Stephany Writes

It’s my last “Best of 2018” post! I can’t believe I’ve finished another round of this series and now it’s truly time to think about 2019 and exactly what I want from it (which is a lot, if you saw my post about the goals I want to achieve this year!)

Today, I want to take the time to look back on my year in reading in the form of my reading stats. I keep a very detailed spreadsheet about my reading, something I’ve been doing for a few years now, and it’s one of my favorite nerdy things to do. It also makes putting together this yearly post very easy as I can just look through that spreadsheet to pull out the important stats from the year. (Happy to share this spreadsheet to anyone who wants it – just let me know!)

So, here we go! 2018 in reading:

1) How many books did you read?

134 (+17 from 2017)

2) How many pages did you read?

43,853 (+4,138 from 2017)

3) What percentage of books did you read in print, e-book, and audiobook formats?

• Print: 41% (-10% from 2017)
• E-book: 43% (+2% from 2017)
• Audiobook: 16% (+8% from 2017)

4) How much money did you spend on reading this year?

$298.45 (+$193.63). Yowza. It feels a little crazy to realize I spent nearly $300 on books this year (and, um, that’s only counting the books I read. There are also books I bought and are sitting unread on my bookshelf, which aren’t included in this total).

5) What were the percentages by genre?

As always, romance is my most-read genre, although I dropped off a little bit this year at 40% (last year, I was at 43%). Fiction came in second at 19% (a steep decline of 6% from last year) with nonfiction right behind it at 18% (up from 14.5% in 2017). Two other semi-popular genres for me this year were thrillers at 9% and YA at 8%.

6) How many diverse books did you read?

36, which amounts to 27% (up by only 1% from 2017). I try to read diversely as much as I can, but I need to be even more diligent about reading books by and about people of color, the queer community, etc.

7) Where did you source your books from?

As always, I get most of my books from the library (70%) and this category has even increased from 2017 by 4%. After that, Amazon comes in second at 16%, an increase of 2% from 2017 (which honestly surprised me because I thought it would be much higher!) And the third highest category is Book of the Month at 6%.

8) What month did you read the most? The least?

I read the most in January and July (13 books) and the least in November (9 books).

9) What was the longest book you read? The shortest?

The longest book was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which was 530 pages. The shortest book was Never, Never: Part 3, which was 119 pages.

10) How many books did you finish in 24 hours or less?

6 (+1 from 2017)

11) What book you took the longest to read, and how long did it take you?

Persuasion by Jane Austen, which took me 22 days to read. That book was a slog.

12) How many books did you abandon?

12 (+1 from 2017)

13) How did you rate your books?

As this chart plainly shows, I gave most of my books 4 or 5 stars (67%), which is actually up from 2017 by 5%. My 3-star reads dropped to 21%, down from 29% in 2017. And I actually read a few more 1- and 2-star reads than usual this year, 12% as compared to 9.5% in 2017. Star ratings can be a controversial topic, I think, but I’m not very stingy with my ratings. If a book is well-written and made me feel something, it gets an easy 4 or 5 stars from me. A book that has some problems with its plotting or characters but still engaged me will get 3 stars. Books I didn’t like get 2 stars while books I vehemently hated (looking at you, Persuasion) will get 1 star.

14) How many books published in 2017 or 2018 did you read compared to books published earlier?

This was an interesting stat – exactly 50%! An even split between new books (67) and backlist titles (67). Ha! Who knew?

How do you keep track of your reading?

I’m officially going to end my reading year with 134 books read. I’m currently in the middle of two books but there’s no way I’m finishing them today, so 134 it is! This is the most books I’ve read in a year, and I’m really curious to see if this is an anomaly or my new normal. (My best guess is that it’s an anomaly, a year when I had a lot of free time and devoted most of that free time to reading.)

Reading 134 books in a year means whittling that list down to my top 10 reads was a hard process! But, alas, I made it happen and I’m really satisfied with the list I have come up with. My number-one book of the year ended up being one of my last reads of 2018, so I’m really glad I snuck it in at the end!

10. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Faith and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

In this memoir, J.D. Vance tells us his life story of growing up poor in Appalachia and managing to escape the cycle of poverty to become a Yale-educated lawyer. As he tells his story, he explores ideas of upward mobility, poverty, and the forgotten lower class. I grew up poor myself and I could relate so much to the author’s words. It really helped me come to terms with my own upbringing and how the effects of it reverberate throughout my life even today. Hillbilly Elegy has gotten a lot of negative buzz – and rightly so, as he never fully addresses his privilege of being white and poor, which is a completely different experience to being black and poor – but I really loved this book. It’s heartfelt, well-written, and vulnerable. And it speaks to an experience that people talk about in broad terms, giving us more of an inside look of the day-to-day existence of living in poverty.

9. Home Front by Kristin Hannah

Home Front is a novel about military families and war and the sacrifices soldiers make for us. Joleen and Michael have been married for twelve years and have had two daughters together, but their marriage feels on borrowed time right now. And then, Joleen is unexpectedly deployed, throwing their whole family into a tailspin. Joleen has to cope with missing a full year of her daughters’ lives while also handling life in a war zone. Michael has to step up to play both the mother and father role for the family. It’s a book that could be frustrating at times because Michael was just so incredibly selfish and Joleen played the martyr a little too often, but it’s also a book that had me full-on sobbing while I was reading it and even when I finished it. I loved the perspective of a woman soldier and the perspective of a husband left back at the home front. There don’t seem to be a ton of books about this experience. This novel hit me right in the heartstrings and while I’ve always been thankful for the sacrifices soldiers make for us, there was something about seeing how it plays out in an ordinary (albeit fictional) family that made me really come to terms with what that sacrifice looks like on a daily basis.

8. Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

Dreamland Burning is a novel that weaves together a present-day story of Rowan, a seventeen-year-old girl who discovers a skeleton on her family’s property, and the story of Will who becomes entrenched in the Tulsa race riot of 1921. I had never even heard of the Tulsa riot before reading this story, and it was just completely horrific to realize, once again, how black people were othered again and again by white people. I was especially engaged with Will’s story because it was such a glimpse into what life was really like for black people in the 1920s and how they were discriminated against so much, just because of their skin color. This is a book that should be required reading, in my opinion, and I really encourage listening to the audiobook of this novel because it’s nearly movie-like in the way the story is told.

7. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I finally read this much-beloved novel, written in 1943, for my yearly goal of reading four “classic” books. It’s a coming-of-age story of Francie Nolan, a sensitive and idealistic young woman who captured my heart from the get-go. It’s a pretty long book (my paperback version was almost 500 pages with tiny font), but that allows the reader to get truly seeped into Francie’s life. She lives in the slums of Williamsburg in New York, desperate for love, acceptance, and education, and we follow her life as she grows from a precocious little girl to a woman in her late teens. It’s a beautifully written book and one I’ve though often about this year, so it’s definitely a story that sticks with you.

6. One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

In this novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid explores the idea of having one true love… or maybe we have multiple true loves throughout our lifetime. Emma is in her early twenties when she marries her high school sweetheart and they truly live life to the fullest together, traveling the world and never staying put for very long. But then, her husband goes missing after the helicopter he’s on disappears over the Pacific. It takes her years to come to terms with his probable death, and part of her coping strategy is to build a new life in her hometown. It’s there that she reunites with an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again – something she never thought was possible. She’s engaged to Sam when the news comes: her husband is alive. It’s an impossibly beautiful story and was so engrossing that I could barely put it down, finishing it in two days. It’s funny and lighthearted, but also intensely vulnerable and gut-wrenching. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a truly talented storyteller and I desperately need to read the rest of her backlist.

5. Beartown by Fredrick Backman

Beartown is a tiny town nestled deep in the forest, a struggling town that has pinned all its hopes and dreams on the junior ice hockey team. As the book begins, the team is readying themselves to compete in the national semi-final game, and it’s after this match that things reach a cataclysmic peak. Accusations are spit out, lines are drawn, and a town now has to grapple with the aftermath. It’s the kind of story that sneaks up on you, as the beginning half of the novel is slow and meandering. I wasn’t quite sure where the plot was going or why I needed to keep reading. But then the event happens and suddenly, I couldn’t read the book fast enough. It was heartbreaking and frustrating and way too real. Backman has written an incredible story in Beartown, and it’s one everyone should read.

4. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant might be my favorite character of 2018. Eleanor is a socially awkward woman who says exactly on her mind because she doesn’t know any other way to be. But it doesn’t make her very many friends, which is why she usually spends her entire weekends alone. And then she meets Raymond. Raymond works in IT at her company, but she’s not too keen on him and is pretty obvious to him that she doesn’t think they’re destined for friendship. But then, one night, Raymond and Eleanor end up saving an older gentleman named Sammy and this sets everything into motion. Eleanor begins to understand the meaning of friendship, of opening up, of letting people see you. It’s an utterly charming novel and now one of my go-to recommendations. (Just be warned: the novel doesn’t really pick up until at least 100 pages, but it’s so, so worth it to keep reading through the slower beginning. I promise!)

3. Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

When I picked up this book, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be for me. For me, sex is a fraught subject starting with growing up as an evangelical Christian who was told over and over again that sex is only okay inside of heterosexual marriage. It made me look at sex as something taboo. This book, though, was life-changing. In this book, Dr. Nagoski takes readers through all of the research that has been done about women’s sexuality and what that means for women today. She talks about how pleasure differs for every woman (way more than it differs for men), how context is the most fundamental factor to every woman’s sexual wellbeing, and how every woman either has sensitive brakes or a sensitive accelerator when it comes to how they approach sex. She relates all of the research to a series of couples, based on real people she’s counseled, which really helps to put all of the research into context for how it works in the real world. For the first time ever, I feel empowered to understand my body better and what it needs to receive pleasure. I encourage any woman to read this book because it’s just important to understand how women’s sexuality works, no matter if you’re happy with your sex life or not.

2. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Oh, how I loved this romance. It was so sweet and it’s one I can see myself reading over and over again. The Kiss Quotient is about Stella, a thirty-year-old woman with Asperger’s who has just about zero experience in the romance department so she decides to hire a male escort to teach her the ways of kissing and sex. Michael is a tailor by day and a male escort by night, and he cannot afford to turn down Stella’s offer. Together, they work through all of the different “lessons” that Stella has outlined in the lesson plan she put together and… well, you know where it goes from there. It’s a romance, after all. I found myself rooting for Stella and Michael from the get-go, both of their characters were so well-developed, and the kindness Michael exuded for Stella melted my heart. It’s a very steamy romance, however, so it’s not for the faint of heart, but I truly enjoyed every single second I spent with this novel.

1. Becoming by Michelle Obama

In this memoir, former (but forever in my heart) First Lady Michelle Obama shares her story, starting with growing up in the south side of Chicago with a hardworking father, homemaker mother, and older brother and following through the eight years she spent as First Lady. Her life was never easy, but she persevered throughout it all to become the woman she is today. I teared up multiple times throughout the book, sometimes due to happiness (Barack’s proposal!) and sometimes due to sadness (like when she starts naming all of the black men killed by police in one year). Michelle offered us a unique glimpse into what it’s like to live in the White House, to have the expectations of FLOTUS, and to be married to a man like Barack. I listened to her memoir on audiobook, which she reads herself, and it was completely wonderful to spend 16 hours with Michelle in my ears. It’s easily my favorite book of the year and my favorite memoir of all-time, hands down.

See any favorites on this list? What was the best book you read this year?

Every year, I love taking the time to look back on the blog posts I’ve written and select a handful that truly stood out. This year, I wrote 127 posts, which is 25 more posts than I wrote last year! I am not sure what my blogging life is going to look like next year because 2019 is the year I am going to throw my whole self into writing my novel. This means waking up early and writing in the evenings and spending lots of time on the weekends writing. This means making space for novel writing, not just finding time here and there. In order to make that space, other things need to go and I know my blog might be one of those things. By that I don’t mean I won’t be blogging anymore. Oh, I will. I for sure will. I need this blog like I need air. Writing is my catharsis, my happy place. It just means I may not write as frequently. Definitely not three times a week, which has been commonplace for this past year. It may only be once or twice a week. It may mean more breaks, but I will always come back to this space. I can promise you that.

Let’s talk about 2018 blogging, though. This year, I launched my “What I’m Reading” weekly post and while I don’t get a ton of engagement on those posts, I had multiple people ask me about them when I stopped writing them for a few weeks. I really enjoy writing those posts, though, and I think I’ll continue them throughout 2019. I used Wednesdays as my “personal essay” days and Fridays to write the more “fun” posts, like Currently, Friday Questions, Five for Friday, etc. The personal essays always get the most engagement, and I may end up doing away with Friday posts altogether to give myself a bit of a breather. We’ll see!

