Hi, friends! Happy Wednesday. 🙂 I tried my best to get this post up yesterday, but it ended up taking me much longer than anticipated! I have different ways of recapping my year, as sometimes I just list out my top moments or assign an emotion to each month. This year, it felt right to recap it month-by-month in a bullet list. It really shows the ups and downs of this year, from the beginning months where everything felt normal, to the uncertain early months of the pandemic, to life starting to slowly come back to normal near the end of the year. (A different kind of normal, of course.) Enjoy!

JANUARY

• I rang in 2020 at a small house party with a few close friends, which is my new favorite tradition.
• I had two reading dates, one at our local library and the other at my friend’s pool. (Reading by the pool in January—the perks of living in Florida.)
• I had my first Mazzaro’s experience! This is an Italian market that’s a staple in my city, but I had never been.
• I dog-sat for my fur-brother Chip and a friend’s adorable greyhound.
• I had book club at a friend’s home where she cooked a delicious pot of chili and we made plans for a kayaking weekend in March.
• I started physical therapy for my ankle.

FEBRUARY

• Mom and I hosted our annual Super Bowl party!
• I had a really fun lady date with my mom where we went out to lunch, painted pottery, got massages, and got pedicures.
• Mom and I completed our first mud run! I was not excited about doing this, but it turned out to be such a fun experience.
• I got to see Lisa! She came to Florida for a family beach trip and we had lunch at a local pizza place.
• I celebrated Galentine’s Day with Briana. We ate pizza and watched When Harry Met Sally. She also brought me a long-stemmed rose!
• My nephew turned 5 and celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese.
• Our book club had a photoshoot! This was an incredible experience and the photos turned out amazing.
• Mom and I booked a trip to New Orleans for early April.

MARCH

• Mom and I attended a pet portrait painting event at a local art studio. I painted Dutch!
• I went on a camping trip with a few friends. We stayed at an Airbnb on the Suwanee River where we were able to launch kayaks right off the property.
• Chip turned 2!
• COVID-19 started causing closures in my area—schools shut down, restaurants closed for in-person dining, etc.
• On March 13th, my company announced we would be shifting to remote work while they monitored the situation. This ended up being my last day in the office (but I didn’t know that then).
• I started feeling really anxious and worried about the pandemic. Empty shelves at the grocery stores, a toilet paper shortage, an administration that wasn’t taking things seriously… it was chaotic and scary.
• Mom and I canceled our trip to New Orleans. 🙁

APRIL

• Life started to feel very weird, as my state went into a stay-at-home order (finally!). Seeing people in the grocery store wearing masks felt so apocalyptic, though.
• Mikaela and I resumed our writing dates after taking a few weeks off to adjust to pandemic life. We met for two hours every Saturday morning on Zoom.
• My washer broke. Perfect timing!
• I felt very lonely, as I was isolated from everyone, including my mom. It was really, really hard.
• My friends and I organized a birthday surprise for Amber and seeing my friends again after so many weeks of isolation was a breath of fresh air. It was weird, though, as we all kept our distance from each other and some of us wore masks.
• I went through lots of ups and downs with my anxiety. There was so much misinformation and uncertainty about the pandemic, and it was hard not to fall down a rabbit hole of panic-scrolling through the news.
• Eloise turned 2! I tried to make a special cat birthday cake for her, but it did NOT turn out well. Sorry, my love!

MAY

• My friends and I pulled off another birthday surprise for a friend!
• Lila turned 2, and this time, I let the cats have some wet food and a few bites of a vanilla cupcake.
• I celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom, my brother, and my nephews. It was the first time I had seen my mom in more than a month, and had been more than three months since I last saw my brother and nephews. We ordered in food and mostly enjoyed just being around each other.
• Florida started the slow process of reopening businesses, and when my hair salon called me to make an appointment, I happily scheduled one. They had implemented a lot of COVID-19 protocols so I felt safe about the process. And I was so excited to have a fresh cut and color!
• My mom and I started a weekly Thursday night dinner, where we would order takeout and watch a few episodes of Golden Girls together.
• We had a socially distanced book club gathering in a friend’s backyard that included a book exchange. I loved lending out some of my favorite books to friends in need of reading material.
• On May 25th, George Floyd was brutally murdered by a cop, sparking nationwide protests and a time of white people finally dealing with their privilege and silence. It was a time of reckoning and change, one I can only hope follows us into 2021.

