How was your 2018?

By and large, 2018 can KMA. What could be called good, is by far outshadowed by the bad.

I was hoping everyone had a great year but it’s obvious that the majority of the posts highlight a difficult 2018. Here’s wishing everyone the best year ever for 2019!! 

For myself 2018 was another year in a long line of bad years ( about 10) enough said!

Meh... 

Hmm.  I feel bad for all you bros saying you had a bad 2018.  2018 was the best on record for me.

• Went to Phoenix and Tucson with my wife and saw one of my bros from BITD, got some great grub, did some touring and met the Roadkill guys.
• Got married in April.  Was awesome
• Went on a few good camping trips.
• Sold my WRX and F250 and bought a Land Cruiser
• Viper didn't break..at all.
• Went to Ireland with the wife, first time out of the continent for me.
• Wife lost 30 lbs and I lost 50 lbs.  
• Family all in good health.
• Got a good bonus, two raises, and a promotion.  Wife got a raise and is almost at 5 years meaning she is fully vested in the pension plan at her job.
• My precious little kitty that was given 2-3 months to live due to kitty cancer is at 18 months and no issues.  Knock on wood.
• Less than 7 years left to pay on the crap shack.

2019 has a few things in the pipe.

• Mexico in the spring, camping, maybe Europe or somewhere west coast in the fall
• Keep working at my job, good year on bookings coming up and new position so hope to make some serious pesos
• Work on our house some more, would like to get the basement finished off, new service entrance, and buy a lift for my garage.
• Mrs wants to drop 20 lbs and I want to drop 30 lbs.  Keep on those reverse gainz.
• Keep hoping my precious kitty stays in good health.

In reply to Ian F :

I've got friends in Japan so I went over there on a business trip picked out a really good one and it's sitting in one of their garages. In return, One of the guys is a big US muscle guy so I help him find muscle car parts and either ship or bring them over when I make it to Asia. It's a Win-Win for both of us. 

2018 was a very bad year. 2019 will be even worse. Not really sure what to do since I am well past being stuck between a rock and a hard place. More like being trapped in hard place with a pile of rocks on top of it.

By far the worst year of my life. I lost almost everything I held dear.

But I'm rebuilding and it's going to be better than ever. 

The good:  Asked Nicole to marry me. At an airshow.  In front of a B-29. Of course she said yes. Finally got a full time job after 8 years of part time BS.

The bad: The full time job isn't working out. I'm being exploited. It took me the better part of a year to realize it. Lost my place to live. Was homeless for 2 and a half months. Living in fear of getting caught every night was...fun.

The ugly: My dad died 2 weeks before Christmas.  Nicole's dad died a week before Thanksgiving. My Grandma is currently in the hospital. Depression hit me. Hard. I thought about sticking a loaded .357 in my mouth a couple of times.

What I learned? I can finally allow someone to offer help. I have a roof over my head. Free of charge. Applied for an operating engineer job. Nicole saved my life (and she doesn't even know it. ) The thought of how sad she would be if I let the depression win was worse than the sadness itself. I learned to let it go. All of it. 

I want to say that It sucked beyond my ability to conceive of how bad life could suck.  However, compared to some of the previous posts, I'd have to say that I'm lucky.  Can't say anything more specific as I signed a non-disclosure agreement. 

stroker said:

I want to say that It sucked beyond my ability to conceive of how bad life could suck.  However, compared to some of the previous posts, I'd have to say that I'm lucky.  Can't say anything more specific as I signed a non-disclosure agreement. 

Yeah, I had to sign one of those too (work). Aren't they fun!!!

NGTD said:

stroker said:

I want to say that It sucked beyond my ability to conceive of how bad life could suck.  However, compared to some of the previous posts, I'd have to say that I'm lucky.  Can't say anything more specific as I signed a non-disclosure agreement. 

Yeah, I had to sign one of those too (work). Aren't they fun!!!

