As 2019 comes to an end, it isn’t just the end of another year; it is the end of another decade. The 2010s were probably one of my biggest decades. New Year’s resolutions aren’t really anything if you don’t reflect on the previous year, and in this case, the previous decade and dissect it in order to move forward.

This blog will be a look back at my top moments (good and bad) from the 2010s and how those moments have shaped me and how I will take them into the next decade in order to make it better. While great moments are worth remembering, the bad moments are more influential on us. A lot can happen in the moments between the happy photographs. I rarely choose to photograph the bad times because they just get implanted in my brain whether or not I want them there or not. So, without further adieu, here is my look back at the last decade.

2010: Having bought a house with my now husband, and getting engaged in 2009, 2010 was the year we got married. We started planning right away in 2010 because I don’t like to stretch things out. We debated on where and how to get married. Ultimately because Autumn is my favorite season, and we both love the beach, and most of our family had not been to the east coast, let alone in the fall, we landed on Cape Cod in October. That was great but we still had to plan. We planned a beach wedding from Colorado without having anyone in Cape Cod to arrange for us. With the help of the internet, lots of phone calls to their county buildings, and more stress that should have led to a vice of some kind, we got things lined up but we had to go out to scout things and interview some Justice of the Peace officials who would be able to perform the ceremony. We took our first trip in May of 2010. We met our Justice of the Peace who had lived there her whole life, and gave us a personalized tour of the island and all of the beaches and a full rundown on the process. We liked her instantly so we were more than happy to hire her. We also spent a lot of time all over Cape Cod and Boston. Some of the time in Boston wasn’t exactly planned but if you’ve ever tried to drive around Boston without a GPS of some sort, then you’ll understand how you can get lost all too easily. It’s almost comical but not in the moment.

Having pretty much grown up in California, I never did a whale tour of any kind but dolphins orcas have long been some of my favorite mammals, but any kind of whale really would be a dream to me in the wild. When I was a kid, oceanography or marine biology were going to be my degrees to back up my acting. I wanted to train the dolphins at Sea World when I was young and naïve. Long story short, we did a whale tour and got to see 7 species of whales that day. A mother humpback whale was teaching her calf how to hunt and the calf was feeling particularly playful and kept coming up close to the boat. This was by far one of the top best moments of my life and I could almost live in that moment. It was before I had a good camera but I still was able to get a few good pictures. I was trying to really see it with my own eyes and not through a lens, and I often look back and wish I had more pictures, but so much of life happens between the photos.

Exploring Boston is such an amazing experience in American history. To actually stand where so many events you have read about throughout school, took place, is the best way to understand it and the gravity even. Boston has the Freedom Trail around the city where you can follow the red trail and stop at many different historical places and take them in. It is a great way not to get lost too. It is a city full of so much to see and do.

Our wedding took place in mid-October of 2010 and while it was chilly and windy, it was pretty beautiful all the way around. We are still grateful for the family that made it out and the memories that live with us from that time. I am very thankful we chose that beach, that day, and Cape Cod for our special day.

2011: I began the year in Pittsburgh where I visited annually up to that time. Then came San Francisco in March for the GDC as we were trying to build our video game development company and decided to go to the conference to get a feel for what we were getting ourselves in to. In June we took our first cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida to the Bahamas, then came back and stayed in Orlando. We ended up buying a timeshare in Florida and to this day remains my biggest regret. Not only was it a lot of money and headache, we never got to use it for many reasons and we just kept dumping money into it. Florida was hit with a storm at one point during our ownership and we just barely got by without having to pay repair costs too. Know all the facts before deciding if a timeshare is right for you! We also went to Chicago in October of that year for a wedding. Of course we had a trip or two to New Mexico somewhere in that year.

2012: It started with me losing a dog I had since I was 13 right after my birthday and it was a pretty devastating and unexpected loss. I didn’t plan on traveling in 2012 at the beginning of the year other than the normal New Mexico trips.

In March we adopted a new puppy for our other dog, Callie to keep her company since she was grieving hard for the loss of our other girl. We all were and a puppy needed rescuing. Enter: Dolce. A puppy that more than kept us on our toes for a couple years.

We were also going to school full time still so, funds were limited, time was limited, and emotions were raw after a loss and a change with a new puppy. We ended up not doing any traveling outside of NM in 2012 but it was fun raising a puppy that year. We also did a lot of home projects like building out our basement that year.

