Back in 2010, I did a post about “a decade in the rearview mirror” where I summed up my life since the new millennium started.
*pause to consider I have a blog archive going back OVER A DECADE* 🤯
Anyway, since I still blog (albeit less than it used to be) I figured I could do the same summary this time.
10 years ago I had been with Markus for about 2 years and we were living together in a 3 room flat. We had a dog named Zaphod and a corn snake named Flamma. At the beginning of the year, I was still trying to get by after graduating by working odd jobs here and there.
Now, in retrospect, I can say the future got pretty eventful! 😄 Here are some highlights:
My 2010’s
2010
- Had Oggie, a Shih-Tzu belonging to a friend, living with us for a month. He was cute, but very smol and very hairy.
- Got my first job as a web developer at a local advertising agency! Best part: I’m allowed to bring my dog with me to the office!
2011
- Bought this new cool thing called an iPad. My one and only, I never bought another one.
- Travelled to Munich, Germany with work!
- Went to Sweden Rock Festival and saw Ozzy Osbourne.
- Cut my hair into a fauxhawk. Loved it at first, but I got tired of the maintenance almost immediately. And growing it out was a pain in the ass. I’ve never tried a short hairstyle since. 😂
- On July 22 a lone gunman killed 80 people, mostly kids and teenagers, in Norway. It was surreal on a whole new level. Things like that just don’t happen in Scandinavia.
- Decided to foster a cat from the local animal protection association.
2012
- Moved to a house. It’s only a rental, but still… Beats living in a 3rd floor apartment if you ask me.
- The first Hobbit movie came out. Of course I saw it ASAP.
- Proposed to Markus after 4 1/2 years together – and he said yes! 💕
- Bought my first ever smartphone: a Samsung Galaxy S2
- Got a new web developer job at a different, slightly bigger, agency.
- Visited Gotland during Medieval Week
- Discovered LOTRO and fell in love with the game
- Realised we had fostered the cat for over a year and nobody had wanted to adopt her. We decided she’s ours now. 😸
2013
- Celebrated my 30th birthday! Whoo! 🥂🎉
- Went to London for the first time.
- Started playing Guild Wars 2.
- Got my first ever tattoo. A tiny Smaug on my right arm.
- Speaking of which, the second Hobbit movie came out.
2014
- Got a Kindle. Still have it actually.
- Got a Windows Phone. I still think it was a really great phone and would love to have a Windows Phone again. Too bad the rest of the world didn’t agree and Microsoft discontinued them. 😕
- Started my witch tattoo sleeve. Turns out tattoos are addictive!
- Had a massive online identity crisis. Who and what did I want to be online? Did I even want to continue blogging?
2015
- Decided to keep blogging but change the “brand” a bit. Left my domain rockwitch.net behind and bought a new domain: imaginarykarin.com. This site is 5 years old now! 🎂
- Got an offer to come work at my friend’s startup company. Happily agreed and left the agency world behind.
- Finished my witch sleeve!
- Zaphod turned 10 and we celebrated with a cake made from cat food.
- Went to Gothenburg for the first time, and fell completely in love with the city.
- Travelled to Scotland where I got to see both the city of Edinburgh and the Highlands. 💕 If I were to leave Sweden, Scotland would be very high up on the list of countries to move to.
- The last Hobbit movie. End of another era.
2016
- Got the best Christmas gift from Markus! We spent a day out in the woods photographing wild Golden Eagles! It was magical!
- Went back to Gothenburg. This time we saw Iron Maiden live, the Book of Souls tour. 🤘
- Participated in Inktober for the first time.
2017
- Lost my job in January due to the startup being sold out. Wasn’t a huge problem tho as I soon got an offer to come work for the company who bought it. Funny how things work out. It’s remote work tho, so I’m working from home while everyone else is in Stockholm.
- Zaphod was diagnosed with cancer and was put to sleep shortly after. He died on May 26th, at 12 years old. It’s been years and I have a new dog now, but I still don’t think I’m completely over Zappo. He was special.
- 10 year anniversary with Markus. 🥰
- Markus also turned 30, so we took a weekend trip to Copenhagen to celebrate both the birthday and the anniversary.
2018
- Another trip to London. This time we did the Harry Potter Studio Tour!
- Flamma, my pet snake, died after 13 years with me.
- We got a new dog, a lab/hound mix. She was a batshit crazy puppy, but also very fun. I haven’t been bored a single day since I got her.
- GOT MARRIED! 👰❤🤵
- Travelled to Lissabon, Portugal with work. Was fun as I finally got to spend time with all the other people at the company.
2019
- Visited the Icehotel for the first time! What an epic place – and so close to home! 10 out of 10, highly recommend!
