2018 In Review

How is it that a year can simultaneously feel like it flew by and like it took at least a decade? If anybody ever solves that mystery, please let me know. Like, I can't believe it's already 2019, but when I look back at pictures from the beginning of 2018, it seems like that was ages ago.

So last winter, we kept having snow and ice and ice and snow. And it got old. This winter, it's rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain...and I am so SICK of rain. But I digress. The snow was pretty, but I'm good with one snowstorm per winter. I mean, there's a reason I live in Georgia.

Sometime in January or so, I started doing ballet for exercise. I was really good about keeping up with it until we went out of town for spring break. Since then, it's been quite sporadic, but oh, well.

My "Recording Studio"

Also in January, I started my successful run of Creighton Hill audiobook recording. Let me tell you, I have immense respect for audiobook narrators now. Audiobook recording is hard. And tedious. And frustrating. But hey, eight months later, my audiobook was available on Amazon! Now I need to get serious about recording The Crossways. I'm (I think) about a quarter of the way through, but I keep stopping.

Carrie Mouse storyboard

As books came back into the library from Christmas, I came across Barbara Reid's The Night Before Christmas, and the light bulbs went on for Carrie Mouse and the Giant Garage. We created a storyboard, my sister Rebekah sculpted illustrations, I rewrote the text from when I was seven, and an old project finally started to come to life!

My Groundhog Day display

In the interim between youth coordinators at the library, I did the displays. These were my groundhogs. They were a lot of fun to make and everyone seemed to love them. They're still hanging around, so we may be putting them out again soon. Right now, we've got paper snowflakes on the windows. Yes, I made paper snowflakes at work. So did one of my coworkers. Hey, it's a small town library. What else are we going to do on Saturday? It looks really pretty too.

We got a new youth coordinator sometime around February/March. She's AWESOME. She's a lot of fun to work with, and we've done a lot of awesome projects with her. More on those later.

Early in the year, I switched Acktorek over from the computer to a notebook. I write better by hand. This book was such a good writing experience. It was hard to find the time, sometimes hard to focus, but it did so much to help me climb out of the writing slump I'd been in for the past several years. I finished it just before the new year. It still needs a lot of work, but it's the most usable thing I've written in the past several years and I love it.

I tried vlogging. Um...that didn't last. Videos are SOOOOOO much more work than blog posts. I enjoyed it, but it just takes too much time that I don't have.

3D printer adventures

We got a 3D printer at the library! It's actually still quite mesmerizing, even all these months later. I learned my lesson about using a knife to clean off supports, though. I sliced an approximately 1/4" long flap in my finger, and I still have a scar. I guess it matches the scar from slicing through my hand cutting the plastic off ice cream while babysitting. And the dog bite and plastic laundry basket scars on my other hand.

I took piano lessons all year, which has been great. It's been rather a challenge to stop thinking like a violinist while playing piano, but I've learned a ton. I don't like performing piano any more than I used to, but I've got more experience.

My dad, sisters, and me at Driftwood Beach
(my mom was taking the picture)

We went to St. Augustine for a few days during spring break. My cousin's doppelganger was there. Seriously. This guy looked so much like my cousin it was scary. They're even the same age. We also visited Jekyll Island and Driftwood Beach. There was a lot about Florida history we learned that I guess I never paid much attention to. I mean, Florida wasn't one of the thirteen colonies, so I must have just ignored it during the colonial period. But it was quite interesting.

My mom's birthday post

I turned "real old, like, 22" in April. Which is weird. My mom decided to pull together her pictures of me cleaning from over the years. When I was little, I apparently thought cleaning was fun. I'm not sure why. I actually asked for cleaning supplies for my eighth birthday and was excited about it. I used my sponges playing that I was a servant in a castle. Now, well, I don't like cleaning, but I hate messes worse.

Our church went on a hike for Mother's Day. Tallulah Gorge is really pretty, I'll admit that, but man, is it hard on your legs! LOTS of steps. The waterfalls are worth it, though. And my then-seven-year-old bestie (she just turned eight) kept asking me to take her picture, so I have quite a few of those. ;)

More library displays! I drew a sign for a classics table, and several of us put together a "blind date with a book" table. It was a ton of fun. And I got to draw at work!

 

We had a recital week. First, Rebekah had a cello recital, then I had my students' recital, which was amazing, and then my youngest sister, Addy, and I had a piano recital.

My family and me before the parade.

Campaign season again! We just had a general election opponent this time around, so we didn't do door to door until later, but we did walk in a parade and go to a BBQ. It was great, and the float we walked with was fabulous. Plus, I was able to listen to An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle on my phone while waiting for the parade to start.

That weekend, we went to the wedding of a longtime friend of mine. (Destiny, who I went to visit last year, to see her play. She actually met her now-husband in that play.) Our families have known each other since we were little kids. Before her "little" brother became a giant. It was seriously the most fun wedding I've ever been to. None of my pictures were any good, but the memories are terrific, and I'm so happy for Destiny and her husband. They're fun, and crazy, and just perfect for each other.

In July, I got officially hooked on Ranger's Apprentice. That series is amazing. And I already wrote way too much about it, so moving on...

I finished my cataloguing project! Though I haven't done my Christmas books yet. And I keep getting used books from the library and Goodwill, so I'm out of room.

I started some new students in August...a four and a six year old. They're some of the cutest kids ever and I love teaching them, but I will say, it takes a lot of creativity to teach a four-year-old to read music. I've drawn animals on notes (she loves playing "elephant") and made a custom music dry erase board (they both enjoy drawing on it), but the most popular thing seems to be the store-name rhythm sticks. We clap "Hooome De-pot" (half, quarter, quarter), "Ho-bby Lo-bby" (quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter), "Ta-co Beeell" (quarter, quarter, half), and "Good-will" (half, half), but the perennial favorite is "Loooowe's" (whole note). My student is so adorable when she pulls out the red sticks and claps and sings "Loooowe's." I'll never think of the stores the same way again.

We went on a trip to Pennsylvania and DC that was one of the best vacations ever. We saw SOOOO many amazing history-related things. It's so surreal standing in places like Independence Hall where so much history was made. There was definitely an information overload, but it's a vacation I'll never forget.

Carrie Mouse came out! It was a lot of work, and I'm stiiiiiill making little purple sweaters (with my mom's help, they just take soooo long), but I'm super excited about the way it turned out. Little seven-year-old me could never have imagined it.

Me and Bob

 

We made a scarecrow at the library! Our town has a scarecrow contest every fall, and this time, our youth coordinator thought it would be a lot of fun for us to enter. She put together the head and stand and donated the hay and gloves, the circ manager donated the clothes and boots, I made the hat and face, and the youth coordinator and I (with some help from her husband...and a lot of hay strings, tape, and fishing line) put him together. I named him Bob, and he won third in the contest. It was fantastic. :)

Door to door happened, and election night happened, and Barry Loudermilk won the race for Congress again!

We went on a church camp out where it was very cold, but we hung out at the rented cabin and watched Christopher Robin and had a good time anyway, so it works. Even if it wasn't totally a "camp out."

The Ball Ground Christmas Parade happened. A coworker's daughter made us Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy, Woodstock, and Snoopy's doghouse and we played "Christmastime is Here" as we rode in the rain through town. It was so much fun and people loved our float!

Then Addy and I played Christmas music at the mall, we helped put on a Christmas formal, and had Christmas at home. I read a stack of Margaret Peterson Haddix books during Christmas break and it was great. Then we rang in the new year live-streaming the Disney fireworks.

And now it's 2019! I don't really know what's going to happen this year, but it's certainly going to be interesting!