2013: Towards the end of 2012 we had started considering adopting another dog for Dolce as the age difference between her and our other dog was pretty great and Dolce was a hand full of energy. At the beginning of 2013 I had started considering switching my major to animal physical therapy and decided we wanted a less-than-”desirable” dog. I got in touch with a rescue in Colorado who rescued only disabled animals. We found our special needs dog and began fostering Faith in January. Knowing this would likely hamper our travel plans, we didn’t plan on traveling much in 2013. We traveled to New Mexico one final time in 2013. In June our Callie was diagnosed with lymphoma and lung cancer. We decided to move forward with chemo as we were told dogs handle chemo very differently than people and there was still a good chance we could send her in to remission. we were able to get her lymphoma into remission but not the lung cancer. 2013 wrecked me. Every time she coughed (there was usually blood), I would have a mini anxiety attack that I was making her suffer. She had so much life in her still and she always felt so great after her chemo. We continued down the chemo path for a couple months. I realize that is controversial but please don’t assume you know what you would do in a situation like that. Putting her to sleep right away would have been a waste of life. She lived 8 months after diagnosis and I do not regret the chemo a bit right now. It alleviated some of her discomfort until just before her next treatment and she was still so playful for months. I tried to make her remaining months good for her. I spoiled her a lot. I tried many avenues including holistic treatments as well. I cannot say what helped for sure but she wasn’t ready for me to put her down yet but knowing it was coming and having to watch her closely kept me in fear most of the year.

Also in June I lost my grandfather. A person I had been very close to. It wasn’t totally unexpected but coupled with the cancer diagnosis of my beloved dog, my foundation was rocked. It became harder and harder to make it through the days that year.

By November I had almost completely shut down. I decided to leave my job because working with people who made it extremely difficult was just contributing to my emotional deterioration. I also quit school as I watched the loans get higher and higher and realized my paychecks would not get higher with that Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting unless I continued on to CPA. I was maxed in all ways a person can be maxed that year, and all I did until the new year was survive. 2013 was a year where I survived and that is what I have to say about it.

2014: I started back down my acting path in 2014 because I needed to process my emotions and up to that point in my life, acting has always been my release for that. I have experienced almost every emotion known to man in my life, and acting has always been my coping mechanism and I was good at it because I know the emotions very intimately and I can draw on them easily. Although happiness was becoming less and less familiar. In January, my husband bought me a new round of headshots for Christmas and I started there and I knew I had to justify the cost of those so I convinced myself to put them to use that year.

In February, also right after my birthday, it was time to say goodbye to my beloved Callie. The lymphoma had come back and she was starting to shut down. She didn’t even enjoy her walks or treats. I couldn’t let her get to a point of suffering. So one day after the second anniversary of losing my first dog, we let her go. I had some peace knowing she didn’t have to suffer but losing her left a void in all of our lives. Our puppy was now a year old and it devastated her. She was grieving, and we grieved as a family.

In April, we finally took a trip we had been planning for 4 years but with the last two years, just couldn’t be done before that point. We flew to Iceland first, then on to London, then traveled to Edinburgh, and Paris. It was the honeymoon we talked about taking. We had wanted to for so many years. It was the first time I felt like I smiled in over a year.

In August we took a road trip from Colorado to California to see friends and went through Utah and Nevada, and when we came back we went down through Arizona to see the Grand Canyon, and back up through Utah. A trip I have done many times in my life but we got to do it together. We had our not-so-puppy anymore, puppy, Dolce with us and of course we took her to see the beach and took her to the Grand Canyon with us. I loved having her with us. We didn’t think it would be a good trip for our special needs girl, but she got a nice visit at her favorite daycare where she gets spoiled all the time.

I had also been working that year on my acting. I made a trip to an audition for a role on a TV show that shall remain nameless for now to LA in September and signed up with an agency in Los Angeles. Also in September I flew to Shreveport, Louisiana for an audition for a part in a movie. I did not go back to LA that year but I ended up getting a part in the movie in Shreveport and flew down in December for filming.

In October of that year our special needs dog, Faith began having seizures for the first time. We almost lost her before we learned that her seizures come from fevers. Due to the shape of her body, she is prone to UTIs and we have since learned that every seizure she has is our first indicator that she has a UTI and once we get her on antibiotics, she doesn’t have any more seizures. If you are keeping up though, we are now in the third year in a row that we almost lost another dog and I was devastated. I am very thankful she is a fighter and pulled through all of that.

Also in October, I began working for one of my former bosses back in Accounting. We were working for an environmental company now. The job was 45 miles one way from home though. It was not an easy drive and I was spending quite a lot of time on the road just going to and from work.