I always like to take a moment to look at my blogging stats at the end of the year. I don’t really care about my stats throughout the year – I don’t have any idea of how many people come to my blog daily – but it’s a fun year-end tradition to check them out:

• Top post: I’m 27 and Scared to Move Out
• Top search term: “dachshund loyalty to one person”
• Most active month (in terms of visitors): January
• Least active month (in terms of visitors): June
• Total words written: 102,034
• Average words per post: 994
• Total number of views: 35,989
• Total number of visitors: 16,047

And now, the handful of posts that stood out to me. It was actually really hard to narrow down my posts to just these eight posts, but I managed to contain myself. 🙂

My favorite post was Life Lessons from Pops. In this post, I detailed six life lessons Pops taught me during the 31 years I got to spend with him.

Pops loved people. He loved his family, he loved his church, he loved the people he met at the gym, he loved strangers. Every person was deserving of a smile and a conversation, in his mind. Every person had a story to tell, and it was his job learn that story and connect with them. He was interested in people. He was interested in their lives and it was from a place of complete authenticity. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with Pops that didn’t leave me feeling seen and heard.

My most popular post was Why I’m Giving Up Online Dating in 2018. Near the end of 2017, I made the decision to delete all of my dating apps and not worry so much about online dating this year. In this post, I explained why I did so and apparently, it resonated with a ton of people!

The truth is, I haven’t found any sort of happiness in dating for the past few years. It’s not fun for me to go on dates and get my hopes up, only to find them dashed by a guy who is much less interesting in person or who ghosts on me right after that first date. It’s not fun to message with guy after guy after guy, and have to try so hard to keep up conversation because, news flash, most guys are actually terrible at communication. I can’t tell you how many conversations have stalled because the guy doesn’t ask followup questions or gives me few-word answers. 

My most helpful post was How to Choose What to Read Next. In this post, I answered a question from a friend who wanted to know how I choose the books I read because it can get overwhelming with all of the choices out there. My system for choosing books is rather complicated, so instead, I gave some options for creating your own system of what to read next.

I have a seriously intricate process when it comes to choosing what I’m going to read next. I have at least seven different TBR lists that I refer to when I’m making my monthly reading list, and it’s very hard to explain how I go about choosing what I’m going to read. But it’s a system that works for me! It’s probably not a system that will work for most people, though. So, instead of discussing my exact process for selecting books, I thought I could give some tips on how youcan figure out your own system for choosing what you are going to read.

A post whose success surprised me was What My Budget Looks Like Today. This was the second most-viewed post from 2018, and it’s surprising how much this one resonated with readers! In this post, I get brutally honest about my budget using actual numbers (including revealing my salary!)

Why am I doing this? Because I think we need to be more honest about money and not feel ashamed to talk about our salaries and budgets. Sure, my salary may not be all that impressive to other people, but it’s fine for my needs and it allows me to support myself easily.

A post I felt didn’t get the attention it deserved was Some Thoughts on Anxiety, Medication, and Shame. I used this post to talk about my decision to increase my antidepressant medication, which was the best decision I could have made for my mental health at the time but also came with a level of shame that I’ve rarely experienced.

I left the office feeling, for the first time ever, shame.

I’ve never, ever felt shame about my anxiety or needing to take medication to manage it. I understand that my brain just functions differently than those who do not experience anxiety and depression, and that the medication is necessary to balance it all out.

So, this feeling of shame was a new experience. I think it stemmed from this idea that I wasn’t getting “better.” Shouldn’t I be at the point where I could drop my dosage from 10mg to 5mg… not double it? Shouldn’t my brain be fixed by now?

My most beautiful post was In Loving Memory of Pops. This was my memorial to Pops, something that felt incredibly surreal to write. His death was so unexpected, and it was hard to put into words how massive this loss was for both me and my family.

Pops was ready to live for many more years, and that’s what feels so hard about losing him. I expected to have decades longer with him. I expected him to see me marry and love on my babies. I thought I would be able to bake him so many more batches of cookies, have so many more holidays with him.

The post I was most scared to push publish on was My Junk Financial Beliefs. Money always seems like a taboo topic, and this one was especially so. In this post, I discuss some of the money mindsets I’ve carried with me throughout the years and what I’m doing to shift my thinking.

