End of the year, end of the decade. The temporary end of my creativity?

My cup has been too full to spend much time here. The end of a very stressful semester happened two days before my parents and sister arrived for a week. One day to go skiing and try to feel human again, one day to make frame bags for both my parents and a small backpack for my sister, and do a bit of cleaning (M did almost all, bless her). Our house is not big, and much though the visit was looked forward to an wonderful, such things are never simple. After a week of skiing, Yahtzee, and eating they left yesterday. I get on a plane to travel to Egypt in four days.

Which is to say, I’ve felt busy lately. Not been busy, just felt that way.

I did most of my packing this evening, and took my new camera for a walk.
The Canon S90. I think I will like it.

2009 has been year of growth. I’ve taken on big things at which I was not especially good or experienced, and came out in one piece. Sometimes that is what success must look like.

My goals for this year, as I wrote last December, were thus:

-Doing as well as I am able in school. The specifics here are beginning to become visible.
-Improve my skiing and understanding of winter and mountain travel vastly. Concrete formulation: a spring Sierra High Route/JMT trip with the Woodchuck in a few years.
-Greater comfort at pushing the adventure threshold. More quick overnights, more trips into the unknown, more multisport and multiday outings. Training and performance gains to make this all possible, efficient, and fun.

This year I learned that doing well in school is trickier than I had previously thought. I need more distance to want to write about that.
I learned a bunch about skiing, and will keep doing so. It’s been a really fun process.
I did more discrete overnight trips this year than in any other yet (not counting professional work). I found out that, to be blunt, single-day stuff barely constitutes looking in the cave door.
So, for 2010 I’d like to:

-Ski a bunch, do some multi-day tours, and get into the mountains this spring. Specifically: ski Lolo Peak in April with a bike commute from town, ski Spring Gulch to Snowbowl in a speedy day, at least one 3+ day tour in Yellowstone, and maybe take a lesson or two.
-Hike the Bighorn 100 in June in less than 30 hours.
-Do some big backpacks. Grand Canyon in January, Yellowstone in May and June, etc.

Beyond that, we’ll see where M ends up going to law school and take it from there. A goal may be moving (again) without going nuts.

Best wishes for the new year.