JUNE

• The keyboard on my laptop died after I spilled a bit of soda on it. I had to wait two whole weeks for a replacement keyboard, during which time I had to do all my work on my tiny, 13-inch Chromebook. Do not recommend!
• Our library system reopened for curbside pickup! Oh, happy day!
• My mom and stepdad closed on their house, and I got immediate access to a private pool.
• I spent a Saturday helping my mom paint her office in her new home and also enjoyed taking my first dip in the pool. So lovely!
• I finally felt comfortable enough to have maintenance come by to fix my washer. Turns out, I needed an entirely new washer/dryer. Niiiice.
• I experienced vertigo for the first time, and it was AWFUL. I couldn’t even walk a few steps without my head spinning so much that I felt like I was going to throw up. Thankfully, the worst of it cleared up within a few hours but I felt dizzy for nearly a week afterward.
• Florida became the epicenter of COVID with crazy-high case numbers and very little ICU capacity. It was a scary time—you never want to see your state as a CNN national breaking news alert.

JULY

• I met up with some family members for a quick dinner (on an outside patio). I was introduced to my cousin’s new baby (he’s delicious!) and it was just so nice to catch up with them.
• I took my mom’s birthday off work so we could have a fun day out. We got pedicures (we went to a nail salon that another friend had scoped out and said was following very strict COVID policies) and had lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Later, my brother and nephews came over for dinner (we ordered in).
• I launched a brand new blog design, and I’m still so in love with it!
• I went back to the office to pack up my belongings. It was so weird to see my calendar still stuck on March 13th! Oh, how times had changed.
• My friends and I surprised another friend for her birthday, showing up at her home on a weekday evening. We sat outside by her pool, chatting and catching up, for about an hour. It was so nice to see them!
• I started an Instagram for my cats! They almost have 100 followers and are definitely becoming the “catfluencers” they always wanted to be. 🙂

AUGUST

• I signed up to be a poll worker and attended my first training. I learned so much!
• I celebrated seven years at my company. Crazy!
• It was the tenth anniversary of the founding of our book club so a few of us met in a park for a socially distanced get-together. The weather was great and it was so wonderful to catch up with my friends.
• I started packing for my move and doing a ton of decluttering tasks.
• My mom and stepdad officially moved into their new house, and we all celebrated by getting together for family game night. Yay!

SEPTEMBER

• I moved to a new apartment! This was the highlight of my year. The move went really smoothly, although it was a lot of work for one person, especially moving to a third-floor apartment (with no elevator).
• I took a week off work for the move, which was so lovely! It meant I could move slowly without needing to get everything done in just a few days. (It also allowed me a lot of time to deep clean the old place, which needed a lot of work!)
• It was a busy birthday month as my stepdad, brother, and nephew all turned another year old. My brother turned 34, my nephew turned 12, and I think my stepdad would prefer if I kept his age quiet. 🙂
• My friends and I organized another birthday surprise for a friend (who then proceeded to feed us dinner because if she isn’t the poster child for an Enneagram 2, I don’t know who is).
• I was on Chip duty for a few days while my mom and stepdad took a little vacation. I loved hanging out with that dude!
• I had my first reading date with Amber since January! We met at a park and spent most of our time chit-chatting. We did sneak in about 30 minutes of reading before the sun went down, though.

OCTOBER

• Mikaela and I resumed in-person writing dates this month! We both felt comfortable meeting in public, so we started having Saturday morning writing dates at Panera.
• I bought a new, bigger desk and my stepdad came over to help me put it together.
• I got my hair cut at a cosmetology school for the first time. It took much longer than I anticipated, but I was pleased with the results (and even more pleased with the cheap price!)
• Briana and I resumed our monthly lady dates! We met at a restaurant downtown and sat outside, far away from anyone else. The food was delicious and it was just so nice to have this semblance of normalcy in my life.
• Another month, another birthday surprise! This time, we all surprised Mikaela during one of our Panera writing dates. It was so fun to organize this!
• Amber and I went to a local cat cafe to spend 45 minutes petting and loving on cats that are up for adoption. The best kind of therapy!
• My company announced that we were switching to a remote workforce, so I went to my office to pick up my computer system. Working from a desktop with two big monitors instead of a laptop was life-changing for my work life!
• I helped my mom pass out candy to kiddos on Halloween! There wasn’t a huge turnout due to COVID, but we had a fair number show up and it was fun to see them so excited.

NOVEMBER

• I was a poll worker for the general election, which was a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable experience. It helped that I worked with really fun people who made the time pass quickly!
• Biden won the election! Oh, happy day!!
• I had my monthly lady date with Briana. I asked for a shopping date at Tombolo Books, an indie bookstore. While we were perusing the shelves, all of my other friends stopped by to surprise me! I had been expecting a birthday surprise but was still somehow shocked when it happened, haha.
• I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, and I know how lucky I was to be able to do that when so many people couldn’t see family this year.
• I turned 33!