I have a scarcity mindset when it comes to my finances. I never feel like I’ll ever have enough money, even though I actually do. I’m able to pay my bills, put food on the table, go on vacation. But I don’t save as much as I would like, I have credit card debt, and I always feel as if I’m working at a deficit when it comes to my budget. And it all feels very natural to me to have this unhealthy relationship to my finances. That’s the way I was raised, always fearing that one bill that could turn our world upside down, and that’s the way I live today, even though I don’t need to.

The post I am most proud of was The State of My Faith Today. In this post, I get real vulnerable and honest about my faith. I talk about the way my faith has changed throughout the years and what happened to cause a dramatic shift in my mindset. This is a post that has been on my heart to write for quite a long time, and I’m grateful it was met with mostly positive feedback.

My faith was a huge part of my identity from the time I was young and throughout my early twenties. I was fully invested in everything the church preached: I didn’t curse, dressed modestly, believed sex outside of marriage was sinful, didn’t listen to secular music or read books that didn’t have Christian themes. I wore a “True Love Waits” ring on my left ring finger for years and felt pride in the fact that I had never “given up my special gift” for some random guy. I was highly judgmental of people who didn’t follow the Christian faith. I believed that the only path to happiness was by being a believer. I didn’t believe in gay rights and was staunchly pro-life.

If you have a blog, do you see your approach to it changing in 2019?

My annual month-by-month recap is usually something I love to put together. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a great way to reflect back on the year and recognize all that I accomplished over the last twelve months. This year, though, putting together this post was difficult. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: 2018 was not kind to me. I endured two brutal losses, battled intense anxiety and depression, and just generally had a hard time finding my footing in a year that took so much from me. But I’m here. I’m whole. I made it through the hardest year of my life. There’s beauty and grace and mercy in that. I will choose to look at this year as a series of life lessons and hope that 2019 has more highs than lows in store for me.

In January, I was drained.

The holidays were behind me, and 2018 loomed before me. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted from this year, and that confusion manifested in some rather unpleasant anxiety symptoms. I spent a lot of January in a stupor, looking at my goals for the year and not feeling ready to start tackling any of them. And maybe that was my body’s way of recognizing my whole life was about to change in February, in a way I had been dreading for a while.

In February, I was heartbroken.

The first day of February, I took Dutch to the vet because he had stopped eating and didn’t seem interested in his walks. The vet confirmed my suspicion that it was time to let him go. On February 5th, after spending the weekend snuggling my little love and garnering up the strength, I let Dutch go to heaven. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make (and I am so, so grateful my mom was with me for it), and I spent the rest of the month dealing with the worst grief of my life. My apartment felt so empty, my life felt so lonely without him.

In March, I was busy.

I tried to keep myself as busy as possible in March, as the rawness of losing Dutch began to wear off and I started feeling very empty about my life. I made plans upon plans with friends, asked for more and more assignments at work, and generally did not give myself too many moments to breathe. I tried to delay coming home in the evenings as much as I could because I just hated coming home to an empty, dark apartment.

In April, I was content.

I was overstimulated from a busy March, so I let myself take it easy in April. My weekends weren’t packed with plans and my weeknights were quiet as well. I saw Pod Save America live with a friend, attended my friend’s 30th birthday party where I dressed as Tai from Clueless, and went on a road trip with my mom to meet a dachshund puppy that my mom was thinking about adopting. The end of the month saw me boarding a cruise ship for the tenth time for a seven-day cruise with my mom.

In May, I was anxious.

I have so many good memories from May. I went on a wonderful seven-day cruise with my mom where we visited Mexico, Honduras, and Belize. My mom adopted a dachshund puppy named Chip who easily became the light of my world. I went on a fun work outing to a beautiful golf course in Tampa. But throughout it all, I was living in a state of intense anxiety. I couldn’t even fully enjoy my cruise because I was so stuck in my cycle of anxious thoughts and just wanted to be home in a familiar environment. This anxiety was so overwhelming and I felt like I would never be able to break the cycle, which led to my first-ever serious depressive episode.

In June, I was depressed.

June was a hard month, one where I didn’t have energy to do very much. I still found a way to keep up appearances, only missing work once, but everything I did seemed to take so much out of me. A trip to Target, taking a shower, cooking food. It was all too much, and all I ever wanted was to be at home in bed. It was a scary time in my life, but I also found it enormously hard to reach out and ask for help. I just couldn’t figure out a way to put into words what I was feeling, and I was also scared of how hopeless my life felt at that moment in time. I didn’t want to breathe life into my depression, so I kept quiet about it.

