2017: A Year in Review AKA Better Late than Never

That was kind of a crazy year wasn't it? A lot of stuff happened, some good, a lot bad.

Lots of famous people died.

Even more non-famous people died.

Donald "You're Fired" Trump took office as president of the United States.

Rompers for men.

Brexit.

Irma, Harvey, and Maria.

Chris Pratt and Anna Faris split.

Still crying about that last one.

Millions of dollars in donations flooded (probably a poor choice of words) in for the victims of Irma, Harvey, and Maria in one of the largest outpouring of support I have ever seen.

Disney and Amazon now own approx. 106% of all the things.

Leia Organa is officially a Disney Princess, so is Ironman.

We lost both Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher.

More broken up about that one than all the others.

All of this and more happened last year for us as a whole but 2017 was pretty groundbreaking in my own life.

The first half of the year is pretty hazy, probably erased by everything that happened after. In June, I decided to move out of Kearney, NE where I had lived for about 8 1/2 years and chose Lincoln, NE as my new home. I gave myself until the end of September to find a new job and apartment. It was one of the most nerve wracking things I've ever done, but I managed to pull it off and I feel like I earned the "I Adulted" first place trophy. I have a tiny apartment that suits Toothless and I just fine and I have a job that I actually enjoy where I don't talk to people for most of the day. It's fantastic!

It was also probably my most successful year as a writer. In September my short story "The Vaults" was selected to be included in Below the Stairs: Tales from the Cellar, a horror anthology produced by Oz Horror Con, I released my sixth e-book, Shenanigans & Jello Shots, and an excerpt from my work-in-progress, The Whiskey Widow, was selected to be included in the Nebraska Writers Guild's first members-only anthology, Voices from the Plains.

Find it on Amazon.

Find it on Amazon.

Find it on Amazon.

Oh and my best friend and I nearly completed the Nebraska Wine Tour, I had a sister get married, and another give birth to another absolutely adorable little boy.

Just a little busy.

I also attempted my own challenge of only reading books by Nebraska authors, Operation: Nebraska Author. I didn't do as well as I wanted but I don't think I did too bad either.

Operation: Nebraska Author Books:
Blissfully Married by Vicotrine E. Lieske
In Cold Storage: Sex and Murder on the Plains by James W. Hewitt
*All the Gallant Men by Donald Stratton and Ken Gire
Sky Rider, the Story of Evelyn Sharp, WWII WASP by Dr. Jean A. Lukesh
*Steam on the Horizon by Melissa Ann Conroy
The Meaning of Names by Karen Gettert Shoemaker
*The Reluctant Canary Sings by Faith A. Colburn
The Marrying Type by Laura Chapman
The Clearwater House by Tammy Marshall
Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Ogalala Sioux by Nicholas Black Elk and John Neihardt
(* indicates my three favorite books of the year, in no particular order)

I had so much fun with this project. I read a lot of books outside of my normal genres and I really got to see the amazing talent we have here in the Cornhusker state. My stack of books by local writers more than doubled in 2017 so I've decided to extend my project into Operation: Nebraska Author 2018. I gave up TV and Netflix for Lent so we'll have to see how many books I can plow through in the next 40 days.

I think 2017 was the perfect shitstorm of good and bad that allowed me to grow as a person and get me ready for whatever life will throw me next. I don't know if we, as a society, will recover as quickly or as well as I did (hello Tide Pod challenge), but I do know there are millions of people like me who decided that they were going to stand up from the mess stronger than before instead of burrowing deeper into it. I just hope their voices rise to be heard over the moaning of those who chose to stay down.

2018, don't let me down.