I always like to celebrate and learn from the year that’s just passed. As in 2011 and 2012, a list of some things I’ve done helps me see as hard evidence the progress I am making. In dreaming about the coming year, I realized I couldn’t really determine exactly what 2013 had brought me. A year seems to me a random designation of days. So I looked back through all my posts to see what exactly I’ve discovered in 2013. Here we go!
Stats: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2013, there were 151 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 576 posts.
- The highlights of my year were the collaborative 5-post series that Amy and I did this fall and our summer trip to Alaska. I received the Sunshine Award at a time in the fall when my heart really needed the validation.
- I began the year with a focus on kindness. That link lists all the various challenges I participated in (26 acts of kindness, the 100 acts of kindness project, etc). All of these were instrumental in helping me teach my daughter the value of giving.
- There was way more of a focus on painting, something I’d not done much of before. As part of that, I sort of took over our home office and transformed it into my own art haven. I enjoyed several art classes. My favorites were Junelle Jacobson’s Wild Art Summer, Christy Tomlinson’s Behind the Art, and Life Book. I did every single weekly assignment in Life Book, something I’m very proud of. I started the Behind the Art series of posts here as well.
- In the process, I made a lot of art to brighten up and personalize our home. This canvas is one of my favorites.
I also am loving seeing our wedding song lyrics above our bed.
- Speaking of e-courses, I participated in every monthly One Little Word blog hop and made some lovely connections that way. “Stillness” was a bit of a stretch for me, but I’m glad I chose to focus on slowing down and will continue to work on it. As an extension of this work, I wrote about relaxing my perfectionism and letting go of expectations.
- I had two guest posts this year. On Kind Over Matter, I wrote “Allowing Yourself to Shine” about taming those negative judgements we make of ourselves and how we talk to ourselves. On Story of Mum, my post, “The Shame of Enough,” was about feeling that our family is complete with one child, just the three of us. Also, “Swimming Toward Independence,” was published on the Momoir Project blog in July.
- Since I love reading and have been keeping a list of everything I’ve read, I started writing monthly “book love” reading reports. Here are September, October, and November. I also love the painting I made of My Ideal Bookshelf after reading that book.
- I added a lot of happy color to our home.
- My husband and I went to New Orleans for a weekend to catch up with each other. I tell a little about how that trip helped our relationship here. We started going on dates this year too. The post I wrote for our 12th anniversary was a popular one.
- Interestingly, my most popular post was about fashion with 1,118 views. Who knew??? Many people have clicked on my Stitch Fix affiliate link and it surprises me every time. Thanks for the free clothes! Another popular post was 38 lessons in 38 years.
- I made more blog books and am finishing up book 2 of year 2 now.
As I embark on year 4 here at Poetic Aperture, I would like to thank you again for being part of this community. I treasure you and your comments.
Leave a Reply