I got some money but my kids paid the price...  :(

2018 didn't bring any catastrophes to the Duke household, but it was kind of an all-round ass-chapper of a year.  No monster hurdles to overcome, but a lot of impediments thrown in the way of really enjoying it.

The good:

• I got a solid bonus this year. Apparently, I'm pretty good at my job.
• DW is still employed and looks to be that way until retirement age.
• DD#2 hasn't failed out of college and is on track to be done sometime in the first half of 2019.
• Overall health is reasonably good.
• No major vehicular accidents or failures.
• Paid off the house.
• We're in the 5 year range for retirement, and looking forward to it.

The not-so-good / bad:

• My job is not exactly what I want to be doing.  The tasks that I would like to do (and am trained for) all seem to find their way onto other desks.  Not sure if I'm not as good as I think I am at the parts I want to do, or if I'm just better than everybody else at what I'm assigned, so I get stuck doing it.  Basically, I get to do a lot of the intellectual grunt work and don't get much chance at the fun stuff.
• DW's employment seems relatively secure, but it is always vulnerable since she works for a major corporation which used to offer cradle-to-grave employment and good benefits, but which has been floundering its way through a long series of splits, mergers, acquisitions, and wholesale management upheavals.  Of course, whether these are billed as good or bad, they always seem to result in layoffs rather than hirings - and usually the people who desperately need to be fired seem to come through unscathed, while good people get the axe.  She had 3 if not 4 direct supervisors in 2018, and each time one gets canned, she needs to repeat the whole process of educating the new one about just how indispensible she really is.  After decades of laboring in obscurity in a high-stress position, she was just starting to achieve recognition with higher management... so of course that whole slate of people got fired.
• DD#2 was supposed to graduate college in the first half of 2018, so we're into extra innings in the tuition department, and she never did get the kind of financial aid that DD#1 earned.  DD#2's not a cheap kid, nor a particularly grateful one.  Not really sure how that happened.
• I've been fighting low-range high blood pressure all year, despite efforts to reduce sodium intake and lose weight.  But mid-50s age, a desk job, and complete lack of interest in excercise for its own sake all conspire against me.
• I'd really like to replace my 14-year-old TSX with something new(er) but it runs well enough, even if it did cost me $1500 to have the timing chain and related hardware replaced this year.
• We need to do a bunch of deferred maintenance, like replace the garage doors and front entry door, interior paint, refinish some wood floors, and gut-renovate both bathrooms.  All of these are going to cost money, time, attention, and inconvenience, some of it major, and some of which I just don't easily have to spare.  Plus we really aren't very happy with our town any more.
• We're in the 5 year range for retirement, at least 2 of which are going to be at the mercy of an economic bull-in-a-china-shop president.

2018 was weird.

The Bad:

- Crashed my racing car at Rd Atlanta. Costed me $3000 to fix it. 

- Was doing great at the first weekend (!) with the newly rebuilt car... until Brake Master suddenly failed. Roller her 3 times. Was pretty berkeleying bummed.

- My daily E46 330 Ci was rear ended. Insurance company gave me $0.

The Good:

- My son is growing, healthy and strong. He will turn 2 in Feb. Being a dad is the best.

- I wasn't injured in neither crashes.

- I was able to transfer pretty much e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g from the old race car to a caged shell I got cheap from a friend. It's been hard work, but the car is ready now and turned out much nicer then the old one. (Making lemonade)

- I was promoted twice. I have my own team now, which is cool.

- Sold the stricken E46 (will be a SpecE46) and scored a rough Boxster for (very) cheap. Some work and dedication turned it into the most fun DD I've ever had. Love it. All in all, it just costed me $500 and ~70 working hours. (Making lemonade 2.0)

Truth be told, I had a really E36 M3ty year with some ups.  Baltimore girl dumped me hardcore after 15 months of a truly deep love connection and it revealed some deeply lacking facets of my emotional health.  I'm just now dating again, (code named "Biker girl") but I apprised her of my weakened condition.  Lost a good friend to a car accident.  Best friend moved to England.

She's really been the only "up" I've had aside from minor things like redoing my kitchen and guest room.