The year ended with me shooting a part in a movie and even getting to be the “expert” on set because I had been on set before and I had acted before and many of the people filming with me had not. Some had though and were very familiar with this casting crew and the agency I was working with, so I got to learn a lot from them. I met some great people. I still get casting calls from them but I have not acted in a couple years now.

2015: At the beginning of the year, I working with people I thought I liked and things were mostly good. I was determined to have a better year. I was eating better, working out, and making good money even though my commute was wearing on me a lot. I knew we had to take a good trip that year.

In April of that year I applied, got accepted, and began school for animal behavior- specifically dog training. I decided to leave accounting and begin working with dogs. I had volunteered with rescues over the years and thought I would like to pursue a new career. Also in April, we took a family trip to Boise, Idaho with my husband’s family.

In May we went down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for my husband’s birthday. We had a good time but right before we left, we started house hunting. We found new builds and the night before we left we had met with the sales person to go over the models. Most of our trip we were discussing which house we liked and whether or not we could make the payment work. However, we managed to do some fun things. We got to swim with the dolphins and we got to jet ski and just have a vacation where we mostly relaxed.

Once we got back, we made a decision on a house and we signed the contract. Thus began the building of our home. We were moving out of a townhouse and we were so excited to have a bigger place for our dogs and a yard. I had started looking at getting another dog for our not-so-puppy anymore, puppy to run and play with. We were outgrowing a townhouse for those reasons.

In August, we came across a dog we thought about adopting, after finding many that got adopted before we could adopt them. We went up to look at this dog and it didn’t work out because he didn’t like our not-so-puppy, Dolce. These people brought an older puppy back because he tried to eat a rock in the parking lot and took the dog I was there to look at right in front of me while I waited in line. While I waited for them to return him with a decision, I noticed the older puppy they returned and after watching him for a while, I had kind of already fallen in love with him. The shelter he came out of said he was a Great Dane mix but I knew right away he was likely a pit-mix. He was in his crate and stepped in his water bowl and spilled all over himself and looked so sad about it and just wanted out of his cage. I decided to take him out to see if he and Dolce got along. Come to find out, they had met while I was in line. They got along. I applied to foster to adopt him. Enter: Jax. They snuggled on the road home. I knew we would just adopt him but wanted to make sure. It wasn’t ideal bringing a younger dog home before we were in our house and right before we actually moved but he handled it like a champ.

That year was spent around the building of our home. We were up every weekend and some evenings checking on the progress of our home. Also, dealing with mortgage lenders was a bit of a headache. Originally we were supposed to move in in November and we ended up being delayed until December. We had to sell our townhouse and live out of a long-term hotel for a week or so but my husband’s parents were kind enough to open their home to us while we waited.

We moved in in December and at the end of December I left my job to start my own dog training business after finishing school for it.

2016 began by us setting up our new house, and getting used to a new dog and trying to get him potty trained, and really just trained. I worked to finish school for training which concluded with me training at one of the local Humane Societies. Although I would have loved to work with the dogs in the shelter part of the Humane Society, I actually was teaching classes to anyone who signed up for their training program. It was hard not to just want to play with all the puppies that came through.

In July we decided to fly into San Jose, California to check out my husband’s office there, and drive down PCH to San Diego. We had a great drive and it was beautiful. We loved that trip and it was a great getaway that was so needed.

I also had begun my dog training business on my own and I would travel to their homes throughout most of 2016. I met some cool people and great dogs that I loved. I got to work with dogs through the rescues I had volunteered with. I started having a hard time because I was learning how to run my own business and also I was just not feeling like training people and dogs was a great fit for me.

I had also started experiencing some health problems around the beginning of 2016 and I started going for treatments. My thyroid was acting up, my blood sugar was skyrocketing, and my anxiety and depression were out of control. I saw a specialist who helped me stabilize but it took too long to realize what was going on so I suffered for months before we found out what was going on. I started feeling much better after my treatments. I also had to work on my diet and did an elimination diet to find out if I was reacting to foods specifically and checking to see my gluten tolerance levels. Everything helped me feel much better.

2017 In January I joined a search and rescue team in Southern Colorado when a rescue vehicle that was transporting dogs from a high kill shelter to various rescues in Colorado, was involved in a fatal accident. We were able to successfully recover all four dogs that had escaped the car and were lost in below freezing temperatures for weeks. That rescue definitely took a village but it was incredible to meet people from all over Colorado who came together to rescue dogs. Those are my kinds of people.