In July, I was myself again.

After two months of intense anxiety and depression, I finally went to my doctor to ask about increasing my antidepressant medication. I wasn’t thrilled to do this, but I also knew I needed to do something to feel better because the way I was feeling was not normal. Thankfully, my doctor was more than willing to increase my dosage and I left that appointment feeling hopeful for the first time in months. After just a few weeks on the new medication, I felt like myself again. It was an amazing turnaround and a reminder of how easily our minds can work against us. I doubt that’s my last depressive episode, but I sure can’t help hoping it is. In July, I spent a weekend on Anna Maria Island with my girlfriends, celebrated my mom’s birthday, and attended a trivia night at a local pub.

In August, I was rejuvenated.

After a particularly miserable and hard few months, I felt renewed in August. I made a goal of walking 10,000 steps every day and spent so many daylight hours outside in the fresh air, moving my body and feeling energized. I went to a dear friend’s bridal shower, spent an afternoon binging on season one of Nailed It! and eating cupcakes with another friend, and had brunch book club at the pool. All in all, August was the best months of my entire year so far. I was just so happy to be feeling good again.

In September, I was happy.

September was just a solidly good month for me. I finally got my Dutch tattoo, something I’d been wanting to do for a long time. I love it so much! I enjoyed a surrey bike tour with my mom, older nephew, and brother. I started therapy. I continued walking a ton. I visited an animal shelter to look at the kittens, solidifying my decision to become a cat mom. And I celebrated my brother and nephew’s birthdays. It was just one of those perfectly content months where nothing huge happened, but I was happy and joyful all the same.

In October, I was overwhelmed.

October is the month I want to erase from my memory completely. In mid-October, Pops, my beloved grandpa, was admitted to the hospital for back surgery. From the moment he was admitted, I spent every evening at the hospital with him, just wanting to be there for him and make sure he knew he was never alone during this journey. I remember how happy he would get when I walked into his room, and I can feel good knowing I played a small part in helping him during the two weeks he was in the hospital. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse after he had a second surgery the week following his first surgery and he passed away on October 28th. It was a shocking, devastating, horrific time for my family because none of us expected us to lose him so soon. He was only 77 and completely healthy. The following days were a blur, to be honest. There was meeting with the funeral director, going to the cemetery, and visiting his home. There was a flurry of family flying in and dinners with them and just trying to come to terms with the fact that Pops was gone forever.

In November, I was emotional.

November was a month where I experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. The month began with Pops’ funeral, which was the most difficult day of my entire year. It felt surreal to be back in the spot where we buried my grandma just three years prior. We weren’t supposed to be back so soon, burying Pops. Throughout November, I grieved the loss of Pops while also trying to live my life. My mom, stepdad, and I took Chip to his first “Running of the Wieners” event, which was both thrilling and sad. It made me miss Dutch so much. One of my best friends got married in November in a beautiful ceremony in Orlando. Exactly one month after Pops died, I turned 31 and celebrated with a massage, a bookstore visit, a long nap, and dinner with my family. At the end of the month, I met up with my girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. It was an emotional month, but reminded me that even in the midst of grief and trauma, there is still goodness and light and joy.

In December, I was overjoyed.

December began in the most unexpected way: I won employee of the month at work! I was awarded a trophy to sit on my desk throughout the month, a $50 Amazon gift card, and the coveted parking spot in the executive garage (which seriously cuts my drive time in half since our regular parking garage is ridiculous). It was so nice to see all of my hard work awarded! A week later, I adopted Eloise, my beautiful cat who has become the absolute light of my life. She has helped me heal from an absolutely brutal year.

Hello, friends, and happy wind down to the end of the year! I can’t believe we’re less than a week away from 2019, but I am more than ready for the start of a new year. Like every year, I have big plans for 2019 and I hope it turns out to be a lot better than this past year. By… a lot.

For today’s “Best of 2018” post, I’m going through the same end-of-year survey that I’ve been doing for the past few years. I can’t remember where I found this survey, but it’s one of my favorite ways to reflect on the year. Please feel free to steal and complete on your own blog!

1) What did you do in 2018 that you’ve never done before?