- My grandmother passed away from a stroke in January. The last of her generation in my family. 🥀
- Took my parents to a weekend trip to Stockholm. They never travel so it was a pretty big deal for them.
- Got my third tattoo, a reindeer skull om my right calf.
- Took a nose work class with the dog and am now certified to compete!
And what about the future?
To be completely honest I’m having a hard time staying positive about the future in general right now.
Trump scares me on a level I’ve never been scared of a politician before. USA is so big and powerful they affect all of us and I’m legit afraid of what might happen if he remains in power. And in both my own country and the rest of Europe there’s been a surge in more extremist right-wing polictics and general unrest for a while now.
The climate crisis is getting worse and nobody seems willing to actually DO SOMETHING. Consumers being more aware is great, but the biggest change has to happen on a much higher level. Countries and large companies, not just individuals, need to change their policies and ways of earning money but nobody wants to rock the boat.
I’ve personally been experiencing the changes up where I live over the past years. The seasons are moving and nature is acting weirder and weirder every year.
Sorry about the doom and gloom, but that’s how I feel right now.
But I know the best thing to do is stay positive, help in what small ways you can, and vote both with your actual vote and your wallet. Nobody can do everything but everybody can do something, right?
I do have some nice things I want to work towards in my personal life:
I’m considering some changes career-wise. I have a few ideas, but nothing decided yet.
I want to continue doing nose work with Runa and am currently aiming for a competition in May. Wish us luck!
Markus and I want to visit Medieval Week on Gotland again. And do a roadtrip around northern Norway. Hopefully we can do both in the not-too-distant future!
Other than that… I’ve never been much of a planner. We’ll see how things work out. 🙂
Hope everyone else had a nice holiday season, and that you’ll have a great 2020! Happy New Year!
I loved reading your post! So many great things in your last decade :) I’m giving myself a break from planning this year and I’m going more with the flow. Happy new year!
Thank you, it was quite a ride, haha!
You did quite a lot of things in the last 10 years. It is lovely to make this kind of retrospections, isn’t it?
I don’t agree with you that governments should be the primary drivers for change, but us, the consumers. We shouldn’t wait for the parliament to put a tax on meat, we can all consume less; we can buy less of everything and keep it for longer; we can also decide not to fly for a weekend away when we can take the train or our car and visit a city in the country we live in. As you said, we can vote with our wallet, as much as we vote in an election.
It is! I realised I had done so much more than I thought when I laid it all out like this 😃
Yes, I agree that consumers should absolutely do everything they can – but I don’t think that will be nearly enough. For consumers to have a significant impact we need the majority of every high-consuming country to decide to, say, stop flying altogether. Or refuse to buy anything wrapped in plastic. Or stop eating meat. And that will just take way to long. 😕 I don’t believe we have time to wait for average people to get their acts together, we need radical change. Change that can only come from those who control the laws, the market, and the major industries. Personally, I think it’s such a scam how climate change has somehow turned into exclusively a consumer problem instead of an overriding system/industry problem. Of course it’s much more complex than this, but I think you get what I mean.
I loved reminiscing with your Karin and remember so many of these blog posts, and highlights. Crazy to think I’ve been following your blog for 10 years! I’m a little jealous you got to see Ozzy Osbourne and Iron Madien live. 😍 I’m hoping to get to Download UK that this year to see the latter.
It’s fun to see it all laid out, isn’t it? And I think it’s great that we both still blog. So many has quit or gone social media only over the years, but we’re sticking with it 😁💪
Iron Maiden are amazing live so I really hope you get to go to Download! And I heard Ozzy is touring this year too. He’s coming to Stockholm this summer so he’ll definitely come to the UK too. You could see both in the same year 😃
I used to say that I wanted to just know what happens in the future, so I wouldn’t have to think about it or worry about it, but having been through the last decade, I wouldn’t have wanted to know. It’s better to just tag along and see what happens, fulfill ideas and dreams here and there meanwhile. Let’s hope 2020 is a good year. As far as I know, this might be the year when pigs start flying. It’s that unpredictable!
Life!
Also, the green hair is fab as f.
I’ve never wanted to know the future. It would be fun to know about the good stuff so you can look forward to it, but I wouldn’t want to know about anything bad happening. And the way the world is right now I REALLY don’t want to know. Hopefully, it will be more good than bad though.
And thanks, I like the green too! 😁
I love how you went through everything like this. Makes me want to write more about that kinda stuff on my blog. =3
You’ve had some hardships, but overall things look like they were good!
Hope you have a great new year!
Ohh. I remember seeing pictures of Zaphod at work with you. He seemed like a very nice dog.
I’m glad you had lots of nice adventures and other good things happened for you.