2023 in review
Well, well. If it isn't the consequences of my own actions.
Okay, yes. This is getting posted woefully late after the end of 2023; and yes, I should have posted it much sooner. But my defense is that I kept delaying it because I wanted to do other things. Understandable, right? (Also because 2023 was a big year and 2024's been no slouch, so I feel like I have a couple of good reasons to have procrastinated. After all, it's not like I didn't publish something in the past few months...)
Anyway. 2023 was a banner year at the Greer family, and I'm here to tell you all about it.
Major Accomplishments and Events
- Declan is, impossibly, more charming than ever before. His fourth year saw him make friends, start going to school, start learning his letters and some basic math, develop an incredible sense of humor and sweetness to him, and learn to express himself in ways that are poignant and funny and overwhelming and frankly probably well-deserved after the kind of child I'm told I was. In short, he's the best boy in the world.
- But let's not forget the best baby in the world: little Finnegan Wilderness, who at this point isn't so little anymore. The kid was born, grew some teeth, and learned how to walk last year. Insane.
- Sarah lost a bunch of weight early in the year (ha) and proved to be as good a mother of two as she has been of one. My life with Sarah in 2023 was as wonderful as ever: full of adventures, special moments, lots of time and conversations and shared experiences, and a lot of peace and happiness.
- Work went well for the first 4 months of the year, at which point I was forcibly transitioned into a new role. That part was actually okay, I liked the new responsibilities and the slight pay bump. The second 4 months saw some bonus projects start to dry up, straining our income a bit. And in the final 4 months I started looking at new opportunities because that trend continued even further. Ah, hindsight. But, for my last full year working at Hudson: I was very grateful for the job, I generally enjoyed my time there, and it afforded us a lot of time and means to accomplish what we wanted to as a family.
- I did a bunch of freelance editing and actually expanded that a bit, which was cool. Still something I love doing.
- I spent lots of time with family and friends here in Utah.
- I continued strength training and running, though I didn't compete. I got lots stronger, as evidenced by the following:
- 300-pound push press (this is probably the strongest, coolest, and most impressive thing I've ever done in the weightroom, for what it's worth)
- 185 x 20, 315 x 2 bench press
- 315-pound front squat
- 435 x 2 squat
- 151 barbell curls (Poundstone style)
- Writing went really well in 2023:
- I wrote 176,179 words.
- I completed the first draft of a novel called Bearchild, which is probably the best thing I've ever written.
- I also wrote a couple of short stories and started a middle-grade fantasy novel called Frostlands, which is a spiritual successor to my previous work The Blackberry Witch.
- I wrote a novella and about the first quarter of novel #3 in The Garden Knight series, which I have a hunch will become a lot more relevant in next year's year-in-review post.
- I worked on revisions, editing, brainstorming, outlining, and writing for a collective total of 172 hours throughout the year. Not too bad.
- I continued cooking/baking, spending time outside, studying Welsh, and pursing other interests and hobbies.
- I tried a few fun new foods, including fresh huckleberries, yak, and elk and boar jerkies.
- I prepared a bunch of new recipes and visited various new restaurants in the Salt Lake area that I really enjoyed.
Monthly Highlights
Under each month I've included a selection of pictures. Most of them are of Declan and Finnegan, but I think I'm doing a little better at including Sarah and myself in a few pictures now and then.
January
Declan turned 3! We took him to a Monster Truck Rally to celebrate; he loved it. He also got to go explore the Daniel Tiger exhibit at Thanksgiving Point—Declan rightfully takes a lot of pride in being from Pittsburgh just like Mr. Rogers, so this was cool. We had a good time with family and enjoying the winter weather. Declan started learning how to play videogames—throughout the year he consistently progressed to be able to beat several Mario levels without help, navigate through Paw Patrol puzzles, not get last place in Mario Kart, and destroy entire Bokoblin camps with ferocious glee.
In February we continued to play with Declan and explore Salt Lake. I attended LTUE with Derek and Dillon, two friends from my writing group. It snowed a lot, we celebrated Valentine's Day, and we made some fancy food. I also bought a PS5 and started playing Elden Ring and Valkyrie Elysium.
March
In March we celebrated Sarah's 30th birthday! We did a fancy charcuterie board and her favorite chocolate cake from Whole Foods. Declan and I spent a lot of time at the library and learning how to ride his bike. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at the Irish festival down at the Gateway with our friends. With Gabbie I went to see Eluveitie play, which was a real treat! Oh yeah, and we welcomed a little knucklehead to the family.
