2019 Recap & Best Books

It’s a new year AND a new decade!  How on earth did this happen?  Ten years ago at this time I was single and working at a bank, and now I am married, have two kids, work in my field, and have lived in three different states!  Sheesh.  That’s a lot of life!  I figured out a lot about myself, my personality, what I love and need to thrive in work and my personal life, picked up a few hobbies, picked up an autoimmune disease…all sorts of stuff!

However, despite all the life that happened between 2010-2020, I prefer just looking back over the last one year as I move into the next.  Honestly, I don’t anticipate quite as much change in the next ten years as I experienced in the last ten.  (But who knows?!)  I just want to keep moving forward with life as I know it.  So, here’s a little highlight reel from 2019.

A few highlights from 2019…

Music

I’ve filled out my studio to capacity this year with about 20 students this Fall.  I have taught hundreds of students in the last fourteen years, and these are truly some of the very best students I have ever taught.  Additionally, I picked up a job as a vocal coach with a local theatre company which has been so very much fun.  It’s been refreshing to “do what I do” in a different environment than just standard, private voice lessons.

That same local theatre company allowed me to audition for their community show, and I got cast! It has been…a hot minute…since I was in a show.  I forgot how much I absolutely love performing in musical theatre.  Having the time of my life over here.  The show will perform at the end of February.  Cannot.wait.

Additionally, I heard some really great music this year in concert!  I am not a big concert goer by any means, so the fact that I went to THREE concerts this year is kinda crazy.  I saw Norah Jones at Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Denver, Sara Bareilles in Detroit, and Audra MacDonald in good ol’ East Lansing.  Three totally different artists, genres, and venues which were all really amazing and stuck with me for a while (and got me practicing!).

Hobbies

I took up knitting!  I did not think I would like it nearly as much as I do!  It is so relaxing.  Plus, wandering my local yarn shop, feeling up all the balls of wool waiting to be made into something cozy is just as relaxing as the actual knitting itself!  So far, I’ve made two hats for the kids, a scarf for Landon, and a balaclava for my little nephew.  The barrier to entry is fairly low here.  You can make something right off the bat even if you’ve never made anything before.  My first hat was fairly awful, but my second one I just loved!  A friend of mine taught me a lot about how to get started, but I’ve found there is loads to learn just on YouTube (of course).  (I like this channel and this channel a lot.)

I got really, really into card making this year, and I’m finally making some cards that I am really happy with.  I’m learning ink blending and coloring with copic markers.  Again, YouTube has been my friend here.  You can learn so much for free!!  (This lady and this lady are my favorites.  Can we be friends in real life?)

Books

I read 25 books in 2019.  My goal was 24, so I’m happy about where I ended up.  Here are my favorite reads in 2019.

Definitely my two favorite fiction books were Where the Crawdads Sing (and very trendy, new coming-of-age novel meets murder mystery) and All the Light We Cannot See (a very trendy historical fiction book from a few years ago that I just finally got around to reading).  Both “stuck with me” for quite a while.  Both really gripped me as I was reading them.  Both were super fun, relaxing reads to wind down after busy days.  (Honorable mention goes to Room—another really awesome read!)

I don’t normally count cookbooks in my reading list, but Salt Fat Acid Heat was like part cookbook, part cooking memoir, part cooking life skills!  I will consider this one a very valuable resource in my kitchen for years to come.  Want to improve your cooking skills?  Go buy this one right now!

When it comes to books on parenting, I read quite a few of those this year.  My favorites were Don’t Make me Count to Three and J.C. Ryle’s The Duties of Parents.  One newer one written by what feels like an older, wiser mom and one classic written more than a hundred years ago by a very wise pastor authority that’s so relevant you’d think it was written last week.  Neither was very long, but both were very full and rich.

I’m typically always reading some health and wellness books and some productivity/life skills sorts of books, but I honestly did not read any that I found totally amazing.  Good nuggets here and there, but nothing too noteworthy.  There were more of those in 2018 than 2019, and you can look at that list here.

Family Life

When I think back over the year, I count teaching Landon how to read as one of my greatest accomplishments.  It really made me believe that anyone can do this!  Step-by-step, in a few minutes every day, he learned to read!  He’s still learning, of course, but sitting next to him while he reads Green Eggs and Ham or a simple “Step into Reading” book, is so exciting (albeit painful at times!).  A new world is opening up before him.  It was definitely not fun on a lot of occasions, but we made it, and I am so proud of him.  Landon also learned to ride a two-wheeler this summer (shameless plug for the balance bike that he used for two years that really taught him how to ride without him even knowing it) and became fully self-sufficient in the bathroom.  (No more, “I’m all done pooping, Mom!” coming from the bathroom…usually in the middle of dinner.)

Isla Jane learned to walk, and now she’s running around here chasing her brother.  She talks quite a bit, which is so cute (and sometimes intelligible), and has recently taken up her singing career, mostly with exactly one song, Let it Go.  (Of course.)  She is growing in obedience as well, as her strong will becomes guided and directed, and it is fun to see the coinciding growth in peace and happiness in her life as she learns to submit to her God-given, parental authority.

It’s very, very easy for me to get caught up in my work, that I forget that what I really do is be “mom.”  The work that I do that nobody sees?  This is my greatest work.

So now that you’ve read my highlight reel, here’s what didn’t work out this year…

A few things that didn’t go as planned…

I didn’t break 18 minutes in the 5K.

I had some major plans to do some racing this summer and this fall.  This summer, during my first race, I injured my foot, and it took somewhere around 6-8 weeks to completely heal.  I could do some workouts (lifting and swimming were my friends), but I knew I would make it a lot worse if I tried to keep racing on it.  Then, in the fall when it was healed up, I just didn’t feel like it!  I wanted to be home on Saturday mornings hanging out with my kids and give my husband a chance to go hunting.  With my work picking up in the Fall, I didn’t want to be busy on Saturday mornings, too.  So, I just canned it!  I kept working out, but I didn’t race other than one, fun 5K with some friends.

I didn’t post any workout videos…yet.

I’d really like to get back to posting some workouts on my blog, but I haven’t liked the way they’ve looked.  So, I’m still working on that (not giving up yet!), but a finished product did not make its way onto the blog in 2019.  Here’s to first quarter 2020!

I struggled with work/life balance…more like, work/kid balance.

I love my work.  It’s a blessing and a curse, because I’m so thankful that I get to do what I do, but sometimes I pick up more than I can actually handle.  Or rather, more than my family can handle.  My schedule generally works but often it only works if I keep everyone and everything else on a very rigid schedule.  Kids do well with schedules but not necessarily super strict ones.  I want to leave space for curiosity and exploration and questions and creativity.  Right now, we are not always doing that.  It may be a bit too much for me to teach 20 students and be in a show, so I’m evaluating, trying to figure out what does and doesn’t work, and thinking about adjustments for next year.

Well, there you have it!  I’d love to hear from you!  What were your biggest accomplishments, favorite books and hobbies, and setbacks in 2019?  Drop me a line or send a comment below!

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