2018 was our first full year living in Virginia and we are still enjoying it. Here are some of the highlights!
- Watched the winter Olympics
- Drove all the way to Baltimore, MD to pick up a trunk to save on shipping costs
- Visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
- Built shelves for our office
- Greg built a bench out of wood from an old chicken coop
- I had an allergic reaction to retinol in a new face lotion
- I apprenticed on Radical Roots organic farm (6 days a week from April through October)
- Put together our wedding photo book on Shutterfly
- Bought a new Jeep Renegade! Sold my 2005 Honda CR-V.
- Caught up on ALL of the Marvel movies
- Hiked a bunch but would have loved to hike even more!
- Massanutten Ridge Trail
- South River Falls Trail (Shenandoah National Park)
- Dark Hollow Falls Trail (Shenandoah National Park)
- Overnight backpacking hike to Old Rag – saw our first bear! (Shenandoah National Park)
- Attended two weddings
- My brother moved to Florida
- Saw Lindsey Stirling in concert with Evanescence in the summer and then on her Christmas tour in December
- Went to the Rockingham County Fair
- Greg bought us a new camera for pictures and video! (Sony RX100 VI)
- Celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the Greenbrier in West Virginia
- Attended the Harry Potter Festival in Staunton, Virginia
- Attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival
- Dressed up as Kylo Ren for Halloween (Greg dressed as Director Krennic)
- Transferred all of our old family home videos to digital format
- Attended our 10 year high school reunion over Thanksgiving
- Saw A Christmas Carol at the Shakespeare Theatre in Staunton, Virginia
Last year I wrote a post about my goals for 2018:
- Stay active
- Hike/backpack
- Write more
- Blog posts
- Work on longer pieces
- Continue playing the violin
- Research and make a farming business plan
- Continue to move toward a plant-based diet and eliminate meat
- Train to do a split
- Find my passion!
So, how did I do?
I definitely was very active this year as I was working on the farm 60 hours a week from April through October! I loved it and it affirmed my feelings that I want to run our own farm, spend my days out in nature, and work with my hands. I was very tired and worked 6 days a week, which made it difficult to do many longer hikes. But we got a bunch of day hikes in so that makes me happy!
Since I was so busy and tired from working on the farm, I didn’t have much time to do much writing on my blog nor on my own. However, when the season ended on October 31st, it set me up perfectly to try Nanowrimo again. I made a little progress on a story I have going and I am still happy to be chipping away at it. I think it might be limited to a short story rather than a novel, but either way I need to keep putting more words to the page!
Despite this, I did develop two great ideas for children’s books! My friend had her first baby last year and for the shower we were asked to bring one of our favorite children’s books as a gift to the baby. I chose the book Stellaluna! The process of reminiscing the stories of my childhood had me asking everyone I knew what their favorite baby book was when they were little. It led to some fun conversations! As I worked on the farm, I had lots of time to think and closely observe nature, which is how I came up with some fun stories that I hope to flesh out someday soon!
I did continue playing the violin this year, just without a teacher. I finished Suzuki book 3 and purchased book 4 to get started. I also bought some of Lindsey Stirling’s sheet music and those songs have been a very fun challenge! For Christmas, I got a new music stand that will be a big improvement from my current one – it rises taller and doesn’t slide down!
Farming research took a front seat this year which is really exciting! I received invaluable hands-on experience while working this summer which helps my continued research to make much more sense now that I have a good foundation and reference point on many topics. One of the activities we did as apprentices was to put together a plan of our dream farm. It was so fun for me to go through my list of dream items and see how I can fit them all together. Realistically, the process will be much more gradual, but it was freeing to let all restrictions go and see how far the dream can go!
I did eliminate meat this year completely. It was no problem for me at home because we didn’t eat much meat in the first place. However, it can be stressful eating out when there is only one meatless option at some restaurants – and it’s not very appetizing. I decided to continue eating fish in order to give me more options. It has been going really well and I don’t have any reasons or plans to stop.
I did not make much progress on my splits training! It’s a silly goal so I’m not too disappointed about it. My excuse is that I was already so sore in my hamstrings (and basically my whole body) from working on the farm that I didn’t want to put any extra strain on my muscles. But now that I think about it, maybe all that hamstring stretching while planting lettuce counts as working on splits?? I’ll just keep stretching and I’ll get there someday.
The last thing on my list was to find my passion! That’s a fairly lofty and vague goal to set, but it wasn’t really about finding it, it was about honing some of the interests I have in order to make some progress. I can’t say I fully succeeded, but I definitely made progress to further explore things, so I would call that a win.
2018 was a year of lots of hard work along with some fun times as a family. Onward!
Thanks for reading!
-Rebecca
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