In March I did a music video shoot, but I was starting to move away from acting. I was more involved in dog rescue that year. Tens of thousands of animals are euthanized every day due to overcrowded shelters and one puppy was brought to my attention and I joined a mission to pull him from the shelter before he was euthanized. I try to always save them when I can but this situation caught me at the right time. I joined with a new rescue and while that puppy was saved, his siblings were left behind to die in the shelter. I agreed to foster one of them and worked to try to help find fosters for the others. We agreed to the foster in March.

In April we began fostering a dog who was almost twice the size of all of our other dogs and his age was very confused. No one knew breeds, backstory, nor ages. What we did know was the dogs all had a police hold on them in the shelter and as soon as that was lifted, they were put on the kill list. When he came he was underweight, and smelled awful. Him and his siblings were scared of everything. He was very sweet but did not like being locked up anywhere. We ended up adopting him for a bit a couple weeks after we began fostering him. Right after adoption he got in a fight with Dolce. We worked with him after that. Then a little while after that he went after Jax. We intensified training with him and enforced separation of them, and things seemed to smooth out a lot.

In July we went to California again but this time we went to Catalina Island for a weekend or so just to get away. We engaged in a lot of the local tourist activities including zip lining, and snuba diving. We had a nice relaxing time.

I dissolved my dog training business that year as it just didn’t work out.

At the end of August, we took a road trip up to South Dakota with 3 dogs. It was a quick trip but we still had a mostly good time getting away. That was our last trip for about a year and a half or more.

In December we took a family trip with my husband’s family to Boise. It was not for a happy reason this time. The weather was cold but we got to see a lot of Idaho that I did not expect to look the way it did. It was cool getting to see an unexpected side of Idaho.

2018 was another rough year. It began with searching for another lost dog along with a search and rescue team, and yes, recovering the dog in good health after a week or so. There were lots of struggles with friends and what they were going through, more loss and tragedy, and in April of that year, our foster failure went after Jax much more intensely. He almost killed him and Jax couldn’t even fight back. We finally were able to get them separated right before the end. Knowing dogs, I knew it wasn’t even the foster’s fault but something set him off. He couldn’t live with dogs anymore after that. I contacted the rescue multiple ways, multiple times, and after they failed to respond to me in any fashion, we sent the foster to a training/rehab program to keep him away from our house while Jax recovered. We knew they could never be together in the same house again. We worked tirelessly to find the foster a better home that didn’t have another dog. One finally worked out. He is spoiled with his new owner to this day, and Jax made a full recovery that ended up taking months, lots of stitches, surgeries, and training to rehabilitate him. He has always been such a happy dog and he never fought with any other dog before that, nor did he show any signs of not liking another dog. He is happy again but I am much more leery about letting him around just any other dog now.

By the end of the year, we were recovering financially. We also were still recovering mentally, and emotionally after everything that happened that year. It was a developmental year though. The kind of year where you assess who is good for you and who is not.

I had begun a travel school earlier in the year and finished it in a couple months. The plan was to start my own travel agency. I didn’t exactly know all of the specifics or how to tie them together but I had as much of a plan as I could.

2019 has been a follow up to 2018. It has not been a bad year but it is reinforcing the lessons from 2018. I started working for the travel agency that is owned by a lady I considered a bit of a friend for a long time. In March, we were hit by a severe storm and long story short, I ended up in a car accident after I left work and was almost home. I thought my car was totaled but it came in just under the total amount. Unfortunately, I reactivated an old neck injury I had since I was a kid. A vertebrae at the base of my skull was knocked out of place when I was in an accident as a kid and I have struggled with migraines ever since. The accident in March, further pushed that vertebrae out of place and I struggle with debilitating headaches now and lightheadedness as a result.

In May we had planned our trip to Germany, Switzerland, and Brussels. We ended up road tripping all over that area of Europe. We got to see some great stuff but our trip was interrupted when someone took our suitcase off the carousel in Brussels and we ended up spending almost a week chasing the bag down because they didn’t deliver the bag to us nor did they have contact information for the bag delivery service. We ended up missing out on some important sightseeing but just being in those places was still amazing. Thankfully we had travel insurance because we were reimbursed for our inconvenience. I got to see Neuschwanstein Castle which has been a bucket list photo op of mine for a very long time. As well as Switzerland just being its amazing self. We were ready to get home after all of that but it was all in all, an amazing trip. It also got me started on my travel blog that I had talked about for years but had yet to start. We got to connect with great friends in Germany and got good tours of a couple places.

