Blessings and Regrets to start the new year

This is an expanded version of something posted on a site I write hockey coverage for. In the forum, someone posted his greatest blessings and biggest regrets from the 6 decades he's walked the earth. He challenged others of us to reflect on our time, and what highs and lows we'd had.

Blessings:

• My wife is at the top of my blessings. Her humor, honesty, and the fact that she understands the value of a cold beer and a hockey game, all keep me sane.
• My job. Took a while to find my fit, but I love my job. I keep waiting to find out my boss eats puppies, or my co-workers are secretly holding human sacrifices in the conference room. No job is perfect, but at least I look forward to my days now.
• Our church, and my friends there. Smart, open minded people, including some amazing scientists and scholars, who've gotten me back to church when I thought nothing would, and made me reconsider pushing myself to do more with my life.
  
• My pets. One cat that loves you no matter what, one cranky cat that won't leave my side, and a crazy red dog that wagged her tail through 2 major eye surgeries, to the amazement of her surgeons and doctors. Oh, and two fish that... swim. Hey, it's their thing, I'm cool with that.
  
• Hockey. I've been learned to be a winner, a better loser, a leader, a follower, more confident and more humble, one goal at a time.
• My UM degree. It took loans, two jobs and full time classes for 6 years, but it was worth it. Lots of people made small contributions to it, but most of it was me.
  
• All those friends that helped get me and people I care about through some dark times. It reminds me that there is still a little good in humanity when people that aren't family, and have no obligation to you, step up and help.
• My gay, female, black, Asian, Latin American, and just out-there-and-weird friends. I'm a lot bigger person because you all tolerate my stupid questions and cluelessness. Learning to empathize with people that aren't like me has been a huge boost to my creative and moral life.
• Our families. We don't always like the way each other acts, but both my and LullaBelle's families made contributions big and small to our educations, our house, our wedding, and our ongoing marriage. We wouldn't have gotten here as fast without them.
  

And, of course, some regrets:

• That I didn't appreciate my time in college or use it as well as I now think I could have.
• Knowing I hurt some people on the way to being more mature, and that some days I forget myself and hurt people still.
• All the time I spent in the wrong jobs, or doing jobs poorly, before I found one that makes me want to work hard.
• That a Church is a human institution, and sometimes has the flaws we all have.
• I still have trouble managing my time.
• I've lost most of my "old" friends from high school and college, and some days, I miss them.
• I haven't always exercised much self-control over my spending, and I'll be paying that off for a few more years.
• I don't talk to all my friends and family as often as I'd like to.
• That all problems aren't as easy to solve as a disagreement on the ice is.
• I still hold it against people that they aren't as smart as I am, and I don't do a very good job of teaching them to do better.
• Being lazy about maintenance on my cars and my house. It would be so much easier to prevent a problem than fix it after the fact.
• I still haven't been further west than Minneapolis-St. Paul (which really isn't all that far)
• That I didn't get one more visit to NY with LullaBelle before 9-11-2001 so she could see the original WTC.
  

Here's hoping we all find ways to add more blessings this year, and maybe to mend some regrets.