And with that 2024 has drawn to a close

[Matthias720]

Wow! 2024 was here and gone faster than I expected. With another year on the books, what was the standout event of your past year, and what are you looking forward to in 2025?

[shisteer of nothing much]

Ooooh, there are so many good ones! We had a family reunion back in July which was super fun. Lots of chaos with the nieces and nephews.
Then in August I had an awesome running adventure around Lake Taupo. The scenery was so beautiful and it was pretty cool seeing how far I could push my body. I learned a lot that weekend and had some amazing friends crewing me.
Towards the end of October I had another crazy running adventure where I met some amazing people and pushed myself pretty hard mentally, which was great.
I think the cake goes to earlier in October, though, when Corn and Dann came to visit. It was super fun getting to show them all our favourite places and introduce them to our favourite foods. We had a very short notice nameday feast that was awesome, and went on a road trip to Hobbiton, but I think my favourite part was just all the chats we had.

As far as next year goes, my biggest goal is to finally get married. It looks like it'll be closer to a plan than a hope, so I'm quite excited for that. I think the year will bring quite a few challenges, but also a lot of awesome experiences and many awesome people, and I look forward to see what happens and what kind of person I am at the end.

[Matthias720]

Sounds like you had an outstanding year!

[shisteer of nothing much]

It was pretty awesome! What about you?

[Matthias720]

Well, life got...complicated, in early 2024. My dad's foot became infected. and when he went the hospital it was discovered that he's also diabetic (which was news to all of us). When he was finally discharged after almost 2 weeks of treatment, I basically split my time over the next few months between working and being available to help him. Thankfully, his foot made an almost complete recovery (and by almost I mean, 99.99%; not quite perfect, but close to it), and his health has been decent since. I'm not going to sugarcoat it though, it was probably the hardest time I've had in my adult life. I've grown through the experience though, but I hope I don't have to do anything like that again in the near future. But it's a new year, with new chances and possibilities. Who knows what 2025 will bring?

[HeadInAnotherGalaxy]

Ach, Ah've 'ad left me main toe get infected a fev toimez- currently ze roight vone moight be ztartin' tae, taae- zae Ah can relate viz 'avin' tae gae trough zat. Vot type o' infection vaz it?

[Matthias720]

As I understand it, he had a staph infection. Nasty business.