I began multiple chiropractor visits right after my accident due to multiple injuries, as well as dealing with tonsil stones, the flu, sinus infections over and over, and fibroids/possibly endometriosis. So, it has been a year of trying to heal.

In October for our anniversary this year, we took a trip to Los Angeles to go to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. It was as awesome as we expected it to be. We spent a little time in LA but we came home after a short but sweet visit. It was nice just being back in LA though.

Here we are at the end of the year now and unpacking a decade of lessons, some triumphs, loss, lots of exploration, some travel, and reminders of how important it is to marry your best friend because life will test every part of you and break you down to a point you don’t feel you have anything left. It will also build you up and show you parts of yourself you didn’t know existed. If you don’t have the right people by your side in all the ways people stand by your side, all of it will be so much more difficult. The people you let occupy your soul will have a huge affect on your outcome whether you realize it or not. I won’t go into my resolutions here because I want to focus on those without explaining them. However, the key takeaways from this past decade are:

Choose the right friends, and partners
Make travel budgets but don’t get so carried away you talk yourself out of going. Just go sometimes because it’s too easy to find reasons not to if you wait for money
Have a travel bucket list and make yourself go. The world is changing as we know it and nothing is guaranteed. We are losing islands to natural disasters, landmarks due to fires, floods, earthquakes, and so on. Now is the time to see the world if you want to.
Study places as much as possible before you go
Leave your comfort zone
If someone is asking you for money, there is probably a reason. Weigh your budget heavily and don’t loan people anything unless you are okay being out the amount of money they need
If a salesperson won’t let you think on purchases before buying in, they’re likely scamming you or at least not offering you a great deal. ALWAYS take a night to think about big purchases (big is relative to your budget)
Try not to work with friends or family unless you’re certain you work well together. Just like loaning money, friends/family, and business often do not mix
Don’t take a job just because it’s money, and don’t keep a job just because it is an income. Try to find something you’re passionate about and if you can find passion working for someone else, do it!
There are several things you can do every day to help the environment and give back. Carrying a reusable water bottle and not buying plastic bottles is one. Choosing not to use plastic straws, nor single use plastics are good examples. It doesn’t have to be big things. Be mindful and find out how you can be better.
If someone lies to you about little things, they’re probably lying about big things to your face
Life has a very different meaning to different people around the world
Be open to other cultures but don’t sacrifice your morals. You can embrace other cultures without doing, or not doing something that you are not okay with.
Standing up for yourself is not being rude
You determine your environment! You don’t have to remain in toxic situations for any reason
You are more in control of how you react than you realize. It’s okay to feel negative emotions but how you express those emotions is up to you
Drink more water! Even if you think you drink a lot. Just drink a little more anyways.
Eat lots of fruits and vegetables
Moderation is key
Travel is crucial. If you don’t think you like to travel, travel anyways. Not only leaving your comfort zone, but experiencing other things than your surroundings is vital to human kind.
Leave your comfort zone!
Take the path of most resistance sometimes. More often than not in my life, that leap of faith led me to such amazing things
If something seems too good to be true, it more than likely is
Be present. Having anxiety and depression, this is something I struggle with a lot. However, I make the conscious effort to always try to be present and I feel like it has opened my eyes to so much more. Not only is it good for me, it is good for the people I am around to feel like they’re worth my time (which they are, of course, but at times I really struggled in the past with the anxiety making me feel like I needed to always be multitasking)
Look at maps before leaving and don’t just rely on a gps to advise you were you are going solely
Have a backup plan at all times and also have an emergency plan and kit
Have a savings account, even if you feel like you can’t contribute to it much, try to have one month’s worth of bills or more
Gifts of experiences usually mean more than material gifts
Ego gets in the way when you let it. Keep your ego in check. Ask yourself if you are reacting out of ego, or from the heart before unpacking an emotion
You don’t owe anyone an explanation, ever. It is up to you if you give one but you never owe it to anyone else.
Check in on yourself and your loved ones - especially on your health. Is there a cough that has lasted too long? Do you have abnormal swelling? Are you feeling more tired than usual? Anything out of the norm could be an indicator of something bigger. Don’t become a hypochondriac but don't ignore something until you it becomes more serious. Many serious illnesses don’t show signs until it is too late.
Ten years goes faster than you think. Life is short.

I could go on and on but those are the most important lessons I learned from the 2010s. Thank you for coming along on this journey that has been ten years in the making.

2010