For New Years, instead of making a million promises to myself, instead I’m thinking about everything I’ve done in the last year.
I finished one novel draft, and then completed six rewrites/revisions of various books. My dossier of projects is looking a lot cleaner than it did a year ago, and my skills have improved. This makes me so happy.
Drew and I fielded another year with his business–and a very successful one. We redesigned his scheduling system to fit increasing demand, and it works beautifully. He continued to paint; I continued to manage. There’s less and less for me to do. Things have been going more and more smoothly. It’s good.
I spent (now over) nine months pregnant, and discovered I must have won the genetic lottery, because that really just hasn’t made me sick or been hard. Not even now. I also did a lot of prep that will make our lives easier in the next three months, which will either turn out to be much-needed or just convenient. Either way, I enjoyed it.
I pared down my life to just a few commitments, and only those that I can keep without feeling lots of pressure. I still have a writing group and a roleplaying game, both of which I love. I still have two jobs, both of which I love. And I still have church. But I don’t do much else, and I like it that way. Right now I’m bored, but being bored means I’ve made space, which was the goal.
For fun we mostly did low key things. Played some Warmachine. Learned to play Malifaux and Blood Bowl. (I so love Blood Bowl.) Played a whole bunch of excellent video games. (I doubt that’s going to change much in the coming year. Our stack of games-to-play is deep.) Finished one of my favorite roleplaying games ever. I ran a short bard’s game, which was too much fun. I finished my TBR pile, and all of my sewing projects for which I had all the pieces.
This next year will involve lots of adjusting, I’m sure. In the winter, there will be infant stuff. In the summer there will be book promotion stuff. In between all that I hope to photograph more and paint more and draft more and put some finishing revisions on the books I worked on this year. I hope to keep it low key. It’s amazing what I can accomplish if I get a little done every day. I like the rhythm we’ve got now, and while I know it’s going to need to adjust around new demands, I hope I can keep the beat the same.
