Well, once again I reiterate the mantra of the last few years: 2017 wasn’t a great one for me. The government went crazy, lots of bad stuff happened in the world, and my family had a rough year with Jason losing his job and then a cross-country move. Not to mention that whole summer of nightmares thing. Anyway. I’ve begun 2018 in a much better place physically (no broken foot) and mentally (liking where I live). I hope that I can make this year far better than the last few have been. I know that it’s a week into the new year already, but I wanted to take a moment to recap the last year, and to highlight some of the good things that happened.

Health
I didn’t track nearly as many stats as I would have liked in this category. I don’t know how many yoga sessions I did, for instance, or how many miles I walked/jogged. But I do know that I exercised 213 days in 2017 despite everything that happened. That’s 58% of the year. I’d like to increase that to at least 75% in 2018 (274 days). I exercised a total of 198 hours and 34 mins (equal to over 8 days! and averaging 32 mins/day) and I walked over three million steps (!!! average of 8382 per day, even with a broken foot for six months). My weight went up a few pounds from January 1st to January 1st, but it’s still within a fluctuating maintenance range and my inches are the same, so I think I can say I was successful at maintaining this year. Yay!

Writing and Books
I already did a more extensive books-in-review post so I won’t go much into detail there, only to say that I averaged six books per month. That seems to be a sustainable and enjoyable reading pace for me. Unfortunately, I did very little with my writing this year. A tiny bit of editing and a negligible word count for the year (so small I’m not even going to report it – it’s BAD). I don’t see that changing until I can get my mental health better together, so I’m just going to accept that 2018 will not be a writing year for me.

Highlights of 2017
There weren’t many of these, but I’ve done my best to find the top ten highlights of the year. I’d rather remember 2017 by these memories than the nightmarish ones.

Yoga – I said above that I didn’t manage to track my yoga this year, but this was definitely one of my primary forms of exercise. While I’ve been practicing yoga for several years, this was the year I realized just how much I loved it. I’ve grown so much stronger and more flexible while practicing yoga, and it just brings me so much peace.

Vacation and Visits – I loved every second of my vacation to Texas in February and March. I was so homesick and this helped me to cope. Then in May, my friend Stephanie came up to visit me in Wisconsin, which was another little bright spot in the year to help me make it through.

Healed ankle – Finding out in December 2016 that my foot was actually broken and not sprained was a blow. I wasn’t allowed to do much in the way of exercise for the first six months of the year (except yoga). When I suddenly discovered in June that I could spread my toes and twist my foot without pain, it was like a miracle after two years of being unable to do these things.

Moving back to Texas and a new house – The circumstances around the moving back to Texas and getting a new house were bad, but moving back? This lovely house? Both of these have been amazing. I’ve enjoyed seeing all my friends and family again, going places with them, getting back together with my writing group, making an exercise area for myself in my bedroom, walking at my favorite hiking locations, etc.

Meeting Rory – A year to the day after my nephew was born, I finally got to meet him!

Oathbringer – I haven’t been this excited for a book release in years, probably not since the 7th Harry Potter came out.

Snow day – It never snows in San Antonio. The fact that it snowed was just awesome and so much fun.

Nimi – The other nine things on this list were roughly in the order that they happened in the year, but I saved this one for last. Nimi, who we adopted in February, has been one of the primary sparks in my life this year. She united our other two kitties and is a constant source of joy. When Jason and I went into the shelter to choose a cat, we’d never met her before. We’d met many of the other cats in the shelter (I volunteered there) but Nimi was new. She also aggressively chose us, so that we had no choice really but to take her home with us. This little lady has made the world so bright. She was by far the best decision we made in 2017.