2016 - Year in Review

Image: openclipart.org

This year has been an interesting one. The celebrity deaths have been hard to watch. The ones that have hit me most have been Ron Glass and Carrie Fisher. The election was a shitshow all around and I can't deny that I'm not frightened by what may happen in the years to come.

But on a personal level, 2016 wasn't too bad a year!

It was a Disney year, and Disney years are always good because of going to my favorite place in the world. I also didn't need to go to the ER at all this year which is huge!

We joined the Y on January 1st of this year and I started weight training a few months after that. I didn't lost a lot of weight but I gained a lot of strength and stamina, which was something I really needed! I'm hoping to build on that in 2017.

Girl Scouts became a huge part of our lives this year. We went through our first cookie season and Emily got to go camping for the first time ever! We actually have gone camping with the Girl Scouts three times this year.

Both Emily and I made new friends thanks to scouting! And Emily was very excited that her two best friends ended up in her class for 2nd grade.

Emily worked very hard in school to become a much better reader. She has grown so much - including in height. She's almost as tall as I am! In addition to Girl Scouts, she also got more involved with church. She is in the children's choir and active in the elementary youth group! She was also in our church's Christmas pageant as Innkeeper #1 and an angel.

 I'll post about my goals for 2017 in a different post, but while I'm not glad to see 2016 be gone soon, it wasn't too bad of a year for us.

Hello 2016

Image: happynew-year.in 

I'm extremely happy that is a new year for a variety of reasons. Mostly because 2015 was one of the hardest years of my life. A lot of the first part of the year was focused on my recovery from the seizures I had had in 2014 as well as playing the ever so fun game of medicine roulette to find meds that work.

The second half of the year was better. I still don't have the stamina I did, but I've been working on getting stronger. Dragon Con was great and I am really happy that Emily is now a Girl Scout.

But I'm trying to focus on being more positive and being healthier. Yesterday, we joined the Y after talking about it for a long time. I'm excited because the Y has a pool so I can swim which is my favorite form of exercise.

I don't really like resolutions, because they tend to become broken quite quickly. My resolution last year was not to go to the hospital, and I ended up in the ER a few weeks after the year began.

My goals for this year are basically to write more. I want to start writing short stories and submitting them to anthologies and whatnot. I want to finish my first novel so I can start querying for an agent as well as writing more novels. I also hope to be blogging here more.

2016 feels happier and brighter already. Hopefully this year will be a good one!

Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015

So I usually do a year in review and do goals for the year. I'm going to do this in shortened form this year.

2014 was sucky. MS for Todd, then he lost his job in March. He did find another job that was less stressful but it was a rough start to the year. The middle parts were ok, I think. Most of it's still a little fuzzy. But Dragon*Con, Browncoat Ball, Emily's birthday and Halloween were good.

Of course then I got sick and I'm still recovering from that. Christmas was good but I overdid it and had to go to the ER with a migraine last Saturday. I've been trying to rest and work.

The good parts were ok, but the bad parts were really bad. It's awful being in the hospital but it's even worse having a spouse in the hospital. We got a two-fer of that this year.

My goals for 2014 were to finish the 2nd draft of my novel, to finish Couch to 5K and to finish Emily's stocking. I only got the stocking done.

While I plan on writing more once my memory issues are better, as well as exercising, I only have one goal for 2015. That is to not go to the hospital. No more hospital, no more new and exciting illnesses. I have enough.

Who knows if I can keep that but that's my goal.

But here's looking forward to 2015! Hopefully I can also get my flying car and hoverboard!

Happy December!

It’s really hard to believe that it’s already December. I did wish most of the year away counting down to our Disney Trip. But now I’m looking forward to the holidays and the new year to come.

I love Christmas and I’ve been itching to get our house decorated since Thursday. Slowly working on it but we won’t get our tree until later this week because Todd works on weekend.

Emily and I will be making her Christmas countdown chain this afternoon. It’s something we always did when I was a kid and I’m happy to bring this tradition to Emily’s childhood. I got construction paper to make red and green chains. Emily will make a tree or a star for the top.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season this December!