Ways the year was the same as last year in a positive way

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“December Journaling If You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” Day 25: Ways the year was the same as last year in a positive way.

• I have a hard time remembering details from 2024.

• I do know that although I have several serious health issues, I am relatively healthy.

• Although my family might not all live with me anymore, they are still my family.

• I wrote some last year, and I wrote some this year.

• I still have the same house, and I still like it.

• I still have Jesus in my heart and proclaim Him Lord and Savior.

• We still have Rosemary, Sage, and Poppy.

• I still write for the Tuttle Times.

• I still go to the same church.

So those are all good things. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s enough, I think.

Something You’ve Made Progress On

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“December Journaling if You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” Day 24: Something You’ve Made Progress On.

MY BOOK! I have made progress on my novel. Not enough (never enough) but I’ve at least done SOMETHING. And I’m going to do even better in 2026. Just journaling is supposed to be helping me keep my writing muscle going.

I also read all those books and that’s major progress over the amount of books I read in 2020 and 2021 and 2022, which is probably less than five and could possibly be ZERO!

Oh, and I did a small amount of work on a fanfic that I wrote several years ago. So that was fun. It’s still not done yet either.

I’m running out of steam; unless the next one is an amazing topic I’ll work on these tomorrow.

New Things You Tried This Year, Even if it was Just Once

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“December Journaling if You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” Day 23: New Things You Tried This Year, Even if it was Just Once.”

I tried talking with AI, and I know as a creative, I’m supposed to boycott all AI, but it sure has been helpful with navigating benefits for people in need, legal matters, how to get grants for nonprofits, medical issues, and other things. It’s a lot better than just a google search. And I fact check everything, obviously, but wow, it sure has saved me many, many times this year. I would not have been able to get the help we got if I hadn’t had that help. I’m pretty good at figuring things out, but this stuff is near impossible. So I’m admitting it. I talk to chatgpt sometimes. I hope that doesn’t kick me out of the creatives club.

I tried helping a local nonprofit in our area that I had never worked with before, and I thought I was being helpful but since the people I talked to have ghosted me when I emailed them and were also weird when I saw them downtown, I don’t know if I’m going to keep that up.

I don’t know. That’s good enough, I think.

Something you overcame this year through perseverance

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“December Journaling if You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” Day 22: Something you overcame this year through perseverance.

Sarah living here.
Sarah getting reasonably good grades.
Finding and navigating assistance programs to help us with utilities, food, medical, etc. Arguably the worst thing. You can’t email, you can’t text, you can’t chat…you can only call. And if you don’t call within the first hour of them being open? Forget about it.

I think that’s about it.

Who Made You Laugh This Year

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Again, I’m not sure how this pertains to “December Journaling if You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year.” Whatever. 21. Who made you laugh this year.

Ben, Mom, Lenora, Bennett, Belinda, Sarah, Ben R. Mia, Karlene, Krislyn, Kevin, Gary.

I also laughed at stuff Alx James did and the Holderness Family.

I don’t laugh super easy, and my big uncontrollable laugh is extremely rare and very coveted by my children. Bennett got me once this year and I can’t even remember what it was about but I remember how I kept hysterically laughing and I remember how proud he was.

I don’t even know what it is and I’m smiling again. Man, it was funny.

Favorite Movies and TV Shows from the Year AND What You’ve Learned This Year

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I’m not sure how this pertains to “December Journaling If You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year,” but maybe this one is the proof that I actually did not. Here is 19: Favorite Movies and TV Shows from the Year.

It’s hard to remember. There is so much TV and we watch too much of it. I don’t think we went to the movies once this year, but of course, there were movies on streaming. We need to cut our streaming services, that would be something.

I enjoyed The Righteous Gemstones a lot. That is my favorite TV show now, I think. The language is bad but the humor gets me every time. It is perfect humor for me, great writing, great visuals. I’m going to miss that show. I think I have watched it seven times (I kept watching it with other people!) I’m actually streaming a playlist of Righteous Gemstones songs on Spotify right now.

We also watched Severance, and that was also really good. I love stuff like that, where there’s weird things and secrets yet to be uncovered. I hope they finish everything and tie up the loose ends, unlike Lost, which did NOT explain a lot of things and that was frustrating!

I know I watched more things, and I know I enjoyed lots of things. But I don’t want to write them down because I don’t want to upset any friends who lean to the right or the left more than I do. I like political things. I like to study what other people are thinking, saying, and doing. I do not like biased news. It’s hard to find anything that isn’t biased. I used to be so insulted when people would talk ill of the news media, and I would remind them that I was the editor of a newspaper, and they would say, oh, I don’t mean you, I mean real news, and that was also insulting.

Anyway, interesting that I feel no compunction to not talk about our medical, financial, or employment situations…but I do draw the line at political. That’s going to stay on my livejournal and in my own head, thank you very much.

Oh yeah, I hit publish but now I’m editing because I forgot I was going to try to do more than one on here.

20: What You’ve Learned This Year

I learned that I should look at these calendars with more of a critical eye before I dive right in.

I think we learned Belinda had MCAS this year, and later we learned that I do too.

I’m still learning the rest, I think. Right now I’m learning how to adjust to big life changes, like three children moving out in the same year and a new one moving in who has all her own idiosyncrasies instead of something I’ve worked to curate all of her life. I’m glad the things are always changing and not being boring…but I do yearn for the days when it was just little old Garvie Fam Five. Sigh.

Last Day in DC

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It’s eleven days after we left DC, but I still wanted to post that last day on here.