April was spent getting to know Finn and spending more time outside. Declan and I got really into going to the movies together, something we both enjoy a lot. Declan spent a lot of time dressing up as Puss in Boots and swordfighting, adventuring, and pretending. We also enjoyed our yearly pass to the Tracy Aviary; the hornbills and the Dole whip were particular favorites (though I was less fond of Declan frequently trying to run away). We celebrated Easter, played some D&D, saw the Super Mario Bros. movie, spent time with family, and helped Finn explore the world.
In May we went to the State Fair and Cross E Ranch. Declan caught a butterfly. Finn and I went on walks to the Capitol. We enjoyed good weather and lots of time with family and friends.
June
June was filled with Scottish festivals, my 33rd birthday, our 8th anniversary, and even more time outside and with family & friends. We celebrated Miranda's birthday at Celeste, where she was favored with a lovely birthday song in Italian; sadly, they closed up shortly thereafter, so eventually that one fantastic meal is going to become mythic in my memory. We played at splash pads and ate snowcones. We attended Sarah's outdoor concert in Taylorsville and had a blast with extended family.
In July not a ton happened. We enjoyed the summer and swam a lot and ate more snowcones, probably?
(That's verbatim what I wrote for 2022. Guess it holds true.)
Oh, we also picked a lot of blackberries and redcurrants from the Provo house. Like, 40 pounds' worth. That might have been in May or June. It doesn't matter, because we ate the dozens of pies that Sarah made too quickly to take any photos.
In August we had an Allred retreat, played with lots of friends, and spent, believe it or not, even more time outside. We hiked Ensign Peak as a family, which was a lot of fun. I attended a Band-Maid concert, which was incredible, not the least because getting to see a Japanese rock band in the States is quite rare. That was a super fun show. I took the boys to a bagpiping festival in Bountiful. I also went with my dad and sisters to see Foreigner and Loverboy, which was another great concert. Declan started Pre-K 3 at Washington Elementary, which he loved!
September
In September the boys continued to be the best of friends and play together all the time. We did lots of skeleton dances and went to the Fairpark again. We celebrated Mabon with friends and I ran (slowly) up to Ensign Peak. Sarah and I went out for ramen.
October
At the end of September and into October, I took Declan on a surprise trip to Disneyland! We had an absolute blast. We went with Miranda, Gabbie, and Brooke, and it was a perfect trip for the little dude. I won't post but a fraction of the photos, but as a summary—Jack Skellington tickled his belly, Jafar scared him, and he sang a song with Elsa; he dominated the Spider-Man ride and generally just loved every minute of it; he adored Pirates of the Caribbean and demanded to ride it like five times in a row; he went to the beach and expressed primal fear, rage, terror, dread, conquest, and excitement, all within moments; he ate well, slept well, walked miles upon miles, made friends, and was a great travel companion.
We also spent October visiting family and friends, going to Cross E Ranch, and dressing up for Halloween.
November
After a busy month, we used November to just settle in, cozy up, and relax. Declan got really into the Ninja Turtles. Finn crawled everywhere and decided Misha is his best friend. Also black beans. We had a really nice Thanksgiving and even got some snow.
December
Finally, in December we played in the snow, went to Christmas festivals, saw Santa, watched movies, and celebrated Christmas and New Year's with family and friends.
Media Recap
And now the other fun stuff from 2023. Below you'll find writeups on the different types of media I enjoyed, including a few links where applicable.
Music
I listened to 277 new-to-me albums in 2023 (236 of them released in 2023—it was a wild year for new music). As ever, narrowing the list down has proven very challenging. I'll say this upfront—for every album that made the list, there were three more that were super close, so if you want any recommendations, hit me up, I've got a bunch for every genre I listen to.
Not all of these were perfect scores for me—I'm crafting this list based on my enjoyment as well as the staying power of the album. But it's safe to say that all these albums are at least a 9/10 in my book. Behold: my top 50 2023 releases. Unfortunately, I haven't the time to do writeups on all of them, but they are roughly in order and I've written a few words here and there.
1. Maisie Peters - The Good Witch: This lengthy album is full of pure, shimmery, synthy, emotive, evocative pop perfection. Every track is a standout, but "The Last One" has proven incredibly meaningful to me and has instantly jumped into my favorite-songs-of-all-time list.
2. Story of the Year - Tear Me To Pieces: SOTY is a band I've loved since I was 13, and this is a throwback album that takes their signature sound, riffs on it, explores it, and relishes in its power. Pitch-perfect pop-punk/screamo with just the right blend of nostalgia and novelty. The song "2005" is phenomenal in that regard.
