{"id":506,"date":"2019-12-31T09:11:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T14:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/?p=506"},"modified":"2019-12-30T09:13:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T14:13:56","slug":"topical-tuesday-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/2019\/12\/31\/topical-tuesday-year-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Topical Tuesday: Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Before I get into this likely to be short and sweet post, I\u2019d like to apologize again for not being steady with my posts. I intend to adjust my posting themes\/schedule for the next year, though I\u2019m still brainstorming right now. If you have any ideas for daily themes, please share them with me in the comments so I can use them as reference. Topics in general are also well appreciated. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyhow\u2026 Hello, my friends! Can you believe today is the last day of 2019? On my youtube channel, I do a week in review each Sunday\u2026 But today, I\u2019d like to do a year in review here. I admit, I can\u2019t remember a lot of things, but there were a number of memorable moments that touched to my very core. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For starters, I won NaNoWriMo for my second or third time in a decade! That\u2019s a pretty amazing feat if you ask me. Considering I was totally burnt out early in the year, it shocks me how much I got done on various projects since November started. I think focusing on world building may really be a huge aid to me, so I\u2019m doing more of that now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A memory from before NaNoWriMo would be my trip to Arizona in August. It was my second time there staying at my boyfriend\u2019s place, and my first chance to be there for his birthday. It\u2019s honestly a miracle I was able to afford it, but the biggest miracle, to me, was how sweet his family was towards me. I mean, they were nice last time too, but this time was different:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were all watching Scare Tactics while eating dinner, and I was a little (okay, a lot) scared. I told him never to do that to me, and one of his family members said, \u201cIf he does, just tell one of us and we\u2019ll beat him up for you.\u201d I\u2019m not a fan of violence, but it was the thought that counted, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve had a number of other small events happen over the course of the year. I entered (and lost) my first short story contest. I just recently also entered my first pay-to-enter poetry contest with a notable cash prize of $500. It wasn\u2019t insanely expensive- well, it sort of was. If you were just entering one poem, you had to pay $4.50, but if you donated $5.00 or more, you got three free entries. So, naturally, I paid the extra fifty cents to get myself three entrees, which were fun and difficult to choose\/write. I don\u2019t actually know when the winner is to be announced, but I\u2019m feeling at least a little confident in my work, so that\u2019s a good thing, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A problematic thing that happened, however, is my weight: I gained enough to reach over 200lbs. However, dad and I got really into Pokemon Go together this year, so we\u2019ve been taking more walks. I hope to take even more next year! But that\u2019s not the point of this post. Tomorrow, I\u2019ll be doing a video about my goals and resolutions for the year on my youtube channel. I plan to link it here, so please come back when the time comes! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other notable things: I changed the layout, as you can clearly see. Hopefully this one has comments working better. I wanted a fresh look for the new year. I might adjust the colors some more, but I liked the dark mode look. This is just one of many changes I\u2019m hoping to make. I intend to make new banners for my posts, and I\u2019m also in the midst of looking at huge lists of prompts for blog posts and videos so I can help avoid my recent tendency to have no idea what to write and skip days at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how was 2019 for you? I hope there were some good memories to be had, and I hope you\u2019ll share them with me in the comments! Look forward to the future changes- I promise to do my best to make this blog even better in 2020\u2026 Because I know it can be!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I get into this likely to be short and sweet post, I\u2019d like to apologize again for not being steady with my posts. I intend to adjust my posting themes\/schedule for the next year, though I\u2019m still brainstorming right now. If you have any ideas for daily themes, please share them with me in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[33,2,3,4],"tags":[43,220,221,218],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8uAZQ-8a","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}