Normally I’d wait until early January to do my final monthly wrap-up of 2018, but it feels better to get it done within the year and have as little as possible lingering come January 1st (I still have one book review to post). I’ll just update this post with the last two days of December info if anything changes.

Goals
More on these during tomorrow’s 2018 wrap-up.

Health
Staying healthy is hard around Christmas with all the family get-togethers and sweet treats and traditions. Weight loss was not expected this month. I did enjoy analyzing data to get an idea of what I could better do to lose. And I did do my best to follow my analysis and keep healthy despite all the Christmas stuff. Exercised on 28 days, for a total of 21 hours, including 18 yoga and 43 miles. I tracked my food every day, even through Christmas, and stayed mindful about what I was eating. And hey, I did actually manage to lose a little weight – 4.6 lbs!!! – and get the scale trending downward! It’s even better knowing that I maintained that loss all the way through my family’s multiple Christmas parties, then started right down again once they were over. Yay! I’m also happy to be ending 2018 slightly lighter than where I began it. I believe that’s the first time I’ve done that since 2013. It may only be by a few pounds, but it’s a change in the right direction!

(foggy morning walk in mid-December)

In other health issues, I had my brain MRI, which came out normal. My doctor concluded I probably have chronic sinusitis and gave me a three-week round of heavy-duty antibiotics that I’m in the middle of taking. If that doesn’t make a difference, I’m supposed to see an ENT next. I also got on Lunesta for sleep, which works really well, but now I’m arguing with my insurance company, who thinks I should only get 15 pills every 25 days. Sigh. Cold and flu season started here this month as well, which knocked out just about everyone in the family, some of us more than once. I’m so immunocompromised that I actually got the flu even though I had the flu shot. Figures. I hope 2019 will bring a clean bill of health after this antibiotic, and I won’t be sick most of the year like in 2018!!

Books
After months of book-slump, I actually got excited about reading again this month! I read several books I loved, with my favorite probably being Nine Perfect Strangers (review forthcoming).

Highlights of December
Christmas and my anniversary are of course the top highlights of my month. The rest are primarily related to Christmas traditions, but there are others of course. LOTS of highlights this month!!

• getting my new Vivosport!
• Empty Faces was so fun and creepy this month!
• St. Nick’s day celebration with the boys
• watching Pee-Wee’s Christmas Special with the boys and discovering that Morrigan’s girlfriend loved this silly show growing up
• Morrigan passed the Air Force qualifying fitness test, so he can apply for a major ROTC scholarship for college
• my boys moving the nutcrackers all around the Christmas tree and house like little Elves on the Shelves (even after the cats broke off two of their heads…they kept moving around…then they stole all the presents on Christmas morning!! –> )
• Ambrose got an awesome 1370 on his PSAT, and Laurence as a freshman scored a fantastic 1056 (scores go up to 1520)
• a candy-making party at my cousin’s house
• a wonderful 5K with my friend Stephanie to help kids with disabilities
• our traditional sugar-cookie making/decorating party
• an early Christmas swap with my siblings since one of my sisters wouldn’t be here on Christmas proper
• seeing TSO with Stephanie and her family
• Laurence’s letter to Santa, which cracked us all up
• the actual two days of Christmas: Christmas eve celebration with my extended family on my dad’s side, then Christmas eve at home, then Christmas morning at home, then Christmas morning at my mom’s house, then Christmas afternoon/evening at my dad’s house… (two days of parties!)
• sitting around an outdoor fire pit with my dad and siblings (twice)
• Christmas gifts from my lovely family and friends: beautiful cat bookends, retractible colored pens, liquid mirror markers, a window perch for the cats (ha!), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, The Prince and the Dressmaker, a Mistborn allomantic table necklace, an elephant essential oil necklace, a hand-drawn Turkish bismillah for our bedroom wall, Lady Audley’s Secret, Superfight (a game), lots of fun socks, a Greatest Showman coffee mug, the Greatest Showman Reimagined album, and some gift cards that (naturally) I’ve already spent
• the Seahawks got into the playoffs!
• my brother-in-law got engaged!

(one part of my extended fam)

Forthcoming in 2019
There is of course a lot coming in 2019 and I’m not going to discuss it all here. Mostly I just want to say that I plan to switch my monthly wrap-up to a quarterly format. I really like looking back at my highlights of each month, but I think my other categories would be better discussed at a wider interval. Trial and error, I suppose. We’ll see how it goes in the new year.