the year of awesome is almost over

today is the last day of the year of awesome. it was not an awesome year for blogging, but it was awesome in many other ways:

• was awesomely frozen on inauguration day and had one of the best days of my life!
  
• took an awesome trip to india in february for work
• enjoyed an awesome cherry blossom 10 miler run
  
• had an awesome bike accident in may -- which mucked up my triathloning for the season
• got an awesome new boss in june who brought in a whole new cool group of awesome office mates!
  
• had an awesomely exhausting and adventurous fall filled with trips to: rome, johannesburg, NYC, and geneva (i really do want to get some photos up about those trips)
• and then just the usual stuff of having wonderfully awesome friends and stuff.

i feel like there is too much to catch up on, so i am not even going to try. ;)

i have been thinking about where i was 10 years ago. i was with my friend tami in helsinki finland freezing my butt off. tami was teaching english to business students in a polytechnic in valkeokoski, finland. she invited me, and her sister tonya to join her in celebrating christmas with their aging grandfather in joensuu. it was an awesome trip. i was in in school so i had 3 weeks to just play and we did.

for new years eve we went down to the city square. finland was the president or seat of the EU and it was a giant celebration. somewhere along the way tami and i had both been given iodine tablets to keep us protected in case Y2K changes made the nuclear plants in russia blow up. in all honesty, it was pretty trippy. but we survived and it was really fun.

the decade then got weirder and weirder and now i am happy to see it go.

i am kicking off the new year with a burnt up face due to the basal cell carcinoma found on my nose. this is round 2 of the stupid face burning treatment, i am pretty sure the technique is NOT perfected. so, the decade of teens will hopefully be a decade of wellness, healing, and hope in contrast to the aughts fearful, twisted, and just kinda messed-up-ed-ness.

tomorrow a new years theme will be announced. i am kinda sad to see the year of awesome come to an end. it has been such an awesome theme. in so many instances over the year i thought to myself, what is the most awesome thing to do and i would do it. i will probably still ask myself that question. because i like being awesome. :)

happy new year!