DECEMBER

• My dining room table was delivered and assembled, three months after I moved in.
• My best friend’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer. The news is devastating and heartbreaking, and I’m praying every day for a miracle.
• I tried to enjoy the holiday season as much as possible: I went on a tour of Christmas lights, decorated my apartment, decorated Christmas cookies with the fam, and went on a fun Christmas stroll through the historic Tampa Bay Hotel (a National Historic Landmark in Tampa).
• On Christmas Eve, my mom, stepdad, and I enjoyed our favorite tradition: a fancy steakhouse dinner! We got dressed up and enjoyed a delicious meal at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.
• I had a lovely Christmas with my family and received so many thoughtful gifts!

Happy last Monday of 2020! We almost made it through this crazy year, and it’s time for my most favorite blog series: best of the year! While it feels almost sacrilegious to say “Best of 2020” at all, alas, that is the name of my blog series and I’m going to try my best to find some bright spots in this weird year. To start, it’s my annual end-of-year survey. I found this survey years ago on a now-defunct blog and it’s one of my favorite ways to reflect on the year. Enjoy!

1) What did you do in 2020 that you’ve never done before? 

• Ran a mud race
• Lived through a global pandemic
• Was a poll worker in the general election
• Went kayaking

2) Did anyone close to you give birth? Two of my cousins gave birth in February and April of this year. 🙂 A sweet baby girl and an adorable baby boy!

3) Did anyone close to you die? No, and I know how lucky I am to say that this year.

4) What places did you visit? Nada. I didn’t travel at all in 2020. (Thanks, pandemic!)

5) What would you like to have in 2021 that you didn’t have in 2020? More connection. It was a hard year to stay connected and I don’t think I did a great job of reaching out to friends and staying in touch with family. I’d really like to work on that in 2021.

6) What dates from 2020 will be etched in your memory forever? Probably December 11th, which is the day my friend texted me to say, “She has a tumor,” in reference to her baby. I’ll never forget that day or how it felt to have my world bottom out with this news.

7) What was your biggest achievement this year? Living through COVID-19. This wasn’t a year for achieving—it was a year where life as we know it altered drastically and just maintaining our sanity through the isolation and fear and misinformation, while doing everything we can to stay healthy and keep others around us healthy, is enough.

But if I had to pick out an achievement from 2020 that’s not COVID-related, I’d say that reading 150 books was a pretty big deal!

8) What was your biggest failure? I wish I could have finished my novel! But that was not to be. I’m not sure if I would list it as a failure, though. It just didn’t end up being one of my priorities this year. And that’s okay!

9) Did you suffer from illness or injury? Nope. I was healthy all year long (not even a cold!), and I am so very grateful for that.

10) What was the best thing you bought? Gosh, probably my desk! I bought a small desk in April after realizing I’d be working from home for a long time, and then upgraded to a fancy, bigger desk in September after my move. It’s perfect for my needs and has two great spots for the cats to sleep. 😉

11) Where did most of your money go? FOOD. I spent so much money on groceries and UberEats orders. It was my coping strategy this year.

12) What did you get really, really excited about? Moving! I was so damn excited to move from my tiny, studio-esque apartment and into something bigger and more updated. I am so in love with my new place. It’s the best!

13) What authors did you discover in 2020? Alisha Rai, Barbara Kingsolver, Kiley Reid, Lisa Genova, Leah Johnson, James McBride, and Olivia Dade to name a few! I read a lot of great debuts and novels from big-name authors whose works I’d never read before.

14) What do you wish you had done more of? I wish I had reached out to friends more, which is exactly what I said last year. Then again, I didn’t know what awaited me in 2020. But I think I would have been a lot happier if I had done a better job at maintaining my friendships. I don’t feel like I was a very good friend this year, but I’m also trying to give myself a lot of grace here because: global pandemic.

15) What do you wish you had done less of? Emotional eating. I haven’t stepped on a scale in the past six months, but I know I’ve gained a good amount of weight this year. It was not the year of healthy living for me, and I engaged in some pretty bad eating habits. But again, trying to give myself a ton of grace here. This was a hard, hard year and we all just did the best we could.

16) How did you spend Christmas? I spent the morning at home, puttering around and getting ready for the day. Around 11:30, I left for my mom’s. We had Christmas dinner around 1 and then opened presents. I got all of the things I really wanted, including a new set of pots and pans, a popcorn popper, a rug for my patio, and a bullet journal kit.

