2010: Peace
2011: Quality (how my little blog got its name!)
2012: Strong (I did the Ali Edwards One Little Word(r) workshop that year - it's amazing - she's amazing!)
2013: Light
2014: Courage (the year I ran my marathon!)
2015: Now
2016: Grow
2017: Believe
2018: Live
Some years my word has really spoken to me (peace, courage, grow), and other years I am hard pressed to even remember what it was or feel any connection to it (strong, light). So, how does LIVE stack up? It was a good word! Not a great word, but a GOOD word. It served me well and I definitely think it helped that 2018 ended up just being a really great year for me. Was it because of the word? Probably not, but I don't think it hurt that I went into the year fully prepared to LIVE life fully either!
Some of the best parts? Finishing school for one! That was a huge accomplishment after a long journey. Getting my Bachelor's Degree was something that was a long time coming, and I'm just happy I finally did it. As it turns out, I'm the first one in my immediate family to be conferred with a Bachelor's Degree! I have several family members that have units towards their undergrad degree; however, I was the first one to actually get the piece of paper. For a teen mom, high school dropout that didn't think that education was in my cards, I was super proud of myself. I was also super happy to get my life back!! When you're in the middle of the challenge, you don't really realize how difficult it is. Once I was done with school I felt like I freed up some brain power to focus on simple things like being the sarcastic ray of sunshine that I am. LOL
After finishing school, I got back to running consistently again! I went to the Skirt Sports retreat in Boulder Colorado in June and hung out with my gal pals. I put on about 20ish pounds during school and when I saw pictures from that retreat I knew that it showed, so I came home in June refreshed and renewed, ready to focus on dropping the weight. I got back to my pre-degree weight in several months and feel much better! I also ran two half marathons in November and December and actually talked my middle son into running them with me! I'm already signed up for three more in 2019. Running feels REALLY GOOD again! I'm still slow and I'm still horrible at sticking to a training plan, but I feel like enjoying it is the primary goal.
I took an EPIC trip to New York City for a work conference and got to take my girls with me! I've been to NYC before and absolutely loved it, so when I got the opportunity to go for work and my girls both wanted to go, we made it happen. I really wanted for them to enjoy the trip and get the most out of being in the city as 24-year olds. Their friend Katryn flew in from Texas and met us there and it was amazing! It's too much to go into in this post, but we had a blast. They had fun during the day while I did conference stuff, and then we would have dinner and explore in the evenings. They may have hit the bars every night as well. LOL
Some of the other highlights: work was fantastic all year long...graduation took place in a different location and it allowed us to do some things differently than we had in the past like having bagpipes walk the graduates in, a balloon drop at the end. It was awesome! We also bought a new building in Temecula where we will open our third full campus in 2020. That was huge news for our college, our community, and our future students. I got a promotion to Director of Board and Executive Services (similar job, but bigger title and more responsibility).
Really, what it all comes down to is that I freaking lived the heck out of my life in 2018! I enjoyed so much health, happiness, friendships, love, family, and more this year. I felt like I tried to find ways to live in each moment, even the ones that were challenging or not so much fun.
So to 2018 I say, thank you! Thank you for giving me lots of life to enjoy. I'm going into 2019 excited to see what comes next. I don't think there's anything big on the horizon to rival all the major life events that went down in 2018; but at the same time, I'm ready to just enjoy a slower pace.
How about you - do you have a word for your year? How did 2018 go for you? What are you looking forward to in 2019?
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