3. Screaming Orphans - Paper Daisies: This is another traditional collection from one of my favorite Irish pop-rock family bands (I have several, yes). One big thing I miss about Pittsburgh is the annual Irish Festival, where I had the chance to see Screaming Orphans perform half a dozen times. This is a great collection of folk songs, highly recommended.
4. Misterwives - Nosebleeds: I've enjoyed Misterwives since their first EP, and I've been really impressed with how they've continually refined and developed their sound in each release. This album is their best yet - laden with pop/rock gems, powerful vocals, and a lot of interesting instrumentation and melodies. "Broken Glass" helped me through a tough time early on in the year, but the whole album is great all the way through.
5. Boys Like Girls - Sunday at Foxwoods: Boy, I did not see this one coming. BLG was a favorite band when I was a teenager, but their first album has always been the best in my mind; Martin Johnson's solo stuff has leaned more into synthwave, which I quite enjoy, and he's had writing credits on a lot of big songs for other artists, but I kind of figured their debut would always be head and shoulders above the rest. Not so: this album gives it a run for its money. Just throw on the first track or two and you'll see what I mean. Excellent modern synthwave-pop-punk-rock.
6. Angharad Jenkins and Patrick Rimes - amrwd: This Welsh duo has put together a really powerful collection of folk tunes. When I first heard it, I played it on repeat for days.
7. blink-182 - ONE MORE TIME...: I've enjoyed everything blink has put out, but this was a pretty special release with Tom back and a lot of killer energy in the mix. Really great pop-punk here with a lot of catchy, classic melodies.
8. Ad Infinitum - Chapter III: Downfall: Melissa Bonny can do no wrong. I've loved her voice since her Sleeping Romance days. Her work with Ad Infinitum, and this album in particular, is her best yet. This is a powerful symphonic metal record with one of the best vocalists in the genre.
9. Myrkur - Spine: Myrkur is kind of an interesting artist in that her releases range from black metal to folk to instrumental soundtrack to some kind of hybrid of the three. This release is much more traditional/folk-inspired, and I particularly enjoy "Menneskebarn."
10. Lyrre - Not All Who Dream Are Asleep: I ordered a really nice vinyl edition of this record because it just sounds so rich and layered. It's symphonic metal album with haunting vocals and a prominent hurdy-gurdy.
11. The Dark Side of the Moon - The Dark Side of the Moon: The cover of "May It Be" is incredible.
12. Temperance - Hermitage: Daruma's Eyes Pt. 2
13. Oryad - Sacred & Profane: I love how much weirdness this band is putting into their operatic doom metal.
14. Moyka - Movies, Cars, & Heartbreak
15. Blackbriar - A Dark Euphony: Probably the best gothic/symphonic metal band working in this soundscape currently.
16. Feuerschwanz - Fegefeuer
17. The Aces - I've Loved You For So Long: Their best yet, I think.
18. Ava Max - Diamonds & Dancefloors
19. Delain - Dark Waters
20. Xandria - The Wonders Still Awaiting
21. Fall Out Boy - So Much (For) Stardust: Great synthesis of their old and new sounds, I thought.
22. Kamelot - The Awakening
23. An Ancient Legend, Long Forgotten - Myth
24. The Gaslight Anthem - History Books
25. A Story Told - Mundane Magic
26. Origami Angel - The Brightest Days: These guys are endlessly inventive with each new album; I love it.
27. Rose of the West - No Things Permanent
28. Annalisa - E Poi Siamo Finiti Nel Vortice
29. Trobar de Morte - Carpe Noctem
30. Vallis Alps - Cleave
31. Rozen - Ballad of Hyrule Piano Reflections
32. Mari Hamada - Soar
33. M83 - Fantasy
34. Crown the Empire - DOGMA: This one came out of nowhere for me and I ended up just loving it.
35. FRND CRCL - Suburban Dictionary
36. The Band Camino - The Dark
37. FLOW - Voy✩✩✩: I've liked FLOW since Code Geass days; "United Sparrows" is a banger.
38. Meet Me @ The Altar - Past // Present // Future
39. joan - superglue
40. Serenity - Nemesis AD
41. Mechina - Cenotaph
42. Emarosa - Sting: Another big surprise favorite for me!
43. Cruachan - The Living and the Dead
44. You Me At Six - Truth Decay
45. All Time Low - Tell Me I'm Alive
46. Broadside - Hotel Bleu
47. Solarcycles - Lunar
48. Owl City - Coco Moon
49. Crime in Stereo - House & Trance: This would shoot up the list if I'd had more time with it, I'm sure.
50. Tiny Deaths - Spirit of the Staircase
And now for a few addenda.
