Companions, Health, Personal Growth

Review of 2017

Well, it’s that time of year again. 2016-i-was-the-most-awful-year-possible-2017-hold-my-beer

Time to look back and see how the year went, and try to decide what’s important for the upcoming year.

2017 has been a rough one, certainly.  I think the country made a mistake with the election of #45, and I find him to be a complete embarrassment.  I believe we’ll be cleaning up his mess for the rest of my natural life.  I find myself anxious and upset over politics and political maneuvers every single day.  It doesn’t help that our representatives in Congress don’t seem to care about the lives of their constituents, only the grift lining their pockets.  I know it’s been that way for a long time, but it seems to be getting worse and worse since Citizens United.  I honestly fear for my country.

On a personal level, it’s been a year with ups and downs, but mostly ups.

Since having the weight loss surgery in August of 2016, I have lost approximately 110-115 lbs.  This has resulted in vast improvements in my health overall, and likely contributed to my auto-immune condition going into remission this year.  My health news hasn’t been all good, though.  I developed thyroid nodules and a host of odd symptoms that seemed to resolve after stopping my auto-immune medication.  I also was formally diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  The fall/winter brought a string of migraines and respiratory problems, and that seems to be a seasonal pattern for me.  With all of that, plus grad school, my weight loss has stalled out about 15-20 lbs away from my goal.  I’ve been able to maintain pretty well, which is good.  Once the winter-related health issues start resolving in the spring, I’ll hopefully be able to get that last 20 lbs off.

Ah, grad school, how I loved thee… NOT.  I am happy and proud to say I slogged through my last semester of grad school, and passed with a GPA of 3.57.  I got seriously behind with the capstone project due to health complications, and lost a lot of points in my topics class due to late postings as I tried to keep up.  I seriously considered abandoning the semester and trying again in the spring, but good friends and family convinced me to push through.  My capstone professor was flexible with it and helped me catch up, which I greatly appreciate.  I am SO happy to have it done now, and so glad people who care about me convinced me to push through.

Now I have 2018 upcoming, which was the year I told everyone I’d get back into a social life.  I have so many things that I wanted to do that I had to shelve until 2018, so now I have to see which ones I still want to do and what the priorities are for all of it.  It’s strange to have free time again and not worry about assignments or reading that I’m behind on all the time.

On the homefront, the Mister and I continue to be blissfully (and annoyingly according to Munchkin) happy together.  After getting it so badly wrong a couple of times, it’s still a wonder to me that I got it completely and totally right this time.  I truly feel blessed.  All our kids are doing great.  We did gain a new fluffy member of the household when a young tuxedo tomcat invited himself in on a chilly evening.  I posted to the neighborhood boards and no one claimed him, so George became a member of the family after getting vetted and fixed.  Princess Buttercup is decidedly NOT amused, Ginny is alternately interested in playing and ticked off about him.  The dogs don’t know what to do with him, especially since he keeps trying to go into their area of the house.  But it’s fun having a young boy cat in the house again… he demands playtime or he gets truly obnoxious with the other cats, and he CLIMBS EVERYTHING.

Well, that’s most of the update for 2017.  I’m planning to do a lot more writing in 2018, so stay tuned for that.

I hope every good thing in the new year for all of you!

One thought on “Review of 2017

  1. You’re massively confused. (obviously – just look at YOUR life). What “mess”? He’s cleaning up Obama’s mess. But be sure to give your tax cut back since it’s such a “mess”.

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