the *white* paint on the wall you want to be green. Wait for it to dry. That paint just bled white into the white area and filled all of the voids in the tape. Now paint your green over it and you'll have a perfect transition from white to green with no bleeding. My father used this technique in his RV garage and it looks amazing.





When I no longer have pink bedrooms to contend with, I think some stripes in my garage could make a fun winter project.

2010 was a great year for me. My recovery is coming along well and I have been able to do everything I have attempted. Extended hikes, home improvement/manual labor, mountain biking, kayaking, waterskiing and cliff diving (just kidding). My limitations will be ball sports that require a flick of the wrist, like throwing a ball or playing tennis (ball sports were never my interest anyway, and if I really wanted to I can learn to play left-handed), and two other activities that come to mind are those where you fall repeatedly on hard surfaces like rollerblading and iceskating...never did much of those either. I'll be up skiing in the coming weeks and I'll wear my old brace to protect my wrist during falls. Being able to return to more of a normal life has been great.

I managed quite a bit of travel and vacation in 2010 as well. A week in Death Valley, some time in Pt. Reyes, Lake Tahoe, several camping trips in the Sierras, a couple four wheeling trips, wine tasting, a boat trip to Canada with a seaplane ride home and of course an amazing trip to Italy, France, Switzerland and the Island of Corsica. I got to spend some really good quality time with friends and family and made new friends that I feel very fortunate to have in my life. I look forward to things that come in 2011.