First, some honorable mentions. Live albums from Visions of Atlantis, Gordon Lightfoot, and Seven Spires were excluded, though they were all great. Similarly, Rozen had two additional albums this year and Myrkur had one, so I went with my favorite for each artist. And Busted put out a Greatest Hits 2.0 with some really excellent rerecorded versions and guest features, but ultimately, I felt that I should leave it off the main list.
There were quite a few narrow misses this year. Generally they're from bands that I really like that put out albums that exactly match what I want from them, but aren't bold or novel or truly outstanding enough to compete with the others (Beyond the Black, Babymetal, Ignea, Eleine, Metric, Dark Sarah, Therion, Waterparks, a few others). Some others are albums that I recognize are really great but I just didn't click with yet (Paramore, Beyond God, Conquer Divide) or albums that I only had a chance to listen to once or twice (Carly Rae Jepsen, The Last Retinue, Memoir Sonata, Muses); if I redo this list in a year, I'll probably have given these records more time and rank them much higher.
I often do a list of top EPs, since I treat those differently than LPs. There were a lot of EPs I liked, but honestly I haven't spent enough time with most of them to be able to rank them, so I'll just highlight the following as worth checking out: Yellowcard, Vengeant, Emetropia, Annalisa, Shattered Vessels, 408, Halflives, Sigrid, and Artemis & Apollo all put out worthy EPs in 2023.
Finally, a bit of a retrospective. Here are a few albums from prior years that I listened to for the first time and that really resonated with me in 2023:
- Seraphic - Chrysalis
- Theophany - Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Vol. 1
- Theophany - Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Vol. 2
- Passcode - Reverberate EP
- Octavia Grace - Radiant
- Adrian von Ziegler - Equinox
- Fauness - Maiden No More EP (the song "Dragonfly" is incredible, and one of Declan's favorites as well)
- Project MSK - Haunted Castle
- Electric Callboy - Tekkno ("Pump It" is a gym staple; the whole album is, really)
- Veronica Maggio - Och som vanligt händer det något hemskt (not sure how I missed this in 2022; it's fantastic and would have topped the list for me)
- Oh Wonder - 22 Break (same with both of these Oh Wonder albums. Absolutely incredible)
- Oh Wonder - 22 Make
In total, I watched 125 films in 2023. Of those, fully 71 were rewatches (which honestly surprises me a little, but I did watch a bunch of movies multiple times), 51 were 2023 releases, and 53 were in theaters. Overall, that's more films watched than 2022, but fewer new-to-me films and fewer unique new releases (therefore a lot of rewatches). Given Declan's propensity for watching his favorite movies over and over, I guess it makes sense!
My favorite 2023 movies (in order):
1. Godzilla Minus One
2. Elemental
3. The Boy and the Heron
4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1
5. Wish
6. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
7. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
8. Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
10. John Wick: Chapter 4
11. The Wandering Earth II
12. Barbie
13. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
14. The Marvels
15. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
16. Asteroid City
17. The Creator
(Why 17? Because I couldn't narrow it down any further. I highly recommend all of these films.)
Also, honorable mention to Once Upon A Studio, which was a fantastic short.
Worth noting that I watched Elemental 4 times, TMNT 4 times, Super Mario Bros. 3 times, and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish 12 times in 2023. (It's that good.)
My favorite pre-2023 new-to-me films I watched were: Dark Passage, Burn After Reading, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Long Kiss Goodnight, the John Wick movies, Outside the Law, The Big Sleep, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Goldfinger, Suzume, Sing Street, and Thunderball.
Books
I read 104 books in 2023: 68 novels/novellas and 36 comics/manga/other. I read 17 2023 releases (12 novels, 5 comics), but rather than just trying to rank those, here are my top 17 favorite novels that I read this year (again, just going with 17 for arbitrary reasons):
1. Silver on the Tree - Susan Cooper
2. Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr
3. The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
4. O Caledonia - Espeth Barker
5. Of Blood and Fire - Ryan Cahill
6. Rhythm of War - Brandon Sanderson
7. The Cradle of Ice - James Rollins
8. The Will of the Many - James Islington
9. The Burrowers Beneath - Brian Lumley
10. The Magical History of Britain - Martin Wall
11. Three Hearts & Three Lions - Poul Anderson
12. The Riders of the Sidhe - Kenneth C. Flint
13. Numbers in the Dark - Italo Calvino
14. The Flight of the Golden Bird - Duncan Williamson
15. Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson
16. The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories - H.P. Lovecraft
17. The Little Village of Book Lovers - Nina George
Worth noting that I also read additional stories by Ryan Cahill, Brian Lumley, Brandon Sanderson, and H.P. Lovecraft this year that were also excellent.
