Thursday, January 18, 2018

Try More 2017 Recap

I've decided that being an adult is just constantly talking about how tired you are or saying "WOW can you believe it's already *insert month here*? This year has flown by!"

And since we're all thinking it, I don't need to say it today, right? ;)

And yes, I started this post WEEKS ago while it was still 2017 and it's just now getting posted. Life has been more insane than normal, but I'm sitting at home, watching the snow fall after working most of the day and decided I should finish this post up because I have some ideas of other posts I want to share! 

Last year I embarked on my "Try More" journey (read about that here). And I'm pleased to say that I did pretty well and tried a lot of new things. To end the year, I thought I'd do a final recap. If you want to read about my 6 month check in, click here, but I'll be talking about a few of these things here, too! 


Overall, I'm really proud of the progress I made last year and I really liked the idea of not setting real "resolutions" but having a word/phrase to live my life by. This allowed me to set smaller goals throughout the year to work towards. 

So, what did I try MORE of? 
  • Blogging: Though I wasn't back consistently, I blogged a lot more than I did in 2016 so that's a win! 
  • Working out: I did Classpass for the first half of the year and joined the YMCA for the last half pf the year which lead to a pretty consistent schedule of working out most of 2017. 
  • Traveling: I was lucky to travel a few times for work, but also traveled for fun and got to see some new places! For places I went to again, (DC, Charlottesville, Chicago), I tried to do new things in those places! 
  • Cooking: I did a pretty good job of cooking during the week and trying new recipes. I got a new cookbook for Christmas this year that I'm pretty excited to continue expanding my recipe favorites! I also got an Instant Pot on Prime Day that is AMAZING and has made cooking so much easier. 
  • Volunteering: Being on the stewardship committee at work made this one a little easier, but I also did some things outside of the committee as well, such as Girls on the Run. 
And what did I do for the first time?
  • AIR fitness
  • Hot yoga
  • Work out in a weight room
  • Travel to New Orleans, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Charleston
  • See Faith Hill in concert (with Tim, of course, but I had seen him solo)
  • Run a 5K 
  • Quite a few new restaurants
  • See a hockey game
  • Charlotte Knights baseball game 
I'm sure there are other little things I did more of or tried but just can't remember but these are all the big ones! 

To finish this post, I have to talk about the elephant in my room (y'all probably have no idea), but this year was SO hard. My friends were getting married, engaged, promoted, and having babies and truly having some of the best years of their lives and I was having one of the worst. It was so wonderful being with them and getting to celebrate life with them, but as they can all attest to, this year tried to wreck me. 

Almost exactly a year ago, my parents separated. It was abrupt (sort of...) and it has taken its toll on me mentally and emotionally. There were weeks months that it consumed me. And, without going into all my personal mumbo jumbo, it hasn't been a mutual divorce and one of my parents has gone off the deep end dealing with it that has dragged me through emotional hell and forced me to make hard choices and have a lot of hard conversations. All while my little brother was in basic training and AIT for the Army... 

Needless to say, I'm ready to move into 2018. I've been making conscious efforts almost daily to take care of myself emotionally and focus on my family unit and surrounding myself with wonderful friends who support me every day and are always there when I need to vent. 

So, here's to 2018 and all the fun, joy, and emotional stability that will hopefully come with it! 

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