MY TOP 10 OF 2020 -- DIDN'T SEE THESE COMING

If hindsight is truly 20/20, then someone needs to adjust their vision, as this year truly wasn't one I would have wanted to see in my life (especially with new glasses.) There were positives, there were negatives. There was joy, there was heartbreak. Most of all, God was still on His throne -- guiding, directing, and protecting through this year of blessings, trials, and tribulations. With that said, let's review my "Top 10 of 2020."

#1 -- GRANDBABY #6 BEFORE CHRISTMAS: Being a grandparent is truly a joy, as our oldest daughter and her husband are quite prolific in maintaining a large, robust, and beautiful quiver of children. However, their sense of humor and timing as to telling us that they are expecting their 6th child was not at all humorous, yet was expected, as there were several in our extended family who had an intuition that #6 was on the way. Our last visit with our grandkids was in late February, a week prior to this pandemic taking hold and starting our lives in a new dynamic where travel and visiting was no longer a viable option. Fast-forwarding to the week of arrival of this new grandchild, we came to find out (the hard way) that our daughter was experiencing pregnancy complications and the baby was a month early. On the day of delivery, our daughter experienced the worst anyone could imagine while giving birth -- a C-section combined with a hysterectomy and her newborn rushed to NICU. When we heard this news, we were shaken to our core and our emotions got the better of us. We prayed like we never prayed before, even reaching out to others in our church, our friends, and our extended family. Thankfully, with all glory to God, our beautiful new granddaughter and our daughter eventually got to go home a week later, fully healed and strengthened.

#2 -- THE DEATH OF BUSINESS TRAVEL: My current position required that I travel between 70% to 100% of a calendar year. On those rare occasions the travel is within California, Arizona, or Oregon, my wife will accompany me, as we have family and friends in those states. The first 2 months and 1st week of March this year had us away from home and in Southern California for my job, yet close enough we could visit our grandkids before my assignments. However, that dynamic of business travel ended upon our return home the evening of March 6th, as we were told that due to the pandemic, I would now be working remotely until further notice. To this day, I am still aligned to working remotely until at least March 2021. The blessing in all of this is that my wife and I have found new joy in being together everyday and sharing each other's lives as we see what the other does during those times I would have been away from her (and vice-versa.)

#3 -- $4,000 IN VEHICLE MAINTENANCE: How in the world, with all that is going on with respect to staying home, no longer traveling, only going out as needed to get groceries or home improvement supplies, would our 10-year old, low mileage SUV need close to $4,000 in vehicle maintenance? The month of June found our SUV lose its power steering (at least parked in the driveway and the onboard warning screen showing as such) as well as the exhaust chamber being cracked and keeping our engine light on (would not pass smog), and the air conditioning/heating system malfunctioning (turn it on, made a horrific clicking noise.) Thanks to a local dealership who treats us quite well, and after 3 days in the shop, $3,000 got the mechanical aspects back into like new condition and we were back on the road to parking in the driveway. Fast forward to October and sitting in the parking lot at Lowe's having a quick bite of lunch before heading into the store. Mind you, the day was warm and we sat with the engine idling and the air conditioning blowing cold. What we didn't expect was to hear a clunking sound and excessive steam pouring out from the firewall and the front of the SUV. Here's the kicker -- we had an angel in disguise (the form of a burly bearded man about the size of yours truly) sitting 3 parking spots away enjoying his lunch when he noticed what was happening. He got out of his Dodge Ram truck, came over, introduced himself, and handed us his business card. He was the manager of the repair shop we would have our SUV towed to. Fortunately, he gave a quick diagnosis as to what happened and even waited for us to ensure that AAA and Uber were contacted and on the way, as he did not want to leave us stranded. After calling the Auto Club for a tow and Uber for a ride home to get our other car and get to the garage where our SUV was towed, we came to find out that all HVAC hoses and all radiator hoses had burst. The final bill was just under $1,000 after 3 days in the shop. Once again, our SUV was running like new and sits in the driveway. only to be used for necessary errands. By the way, it passed smog. Praise God we were not in traffic when any of these issues happened.

#4 -- PUTTING IN OUR BACKYARD: After 7+ years of being in the childhood home my wife inherited, we finally made the effort to put in a backyard oasis. Besides, now that I was working from home and a sizeable stimulus check, we transformed a dormant and ugly 70 year old backyard and back fence (old one blew down in a windstorm in early June) into an area that is flourishing with a lawn, colorful plants, bird baths, decor, and a patio with a furniture set that has seen many evenings and afternoons relaxing and enjoying. Aside from the back fence, we did all the work ourselves and take pride in knowing that God gave us strength and resources to accomplish the task.