I went to a live taping of a podcast (Pod Save America). I zip-lined upside down. I battled depression. I voted in a midterm election. I won employee of the month at work. I adopted a cat.

2) Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Yes. Every year, I make a list of yearly goals I’d like to accomplish. I achieved some of them, failed at others. I have been working on a list of goals for 2019, and I’ll be sharing those next week!

3) Did anyone close to you give birth?

Two of my coworkers had babies, but nobody in my close immediate circle.

4) Did anyone close to you die?

Unfortunately, yes. Dutch died in February and Pops died in October. Two earth-shattering losses, one somewhat expected and one completely unexpected. 2018 was not kind to me in this regard.

5) What places did you visit?

Mexico, Belize, and Honduras on a cruise, as well as Anna Maria Island here in Florida during a short weekend getaway with my girlfriends.

6) What would you like to have in 2019 that you didn’t have in 2018?

I would like to lose a significant amount of weight. I would like to get serious about writing my novel and have a completed manuscript by the end of the year. I would like to have a healthy amount of money in my savings account. And I would like to be more confident in myself and the decisions I make.

7) What dates from 2018 will be etched in your memory forever?

February 5th – the day Dutch died
October 28th – the day Pops died
December 8th – the day I adopted Eloise

8) What was your biggest achievement this year?

Honestly, just making it through this year. This year was full of loss and hardship, and the bout of depression I had over the summer brought me to my knees. But I kept pushing forward, even when life felt too overwhelming and that I’d never feel happiness again. I made it through and I’m ending 2018 happy and whole.

9) What was your biggest failure?

Not writing my novel. I just did not put my focus on writing my novel, letting it fall to the wayside during tough life seasons or for freelance work. My major goal for 2019 is to get super serious about writing my novel. I don’t want to just write in the nooks and crannies of my life (which tend to only be during my two-hour weekly writing dates), but actually make time and space in my days for novel writing. I can’t even imagine how proud I would be of myself to end 2019 with a full manuscript of the novel I’ve been aching to write for so long.

10) Did you suffer from illness or injury?

I started 2018 with a broken ankle and spent the first few months of the year healing. Other than that, I was pretty healthy! I got sick with a cold a handful of times, some of which needed antibiotics, but nothing out of the ordinary.

11) What was the best thing you bought?

Oh gosh, most definitely my couch! I was so desperate for a new couch that I made it one of my goals for this year to buy a new one. Over the summer, I sold my sectional (for way less than it was worth, but alas!) and went right out to buy a couch that would be a better fit for my small apartment. I had to wait seven (!) weeks for the couch to be delivered, since I wanted it to be a different size and color than the floor model, but it was so, so worth it. I love it so damn much!

12) Where did most of your money go?

Food always tends to be my highest spending category because I love eating out and do not love to cook, especially for one person. I used to beat myself up for that, but I have finally decided that there’s no point in that. I like eating out! I hate cooking! I would like to figure out a way to bring down my food spending, but I’m also not worried about it as much as I used to be.

13) What did you get really, really excited about?

Eloise! Adopting her was the highlight of my year and I have just been so excited to have her in my life. She’s the sweetest little thing and makes me so happy. I get so excited every time I come home to see her and spend time with her. She’s the best.

14) What authors did you discover in 2018? 

A lot! Abbi Waxman, Fredrick Backman, and Riley Sager are three authors I heard a lot about and finally got around to reading this year. I have a whole backlist of Backman to read, and I’m anxiously awaiting what’s next for Waxman and Sager.

For romance, I discovered Christina Lauren, and they were a delightful discovery! I’ve read three of their books and look forward to reading through the rest of their book list in 2019. I also was completely enchanted by Helen Hoang’s debut and I cannot wait for her second novel to be published next year.

15) Compared to this time last year, are you a) happier or sadder, b) thinner or fatter, c) richer or poorer?

I am happier, fatter, and richer.

16) What do you wish you had done more of?

More exercise. I really did not exercise nearly enough once I quit the gym, and I’m glad I’ll have a new gym to go to starting in January. Exercise keeps my mental health in check, and it’s a necessary part of my self-care routine.

17) What do you wish you had done less of?

Worrying about being uncomfortable during social events. I waste a lot of mental energy worrying about my social anxiety, and all my fears never end up coming true, and even though I know this is just the way I’m wired, I always wish I could stop wasting so much energy on worry.

