Reflecting on 2017
Ahh, another year come and gone. I won’t be sad to see this one go. There were no major life changes, but some pretty crappy things happened this year. I’m starting to realize that as we get older, the years of “major life changes” slow down more and more.
In the last few years, I got engaged, got married, finished my MLS, lost weight, ran a half-marathon, bought a house, got pregnant, had a baby, got a promotion. All of those things involved major life changes, but life is starting to slow down and settle in. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. But some years just aren’t great, and 2017 was one of those years for us. I’ll definitely reflect on some of the good things too, even if they weren’t major.
✨ The Good
- In January, Caleb turned two and finally started talking a bit towards the end of the year. Milestones are always exciting.
- I saw a lot of great musicals with my aunt, as always, but most notably, I saw Wicked for the third time! It’s my second favorite show.
- I became an affiliate for Diplicious in July, because I’ve loved their products for years. I even made a little extra money from it!
- We adopted our mill rescue girl, Ruffles! She’s a total pain in the ass, but she’s such a doofy lover girl.
- Jerry got a promotion at work!
- I signed up for MoviePass and started seeing A LOT of movies in theaters again! I also started a Girl’s Movie Club with some of my relatives where we see one movie a month together.
- I won a contest from our local baseball team and their mascot came and trick or treated at my house with Caleb and his cousins!
- I started building a Halloween village and also started getting into vendor wax this year. I’ve been melting for years, but I’ve become super interested in it lately. I’ve even made some new buddies in the wax world. Yay for new hobbies!
- I conducted my very first Blog Reader Survey!
- Jerry and I started some new holiday traditions like “Donut Quest” in the fall, and Yuletide in the Country for Christmas!
- It was a good year for friendships! Girl’s Dinner Night has continued with my besties, I made some new “mom friends,” and I’ve grown closer to some of my book club girls and other friends.
I know most of these things are small and insignificant, but when you have a crappy year, you need to look on the bright side whenever and wherever you can. Also, as I mentioned, it wasn’t a year of big events or big changes at all.
💔 The Bad
- It goes without saying that having an ectopic pregnancy in February was a pretty shitty start to the year.
- Jerry lost his father over the summer. He traveled to California for the funeral. Another major loss.
- Our city had an awful wind storm that knocked power lines down and left many people without power. Luckily, we only lost a gutter.
- My mom’s two dogs passed away within one week of each other.
- We had to re-home Bully.
- The one year anniversary of my papa’s passing came and went. Christmas still felt weird and quiet without him.
So as you can see, we had a lot of losses this year which made for a somber kind of year. Here’s hoping that in 2018, everyone stays happy and healthy!
🎯 2018 Goals
I make monthly goals, so I’m not a major fan of New Year’s Resolutions. However, there are some large, overarching things I’d like to work on accomplishing in the next year.
- Expand our family: yep, it’s a taboo topic, but why?
- Save for and go on a cruise in the fall (dependent on above goal).
- Lose weight (dependent on “family” goal also).
- Pay at least $7,000 on our credit card debts.
- End the year with money in our regular savings account and sinking fund accounts.
- Read more books (more on that on Sunday).
- Enroll Caleb in preschool!
- Get a family membership to the Y.
And that’s it! I’m fairly certain that 2018 is just about guaranteed to be better than 2017 was!
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