#5 -- DEVELOPING A HOME OFFICE: Being that business travel was no more, I took the initiative to remodel a 9'x9' back room that served 3 generations of both our families and converted into a state-of-the art executive office complete with a docking station for my company laptop as well as 2 large flat screen monitors (looks like I'm in a cockpit!) Add to that a new-to-me executive desk chair, L-shaped desk, bookcases, and personal decor, the cost to convert this room was close to $300. Grateful that we had unused paint in the garage and material needed to avoid any travel to the home improvement store.

#6 -- MY WIFE THE AUTHOR AND BLOGGER: One of the best blessings I thank God for daily is that I married above my station to a woman of such beauty and talent. During this time of pandemic, she has picked up a novel she started writing approximately 30 years ago and is up to 58,000 words (45,000 of those this year.) Not only that, she transcribed all her handwritten poetry and song lyrics from her childhood years onward to Word format, which accounted for 32,000 additional words. She has taken part in various writing guilds, Zoom meetings with other lady authors, built her social media brand, and started one of the richest blogs I have ever experienced. You can find her at kacirigney.com and interact with her writings and videos. The biggest gift of all was when she wrote me a song on Christmas Day to commemorate how God has blessed us in the midst of this pandemic, even though we couldn't be with our daughters and grandkids.

#7 -- MY WIFE'S HOME OFFICE & STUDIO: What's truly ironic with this milestone is that this new home office and studio was once my wife's bedroom when she was a child. What she has now is a beautiful antique desk with a new leather chair (similar in look and fabric to our SUV that we spent $4,000 on this year), new area rug, wall to wall cabinetry, her 88-keys digital keyboard, percussion instruments, 2 guitars hanging on the wall, basket of woodwinds, and close to 20 framed CD's that she starred on or appeared on plus posters of several operas she was part of when we lived in Southern Oregon. We may be shut in during this pandemic, yet we have beautiful spaces to keep us inspired.

#8 -- WATCHING OUR YOUNGEST DAUGHTER FLOURISH IN HER CAREER: After 7 years of our youngest daughter and her husband living with us, they relocated to Southern Oregon in October 2019, as she took over management of an underperforming beauty supply store (national chain.) Here she is, just shy of 30, and she takes a store that is the 6th worst performing store in the national chain and in less than a year, got this store to 1 of the top 10 stores in the country. Every time that we chatted with her over video chat or text, we heard about her tremendous successes. In addition, we are grateful to God that He blessed both of them with a residence of their own and a place that she, her husband, and their 2 dogs are finding peace and happiness.

#9 -- PURGING STUFF: My wife put out the "calendar challenge" of clearing out unwanted items in our household. While this is our 2021 resolution to declutter and purge those items that either don't bring us joy anymore, don't fit, or just taking up space, we decided that we would get a jump start for January. What we are doing is based on the number of the calendar day. For example, if it's the 1st, we each find 1 item to purge (either trash, donate, or sell.) If it's the 10th, we each find 10 items to purge in like manner. By the end of the calendar month, we should each have set aside and rid ourselves of 496 items (between the 2 of us, that would be 992 items.) So far, I have a head start through January 6th. Challenge accepted.

#10 -- OUR FAITH IN THESE UNPRECEDENTED TIMES: Towards the end of 2019, we made the choice to leave our church of 7 years due to differences in philosophy, worship, and attitudes. The Lord put in place another ministry immediately, thanks to my wife's volunteering at Kaiser Permanente Hospital, where we met one of the hospital chaplains whom we found had a connection to the same college we went to in Southern California. His church was going through changes and we became active and avid participants in their prayer ministry and Sunday morning services. What was unique is that my wife and I were 1 of 2 white couples in the church, as the other church members were African-American. We were met with open arms, phone calls, and accepted into their congregation. We all laughed together, cried together, and prayed together for the first 2 months of this year. One thing was missing -- worship music, especially songs that we knew. While we made the difficult decision to leave, mainly due to the pandemic and the churches no longer allowing in-person services, we switched to online services and virtually attended several from around the country. Eventually, we would attend a small local Baptist church (complete with a K-12 school) that sings traditional hymns and is led by a pastor who preaches straight from the Bible and preaches the whole gospel in its truth, not watered down. We have made several friends within the congregation since we started attending a few months ago and look forward to more opportunities to praise, worship, and fellowship in our newfound church.

Through it all, you can see that we fully relied on God to get us through 2020. Even greater is that He will get us through these trials and tribulations and we will continue to give thanks to Him who loves us.