18) How did your spend Christmas?

I woke up around 8:30 to Eloise staring directly into my face. After giving her some pets, I forced myself out of bed to feed her breakfast and then get breakfast of my own (which necessitated a Starbucks run). Afterwards, I spent some time reading and working on “Best of 2018” blog posts before getting ready for the day. I loaded up my car with gifts and the cookies I baked yesterday and headed over to my mom’s a little after 1 p.m. Once my brother and his family arrived, we opened gifts and then ate dinner. There was some time spent playing with all the toys, a forced “usie” in front of the tree, and then loading up the cars with gifts. I was back home around 6:30 where I unpacked all my gifts, played with Eloise for a while, worked on this blog post, and then collapsed into bed fairly early. It was a busy day (a busy season!) and I’m both sad and happy it’s over.

19) What was your favorite TV program?

Probably Friends. I am currently rewatching the series and it makes me so happy. It was a needed distraction in the days and weeks following Pops’ death.

Other shows watched in 2018: Mad Men, Nailed It, Queer Eye, Grace & Frankie, The Office, and The Good Place.

20) What were some of the best books you read?

Here’s a list of all the books I gave 5 stars to in 2018:

• Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
• The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
• The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
• Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy
• Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West
• Roomies by Christina Lauren
• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham
• The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
• Final Girls by Riley Sager
• The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
• The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
• The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
• Lies She Told by Cate Holahan
• Hillybilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Faith and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
• Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
• Beartown by Fredrick Backman
• Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski
• Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
• Home Front by Kristin Hannah
• You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
• Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney
• One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

21) What did you want and get?

I wanted to win employee of the month at work, and I did! I worked damn hard for that trophy, and it’s worth everything.

I also wanted to get a cat after losing Dutch and I did. Bringing Eloise home was the perfect ending to 2018.

22) What did you want and not get?

A relationship. Weight loss. A completed manuscript. Same ole, same ole.

23) What was your favorite film of 2018?

Crazy Rich Asians, hands down. I had such an emotional hangover after seeing that movie. It was perfection in every way.

24) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 31 this year and had a Day of Steph! The day started off in the most insane way possible with the fire alarm outside my apartment going off. The fire department came and everything, but they couldn’t figure out why it was going off.

My day officially started with breakfast at Starbucks and then a massage. I went to a bookstore, had lunch with my mom, and took a lovely three-hour nap. At night, my mom and brother took me out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. It was such a wonderful day!

25) What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? 

If all my friends hadn’t left my company. Ha! This is a totally selfish request because I’m so glad my friends moved on to new jobs where their talents could be put to better use, but I’m also sad that I don’t have my work posse anymore. It makes the workdays a lot more lonely.

26) Who kept you sane?

My friends were my rock during this tumultuous year. They were fantastic about checking in on me and being supportive as I worked through my grief. Also, my mom’s dog Chip was immensely helpful in healing my heart after Dutch died. My mom adopted him three months after Dutch died, and he just added so much joy to my life.

27) Who did you miss?

Dutch, Dutch, Dutch. Oh, how I have missed Dutch so much this year. He was such a great sidekick and losing him was so painful.

And Pops. I miss Pops so much. I still can’t believe we lost him this year. It doesn’t seem fair at all.

28) Who was the best new person you met?

Eloise! And Chip. Animals really make life so much better, honestly.

29) Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018.

You will know. You will know when it’s time to put your beloved dog down, even if you think there’s no possible way you could make that decision. You will know when it’s time to welcome a new pet into your life, even when you don’t know how you’ll be able to open up your heart again. You will know the exact moment you meet your new furever friend. It will feel right and good, you will feel at peace.

30) Show us one of your favorite photos from the year.

I took this photo on Dutch’s last night. He was miserable that night, waking up nearly every hour and whining, but if I placed him on my chest, he would calm down and fall back asleep. I spent the night on the couch with him on his bed next to me (I was staying at my mom’s that night because I didn’t want to wake up alone on the day I had to put him down), and I would pick him up, calm him down, and then lay him back down on his bed once he was asleep. It’s a picture that brings up a lot of emotions for me, but mostly of peace that I was able to fulfill his needs and bring him comfort in his last days. (And oh, how much I miss him sleeping on my chest!)

Tell me a date from 2018 that will forever be etched in your memory.