My favorite comics this year included Monstress, Tom King's Batman run, The Sandman, The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck (probably tied with Monstress for my favorite), The Amazing Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Reckless, Junji Ito's The Liminal Zone (yikes!), Bill Watterson & John Kascht's The Mysteries, and Jeff Lemire & Andrea Sorrentino's The Bone Orchard Mythos.
Podcasts
I still listen to a lot of podcasts! Walking, driving, running, lifting, meditating—all the time. Here's an updated list of some of my favorites:
- Writing Excuses: Excellent focused conversations about writing. Frequently helpful and always enough to get me in the mood to work on my own writing.
- Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend: Conan O'Brien interviewing friends and musicians and celebrities. Frequently hilarious and always enjoyable.
- The Dan John Podcast: I have been blazing through the backlog. Dan John is an excellent source of information about lifting, physical competition, personal balance, and life in general. I've learned a ton.
- The Endless Knot: A complex look at the interactions between mythology, linguistics, and culture over time. Really enjoy the in-depth focus on each topic.
- Lore, Grim and Mild Presents, Consumed, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, 13 Days of Halloween: I'm listing these together since they're all the brainchild of Aaron Mahnke. They're all fantastic, though Lore remains my favorite. There are a bunch of others I need to get caught up on too. Really great investigations into mythology, folklore, literature, and ghost stories.
- Lexicon Valley: The podcast that got me into podcasts. I really enjoy John McWhorter's approach to linguistics and his method of explaining interesting topics.
- Medieval Death Trip: "Exploring the wit and weirdness of medieval texts." This might be my favorite podcast ever, and I always carve out time for a long walk with Declan whenever a new episode drops.
- Myths & Legends: Funny, interesting retellings of myths and legends across cultures. This is my go-to for running.
- Philosophize This!: A chronological look at major figures in philosophy. It's a great weekly exploration of topics I know some, but not a lot, about.
- Saga Thing: Very similar to Medieval Death Trip, but focused on Icelandic sagas. I love learning more about them, and the hosts are great. I really spent a lot of time with Saga Thing in 2023.
- Intentionally Blank: Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells chat about pop culture. Really fun.
TV Shows
Here are some of the TV shows, old and new, that I watched and enjoyed this year. Some are brand new, some are rewatches, some I'm not yet current on but am still enjoying.
- Adventure Time
- Lost
- Spider-Man
- Veronica Mars
- The Ancient Magus' Bride
- Our Flag Means Death
- Ted Lasso
- Severance
- Community
- The Fall of the House of Usher (2023's favorite!)
- Modern Family
- Schmigadoon!
- Shrinking (another fantastic new show)
Videogames
I played about 150 hours of videogames this year, which is an above-average pace for me (and something I'd like to maintain). A big reason was the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in May, which I took the day off for (I don't think I've ever done that for a game before). Another was purchasing a PS5 and exploring that.
Most notably, in 2023 I beat:
Immortals: Fenyx Rising (truly an incredible action platformer, I loved every minute)
Ratchet & Clank (2016)
Super Mario 3D World
... which, again, is pretty good for me. Every year I try to beat like 1–2 games a month and it never happens. So this was pretty solid.
Overall, in 2023 I played a lot of the following games that I really enjoyed and would recommend:
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Immortals: Fenyx Rising
- Ratchet & Clank (2016)
- Super Mario 3D World
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Mario Kart 8
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
- Valkyrie Elysium
- Destiny 2
- Elden Ring
- Warframe
- Returnal
Final Thoughts
2023 was a very busy and eventful year, but it'll go down as one of the best—not only because of all the big changes, but also because of all the great things about life that stayed the same or progressed as they should. I spent the year learning, working, growing, and enjoying; I ended 2023 with a new son, a lot of words written, some PRs in the gym, deeper relationships with Sarah and Declan, and a wealth of treasured memories.
I loved so much about the year, and I'm glad to have so much to look back on—and look forward to.
(Let's see if next year I can get my blog post out a little sooner though.)