I left my mom’s around 4 and it took three trips for me to bring everything up to my apartment! Whew. Then I proceeded to take a really lovely nap, waking up a little before 7. I spent the evening unpacking all of my gifts, washing all of my new pots and pans, and opening gifts with the girls. I also finished a book and took a nice, long bubble bath. It was a lovely day!

17) What was your favorite TV program? The Baby-Sitter’s Club on Netflix! This light-hearted, supremely enjoyable series came out over the summer and it was exactly the bright spot I needed. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly encourage you to give it a try. It’s an incredible adaptation of this most beloved book series.

18) What did you want and get? Well, I wanted the experience of working from home more and I surely got that! I started working from home full-time in mid-March and it was so successful for our company that we’re going to be working remotely for good! They have downgraded our office to a smaller space that will function more as a co-working office. I have thrived in a remote work setting! I love not having a commute, spending all day with my kitties, wearing loungewear 24/7, and having a much more flexible schedule.

I also wanted to move to a new, bigger apartment and I got that as well!

19) What did you want and not get? I didn’t find love in 2020, and that was something that was really on my heart at the end of 2019. I wanted to fall in love this year and even made a goal of going on 24 first dates! I was already behind on my goal when COVID happened. When we were under a stay-at-home order, I just wasn’t in the right headspace to even think about dating. And later, I didn’t feel comfortable going on dates with strangers. (Nothing says romance like, “Please show me the results of your most recent COVID test.”) 2020 was just not the year for dating, and I’ve made my peace with that.

20) What was your favorite film of 2020? You guys, I don’t think I watched a single new movie in 2020! Okay, actually I did, but it was a movie from the 80s, haha. The only “new” movie I watched this year was When Harry Met Sally, which I watched with a friend during our annual Galentine’s Day date. I thoroughly enjoyed it so I could definitely say it was a favorite.

21) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 33 this year and had a really special day! I started my day with a massage and then met up with my mom for pedicures. We went shopping at this adorable, local Christmas shop and then picked up Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I helped my mom and stepdad pick out a Christmas tree, too! Later on, I went out for a fancy dinner with my mom, my brother, and my stepdad and opened presents from them. It was such a great birthday!

22) What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Not having to deal with a pandemic? I mean, duh. I could have traveled and seen friends as usual. Maybe I would have found love even.

But I also wanted to contemplate my answer to this question, even in the midst of living through COVID-19. Is there anything that would have made this pandemic year more satisfying? And the truth is, I don’t think so. While 2020 was a hard year in a lot of ways, it wasn’t necessarily a bad year for me. I am insanely lucky that my company has allowed us to work from home since March and that my job wasn’t affected at all due to the pandemic. I did not get COVID this year, nor do I know anyone close to me who had a severe case or died from it. (I have spent a lot of time this year wondering how my grandparents would have handled this pandemic. Pops would have hated all of the restrictions, I know that much. He was very much a social person, and it would have been really hard for us to keep him from going places, especially church.) My mental health stayed relatively stable, I was able to move to a beautiful apartment, and my finances improved dramatically this year. I feel icky even typing these sentences, knowing how privileged I am to have escaped 2020 relatively unscathed, but I can’t deny my own experience, either.

23) Who kept you sane? My mom—we had daily FaceTime chats at the beginning of the pandemic that have now evolved to FaceTiming multiple times throughout the day. We rarely text anymore, ha. We just Facetime each other when we have something to say!

I also had a daily Marco Polo chat with M. that kept me going throughout this year. These videos felt like a safe space to talk about my day and some of the things I was thinking about. It’s nice to be able to talk for as long as I want, knowing I won’t get interrupted.

24) Who did you miss? My friends. We haven’t had a book club meeting since February and only got together throughout the year for birthday surprises, and I really miss seeing them on a regular basis.

25) Who was the best new person you met? I didn’t meet any new people IRL but have connected with some lovely bloggers this year, and that has been a delight for me.

26) Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020. People are inherently good. It’s been really heartwarming to watch people show up for my friend, M., her husband, and baby Olive as they go through one of the most difficult things a family can go through—pediatric cancer. She’s received so many gifts and donations and support. M. is always blown away when a complete stranger wants to help (“But you don’t even know us!”), and it has reminded me that people are inherently good. This situation is so incredibly shitty, but I am grateful that M. and her family aren’t going through this alone, and Olive has an entire army behind her.

27) Show us one of your favorite photos from the year. I am so, so glad we were able to sneak in our book club photoshoot before lockdown. Actually, when we had our photoshoot, we had no idea that our world would change drastically in just a few short weeks. There are so many incredible photos from this photoshoot, but I especially love this one of us. I can’t imagine doing life without these amazing ladies!