The Year in Review - 2017

Maybe it's just me, but 2017 has felt longer than a normal year. And yet, it wasn't quite long enough to get certain things done. Alas, isn't that how we often feel at the end of things? That we didn't have enough time to do the things that really should have been done? I hope I'm not the only one with this feeling - but more importantly, I hope there's grace for folks like me who probably didn't spend time correctly. Oh, wait, there is! It's called tomorrow: where there are mercies new every morning.

Even mornings when you wake up to fire and smoke.

But before I turn the page on 2017, I'd like to share some of the highlights of my year - at least according to the social media I was on. (Look carefully and you might notice a theme!)

#2017bestnine on Instagram

And the winner here is... Fire Baby! No surprise, really, as he was the best gift of the year. But in a bit more detail (going from top left to bottom right):
1. sharing a My Sunday Best reflection on the week after Fire Baby was born
2. Fire Baby on his birth day
3. 400 pounds of Fire Baby cuteness pinning me to the couch
4. an in utero profile pic of (you guessed it) Fire Baby
5. our Butterball Fire Baby wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving
6. Not pregnant! Drinking tea! Wearing my mom-iform! #thatpostpartumlife
7. a "Bumpie" in the bathroom while on a little getaway with the hubby in Scotland
8. Costco shopping with mom really wiped the little dude out. I guess.
9. Fire Baby's baptism!

I'm not sure how we'll top this in 2018 - I guess by taking more pictures of Fire Baby?? 😂

The Top 3 Posts on this here blog

So, who is this Fire Baby, you ask? Well, the number one viewed post on my blog was his birth story, and the second most viewed post was his birth announcement. Third up was a reflection on God's provision, but I have a sneaky suspicion that the picture of my baby bump may have had something to do with that (as it seems that social media likes babies!). So again, if I had plans to make things bigger and better on this here place, I guess I'm going to have to include more posts on/about Mr. Fire Baby. 
Either that, or get pregnant again! 😜

How did that (fill-in-the-blank) work out for you?

I'm not usually one for making resolutions or goals, but I do have one tradition of setting a goal for reading a certain number of books: this year it was a book a month, plus one:

 Looks like I fizzled out sometime around October... Gee I wonder why? #iblamethebaby #orthefires #orboth #betterlucknextyear

I also did a word for the year and a patron saint - and oddly - I wrote all of that up in a post that I never published. (I wonder why? It was a decent post!) In any case, my patron saint was Our Lady of Guadalupe and this was so fitting as she is also the patron saint of the unborn and I definitely felt her prayers during Fire Baby's birth.

My "word" for the year was (ha ha) GOALS - which I think I failed miserably with as I neither met my one goal above, nor made any to aspire to. I think I will have to do better this year, so I shall now turn to the internet to give me both my WORD and PATRON SAINT for 2018:

My word is:

Ooo. Striking. I want to make fun of this word, but somehow, I feel like it will be appropriate. I shall let it sit and ruminate on it a bit. There could be some wisdom in here.


My patron saint will be:

OK. This is so not cool. I actually did this a week or so ago with the kids and back then it picked a saint for me that was also the patron saint of those who have lost a spouse. And now this?? (And her name is just a feminized version of my husband's name?!)

I am officially weirded out. Someone needs to go talk to Jennifer Fulweiler about getting some better saints in her generator.

Alllll-righty! Well! This post took quite a turn for the strange and unsettling - so to close, I'll bring it back to something I know social media loves: Fire Baby!

Happy new year to you and thanks, as always, for reading. 💗

(Now can someone please hold my hand and tell me everything will be alright? Cuz that saint thing was really spooky!)