2022 Review
Greetings! It’s that time of the year again, and I’m a few days later than last year. That’s okay though. Let’s dive in and see what this past year was all about!
January – January is always an interesting month for us. James’s birthday is on the 1st, and our anniversary is on the 21st. This year for our anniversary we spent it driving home from our cruise on the Scarlet Lady from Virgin Voyages. (I did write a whole review about the cruise here). The cruise in short though, was great! This was the month that we found out Lexi had a tumor in her bladder. 🙁 Also, this month James made a BIG change and left Orkin for good. :O He started with Massey on the 25th.
February – My birthday month! Also, the month we had our housewarming party. To be honest, it was small, but GREAT. Two of my sisters came down with their husbands (Teresa and Jen). We got pedicures, hung out and it was just a really wonderful weekend.
March – I changed positions at work! So, in February I applied for a position with a different department at work, I was offered the position! I was nervous to leave my team, but it has definitely worked out for the better. This is also the month we realized that Lexi just wasn’t getting any better. She was on medication from her vet, and while we thought it was working, it wasn’t. Bear’s gotcha day is at the end of March as well. I’m always so glad that he fell in love with me that day and we brought him into our family.
April – A sad month for our family of four (two humans, two fur children). Lexi stopped eating and we knew that it was time we let her go. So, we had her vet (who is amazing by the way) come by and put her to sleep with us and Bear around her. Lexi was a tough little cookie. She was a cuddle bug, and a coffee lover. She LOVED licking faces and would get you when you least expected it. I think her death was hardest on Bear. That was his playmate. April is also the month we host our OHHOW event (Weekend of Writing Wildly) which just so happened to be the same weekend we put Lexi down. Emotions were crazy!
May – Ah May. Well, the month started well. The 15th is my anniversary with Crazy Ink and the 16th is our anniversary as travel agents. Both are AMAZING still. May is also a gotcha day for our new pup Atlas (came to us as Clyde, but he didn’t come to that at all). We weren’t looking for another fur child, but Atlas came across my path, and he looked like he just needed a home. We met up with him at the end of the month on the 28th, and he came home with us that day!
June – Now this was an interesting month. In June was my FIRST book signing as an author! I was nervous, but I had James and Taylor with me, so it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t sell a ton of books, but I sold a few and the best part was the experience. We also went to Maryland for my little sister’s housewarming party! The flights were crazy (our flight was SUPER delayed on leaving), and we were tired, a lot. But we had a great time, and I got to see her new house (which I am SO SO proud of her).
July – July always sucks for me. July 7th would have been my dad’s birthday. It’s also the day my grandmother passed. But a bittersweet to that day is it’s the day my first manuscript was accepted by Crazy Ink. Lexi’s birthday was on the 14th, and Legacy being gone for two years on the 22nd. So the beginning was kinda of sad. However, the end of the month picked up. I attended the book convention, SaSS in Norfolk, VA as an author! James and Taylor went with me (the whole trip was hilarious and fun). But I sold books, met amazing people, and had a great time! July was also a month where someone I knew passed. She was a friend I met on our Magic cruise in 2018. She was inspiring to many, especially me. She passed just after her first solo cruise on her favorite ship.
August – A slow month. We didn’t have much to do and we pretty much just worked, I wrote (a lot), and we worked some more. James really enjoys his job with Massey, and my new position was still great.
September – Another semi boring month. The 23rd would have been Lexi’s gotcha day. We definitely miss her little spark, but Atlas has shown us that he has some of her traits and that warms my heart. The end of the month was a bit, interesting. We had Hurricane Ian coming through. Jen, Greg and the kids (along with the dogs, rabbit and squirrel) came to stick out the hurricane. We did lose power, apparently their house didn’t. Haha! But all in all, it was fine. We got power back the next day. Internet, however, took almost a week and Spectrum and I definitely aren’t friends anymore.
October – My favorite month! Halloween is my favorite holiday. We also had a surprise party for Taylor and a Halloween party. It was kind of crazy having so many teenagers in our house, but they were all really good. We checked out Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. It was okay. That stuff doesn’t scare me. The lines were long, and we only got to see two haunted houses. Oh! And they wouldn’t let James in at first because of his shirt (the link for the shirt is here so you can read it for yourself). But he was able to go back to the car, turn it inside out, toss a hoodie over it just to get through security.
November – My writing month. November is always a big month for me. Mostly because of OHHOW and NaNoWriMo. OHHOW is a full one hundred hours of writing (usually the second weekend), and even though there are four of us admins, we have a LOT of work to do that month. It’s also Thanksgiving. We did our own thing on Thanksgiving, got to see Tiffany, Joe and the kids and we were able to do a second Thanksgiving with Jen, Greg and the girls that weekend. Plus ONE year of owning our home! And we met neighbors and like them! November was the month that Misha announced that Gish would be closing for good. Not something I expected, but I’m so thankful to Misha and to Gish for bringing me out of my comfort zone and bringing new people into my life. November 5th Aaron Carter passed away. And while some may not care or even know who he is, for me he made a huge impact on my life growing up. He was the first celebrity I had ever met (and I met him more than once). His music brought love, laughter and joy into my life. It connected me to people in the world who I never would have known otherwise. I still haven’t made a huge post about it yet, mostly because I don’t know what to say. But still to this day, I can’t believe he’s gone.
December – That brings us to the end of the year, this month. December has been a slow, light month. James and I have been spending more time together and just relaxing when we can. The beginning of the month was my last book published for 2022. (Twelve books total!) Legacy’s birthday is the 21st and I can’t help but think of her on that day. Christmas was good this year as well.
All in all, 2022 was horrible. There were good times, and not so good, but we made it through. I know the year didn’t turn out exactly as I planned, but I’m happy with where I’m at currently and I hope that 2023 will be even better!
Don’t forget to check back to see my Goals post. The post highlights my goals from 2022 and what I accomplished (and what I didn’t). Then I list my goals for 2023!
Thank you for reading my 2022 review and I can’t wait to see you back next year!
Reflection
