2017 - A Year in Review - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

What a year 2017 was! It didn't start out so well, with two celebrations of life within the first week. It marginally improved until I lost my beloved Grandmother on February 4. At least now she and my grandfather are together again, and that gives me some peace, even if I miss her every day. 

2017 was also the year I dealt with my youngest's health issues. At each respirology visit, he got worse, and his medications were increased. It wasn't until October, after a really bad visit where we were told my young son would need new lungs, that we got referred to a new pediatric Respirologist. That visit in November changed things for us. My son wasn't as sick as the other doctor was reporting (and to his credit, he was going based off the breathing test report done in another part of his office). It seems like that may have been where things went south. But I know now. He's on meds he was on 2 years ago, and is doing fine! Amen! 

In November, my Momma Bear came out with full claws when my oldest child was attacked at school. Grr... My son was okay as it was an isolated issue, and I dealt with the situation with tact and restrain (I think) and eventually the child was transferred to another school. It stirred up some very mixed emotions in me. As happy as I was to learn he was gone, I worried what kind of home life that child had to be so destructive in his life. And my heart broke a little. I hope wherever he is, that there are some programs he can access. 

But there were a lot of good things that happened as well, both personally and professionally. 

We went on an amazing trip to the US to take in the Total Solar Eclipse. You can read about the highlights here. 

I stepped out of my comfort zone and took a trip down the North Saskatchewan River in a canoe. Too many people filled my head with doubt and all the things that could go wrong. None did (thankfully) and we had an amazing time. So much so, we'll be doing it again! Read and see the pictures I took here.

Also, the limits of my daytime job were tested. Gutting the huge library in June and packing/moving thousands of books was a taxing endeavor. Putting it all back together starting at the end of August was grueling. I built tables and shelves, and moved some sections of books 4-5 times until the new placement was just right. However, I'm pleased to say, most of the people I've talked to who have changed their libraries into learning commons took about a year to reorganize their literary collections, and somehow I managed to do it in 4 months. Now when I return next week, I can focus on getting the rest of the commons set up with the non-book portion and work on behind the scenes things. I'll blog about it soon.

Ended the year with some devastating news about someone very close to me. My dad has kidney cancer -- however -- the doctors & specialists are uber confident that when they remove his kidney in mid-January, that he will be cancer free. We can only hope they are correct. Considering the speed from diagnosis to removal will be less than two months, I pray they are right and chemo and radiation may not be needed. Any prayers are most welcome!

So, did I make my 2017 goals? I need to see high to set the bar for 2018.

My 2017 Goals were:
-Release Two Books - DONE! That Summer came out Feb 19, If You Say Yes on October 17.
-Budget for Advertising - I did, and sadly the ROI wasn't very high. Need to rethink my marketing.
-Find an affordable and GOOD editor - Still searching for this.  
-Promote the hell out of my friend's books - YES! So many great books this year.
-To blog more - Did it - 40 times to be exact. 
-To unsubscribe from mailing lists - DONE! And my inbox has never been happier. 
-To let go Still working on this, but I managed to let some things go. 
-To be more "selfish" YES. 
- To have more date nights It was a weird year for this, but something to focus on in 2018. 

In retrospect, it was a good year. Had room for improvement, to be sure, but we survived and lived to tell about it.
What about you? Looking back at 2017, how was your year overall?