December 31--Goodbye and Thanks, 2020!

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.  --Marcus Aurelius

    At the end of my 2019 "year in review," I wrote "I can hardly wait for all the good of 2020." Here's the summary of my very interesting year...

WORK
==My 5th season doing tax prep ended early on March 31 due to the initial pandemic shutdown. With the deadline extended to July 15, the tax office "regulars" were able to complete the rest of the returns.
==Another year of MELT and yoga teaching for the Clearwater Wellness Center, online via Zoom from the end of March onward. Online teaching enabled me to reconnect with friends in FL and PA.

==Private and small-class MELT lessons I offered resulted in one of my students taking MELT training to become an instructor.

==Enabled the Kansas Dialysis Association to continue functioning by organizing their meetings on Zoom.
==Another year of spiritual life coaching with clients whom I dearly love and appreciate.

==Started a Power of Eight group which has had great success with our intentions.

FAMILY

==Just "under the wire," I flew to Denver in early March for a weekend visit with my kids in Fort Collins. I saw only a couple masks on those flights. Little did we know...

==Other trips to Fort Collins were scarce--June, November and Christmas. All masked up. 

==We rented VRBO houses to make our November & Christmas visits safer. We had another excellent Christmas holiday together. Son Derek stated, "This is my 34th Christmas, and I consider us really lucky to have spent them all together."

==Dennis and I celebrated our 34th anniversary.

==I organized several Zoom sessions to connect the spread-out Miller family.

==All the kids stayed employed throughout the year.

==Our older son and his partner are having a home built in Wellington, north of Fort Collins. Younger son moved into a solo studio apartment in downtown Fort Collins. 

==Watched an online family wedding from PA in December.

 

TRAVEL

==Trips to Arizona, PA/OH, and Spain/Portugal were all cancelled. 

==No stadiums were added to my MLB stadium quest.

==Being cautiously optimistic, I put a deposit on a group trip to Jamaica for December 2021.

HEALTH
==Reached 65 and Medicare in October.

==Mid-October hip replacement surgery gave me a new joint, corrected body alignment and a new lease on life, an enormous blessing of 2020.
==Swam over 100 miles for the 23nd year in a row, despite the YMCA being closed for 12 weeks and being off five weeks for surgery recovery. Hit the 100,000 lap milestone at the end of December (starting January 1998).

==Invested in the Holosync program and started that in June.

==Most of our family members have stayed Covid-free, but those who were infected recovered without hospitalization. 

DOG

==In early December, we celebrated one year with Barney. I don't know how we would have made it through 2020 without him!

MISCELLANEOUS

==I spent very little money in 2020!

==I did a lot of online learning in the time I would have spent watching basketball and baseball.

==I published a blog post every day since April 1, writing being a part of my spiritual practice.

==Took up the painting hobby of barn quilts.

==Had regular online meetings of my writer group of three.

==Reconnected with my roommate from Elizabethtown College, huge fun and blessing!

==I made my public singing debut and finale doing a Facebook duet with Dennis, John Prine's "In Spite of Ourselves."

==Pandemic boredom led us to declutter and paint the inside of our garage and decorate it with two of my barn quilts.

==Finally had the AC in my car repaired.
==Praise the Universe, we do not have to suffer through another four years of Trump as POTUS.

    Despite the unusual nature of 2020, in hindsight, it was a damn good year! Onward to 2021!

        Leta

Dennis installed my barn quilts on our shed.

There were those days...

My favorite artwork of the year, "11:11."