Halfway Through 2021

I can't believe how fast we've gotten through the first half of 2021. It feels like despite the slow start, the year has just flown by. I figured I'd take a look back and see how I'm doing with what I've been doing this year, and how I've been faring with what I was hoping to focus on this year.

What I've Been Up To

Playing Hockey Again

Until May, I wasn't fully vaccinated, so I opted to play it safe and limit my excursions outside the house. Now that I'm fully vaccinated, I've started to go back out into the world. This includes playing hockey again.

I'm back to playing on the team I'm captain of. And I'm playing in the lower league as well. Sadly, I ended up losing my goalie spot as there are only 8 teams, so only 8 goalie positions. I am able to skate out with a good group of guys and girls so I'm still able to get more time on the ice. I'm on the sub list so I'm still able to play in net now and again. I'm hoping a spot will open up in the fall season so that I can start playing goalie again full time. I played in a tournament this past weekend as the netminder and had a lot of fun. Four games in three days made my legs a little unhappy...followed by a fifth game the next day, but it was totally worth it. I'm now playing hockey one or two times a week, and I'm happy to be back on the ice.

House Projects

The biggest project on my house was re-doing the kitchen cabinets. Our kitchen cabinets' paint was looking a little run down, and in some cases peeling, so we opted to sand them all down, re-paint them, and install new hardware. It was a lot of hard work, a bunch of cursing at various things, but the end result turned out great. The cabinets aren't anything to ooooh and ahhhh over, but they look a lot nicer and will hold off a needed kitchen remodel for the time being.

I also ended up putting in a raised flower bed around one of our street lights. Again, nothing huge, but I liked how it turned out. Now all I need to do is get some new lights for the outside of the house.

There have been a few other small projects here and there...there always are! (The joys of home ownership)

Looking at My Focus Points

Staying Active

I've been pretty good with this one. I haven't been running nearly as much as I was planning, but I'm back to playing hockey and am continuing to strength train, so all's well on the active front. Diet needs work, but that's always the case. I'll get there I hope.

Improving My Development Skills

I feel like this one is going really well. Between work and my side project, I'm learning new ways of doing things and becoming more proficient in React & TypeScript. Outside of the refactoring loops, I like where I am at with my never-ending coding journey. I'm trying to strike a balanace between also continuing forward with my blog rewrite. I'm also going back and forth with how much I want to redesign my blog while rewriting it.

Reading More

I could be doing better here. Between late nights with hockey, video games, and other things, I haven't spent as much time reading as I would like.

Writing More

I'm not unhappy with where I am, but I could definitely be writing more. I have some ideas for some posts, so I suppose I should buckle down and start writing them.

Let's finish out 2021 strong.