Thoughts on the eve of my 49 years old birthday

In less than two hours, I am turning forty-nine. This is a big milestone. As I am closing in on the big fifty number, I am looking back at my last year going around the sun and reflecting on all the events in my life.

This was certainly a very big year for me career wise, financially and family wise. Despite being married for over five years now, it is only starting to feel like we are really growing together.

I feel that during this year, we made some real progress as a family. My relationship with my wife has grown more during this past year than it did in the two years prior. Our daughter is turning twelve five days after me, and she is changing and turning into a wonderful young lady.

Some family related changes were not so cheerful as my father in law has dementia and his condition really progressed during this year. Mother in law has been struggling with her own health concerns and taking care of him for years. And it got so bad that we had to find him an adult family home not far from us so that they could take care of him around the clock.

It is a nice large home run by a Ukrainian family, and he is the only patient there. It is a very nice place, and he has home cooked meals. He is really well taken care of, and we are all visiting him multiple times a week, but the transition has been difficult for everyone.

This was also a very big year for me career wise. I have been working towards a promotion from Principal Software Engineer to a Solution Architect for the last five years. Finally, with the help of my wonderful wife, I was able to get that promotion.

This promotion came with a nice salary boost, and combined with selling the house and eliminating a large mortgage, it allowed me to finally fully cover our family budget.

Feels like a huge financial pressure relief and is really empowering. For the first time in my life, I have had a feeling of financial independence. I love my job, and it is very flexible, so I do not plan to retire any time soon.

We are going back to the office starting this September for one day a week. That is very unpleasant, considering that we worked over five years completely remotely, and the commute to Seattle is horrible.

That is fine as I will be able to use a variety of gym equipment at our work gym. There are also a couple of restaurants in Seattle where I can pick up food and bring it home, so it is not all bad, just completely pointless and a productivity reducing activity work wise.

We also did quite a bit of traveling this past year with multiple trips to Whidbey Island, Vancouver Canada, San Diego, and Manhattan. We dined at some really nice restaurants during our trips and enjoyed sightseeing and new places.

We love traveling and one of the things that I would like to do in my last year before I hit fifty is to do more traveling.

This was also the year I really got into blogging on Hive. Before Fall of last year I would write a Splinterlands blog post once in a while, but last year I really started blogging.

I also became a Hive Witness and a Splinterlands SPS Validator shortly after I started blogging. Just today I finally finished upgrading my Hive Witness to the latest version. That took a while, but I will write a separate post about that.

Splinterlands also had an end of an Era as Chaos Legion and Riftwatcher sets were retired from Modern League into Wild League only. These sets were the cards I used since I started playing Splinterlands and it is sad to see them go...

The game is very different from how it was when I first started. There are even more changes coming to the game and I am particularly interested in what they will come up for the Guilds. They mentioned in the last town hall that Guilds will be one of their focus areas going forward.

It was a big year in every regard. I think for my next year around the sun I would like to slow down and enjoy life a bit more, focus on family, travel and more on doing things that I like.

Another focus for me would be health, at this age I am no longer invincible and my workouts are going to be less challenging and with focus on safety. It is no longer about building and more about maintaining what I have in life and in relation to my body.

When I will wake up I will be forty nine...

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Daily Activity, Shopping, Walking, Weight Lifting, Yard Work