We woke up and packed up all our stuff. Then we went downtstairs and the front desk checked it so we didn’t have to haul it around all day. From there we ubered to the Rayburn building at the Capitol. We had an appointment to meet Tom Cole at 12:30. We got there early and that gave us more time to figure out where things were. We had a nice sit down meeting with him. We mostly talked about Belinda and about things in Oklahoma – just a social visit, really. It was nice meeting him. He seemed impressed with Belinda, and said if she was interested in being an intern in the future, she could apply with his staff.

He gave us each one of his coins, which is like coins people in the armed services carry. For some sort of bar thing. This was Belinda’s second coin like this; she has another from when she was very little and Jim Inhofe gave her one. She did not realize this because when she got old enough to try to play with it I hid it from her.

After that we walked around a bit. Belinda got a headache so we walked to a CVS. Then we got an uber again and went back to the hotel to get our stuff, then went to the airport. We volunteered to check our bags because the flight was so full, which we hadn’t done before. It was kind of a drag getting them afterward, but it was also nice not hauling them around right after the flight.

Belinda was on her laptop the whole time, writing. I don’t remember what I did. Mostly concentrated on keeping my elbow away from my neighbor’s elbow.

Lenora and Ben R. came and picked us up and the airport and that was very nice. They were hungry and so were we so we went to KFC, then home!

Belinda said the dilation didn’t help very much this time. Bummer.

Favorite Thing You’ve Read This Year

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Well, it is the 28th. We have left DC and had Christmas and it’s almost New Year’s. I’ll make another post with the last day at DC in it. I don’t think there will be much. Also, I’ve probably forgotten some, 10 days later. I’m glad it was only 10 days. It felt like more.

So. “December Journaling if You Feel LIke You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year.”
Day 18: Favorite Thing You’ve Read This Year.

It’s funny that I didn’t do this, because I was looking forward to this one. I guess everything was just so busy there for a while, and I was also having difficulty charging my laptop (I think the plug brick/base thing was not working right. This year I read more than I have in a while. It was hard, not gonna lie. I did it because I am in my friend Evelyn’s book club and even though I missed several of the last few meetings, I still kept up with reading the books. Even if sometimes I finished after the meeting. I’m hoping to do better this year.

Sometimes I also got other books I’d heard about while I was at the library, or I grabbed them when I saw them. I also got recommendations from Belinda. I went to quite a few libraries this year. I also still have a book that needs to go back to the Oklahoma City Library, boo.

According to my Goodreads, I had a goal to finish 20 books in 2025, and I read 35 books! I got confetti when I went to the site just now! Those books were: Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson; Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell; As Good as Dead by Holly Jackson; The Fall to the Climb: A Mother’s Account of Grief, Faith, and Healing by Chrissy L Whitten; Do You Hear What I Hear by Helen Dunlap Newton; When Stars Come Out by Scarlett St. Clair; The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton; Bird by Bird by Anna Lamont; Maggie: Trapped in the School for the Feeble Minded by Dr. Lynn Phillips; Seven Days in June by Tia Williams; One Two Three by Laurie Frankel; The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins; Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins; Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday; The Martain by Andy Weir; Never Saw you Coming by Erin Hahn; Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt; Letters from the Dust Bowl by Caroline Henderson; The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera; All Better Now by Neal Shusterman; The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick; Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan; The Survivor Wants to Die at the End by Adam Silvera; Orbital by Samantha Harvey; A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf; The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah; The Incredible Kindness of Paper by Evelyn Skye; Where She Went by Gayle Forman; The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley; Shattered Showers: Stories by Rainbow Rowell; Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties; One Year Ago in Spain by Evelyn Skye; The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman; and Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

I also read If I Stay by Gayle Forman and Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, but I guess rereads don’t count for your Goodreads totals. And I read the Bible but I didn’t read it all this year.

I don’t think I’m going to pick a favorite. All these books were my favorites.

Library of Congress

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We got to a slow start this morning because Belinda wasn’t feeling well. But around 11:30 am, she started feeling more up to going out and seeing some things. We talked about uber or metro, and then ended up walking the 2.2 miles from our hotel to the Library of Congress. Belinda wanted to see the books!

We went to the Jefferson building, and you have to sign up to get inside. So I got online, signed us up, and inside we went! There were several displays and galleries inside, and the artwork on the ceilings was beautiful.There was also a big beautiful Christmas tree. But Belinda said, “Where are the books?” At one point, we went to an area where you could look out over the area where the books were. There were librarians and a few patrons in there. Hmm. Then we saw a sign that said that you had to apply for a library card to use the reading rooms, and it had to be done in advance. So we scanned the QR code, filled out the quick forms, and found someone who could tell us what to do next! Nice that Belinda is 18 now so we didn’t need to print out anything for me to sign for her to have her own card. The lady made sure that we had already signed up (we didn’t mention it was five minutes before) and then sent us to check our coats and bags, then down three long hallways to an elevator. We rode that that, then asked the man there what to do, and he sent us to another room where we showed our drivers’ licenses and they took our photos and gave us our new library cards! They expire in 2027, which is a good thing since after our walk my hair looked like I’d stuck a fork in a toaster. But how cool is that!

We went in to the reading room at the Jefferson building. You can’t take any books off the shelves yourself – you have to look up what you want and tell a librarian and they get it for you and you read it there. They have a lot of genealogy things there and I have wanted to see Library of Congress materials before but never knew how to do it. Now I know!

Belinda wanted to see the law library collection most of all, so we left the Jefferson building and went across the street to the Madison building. This building was much more quiet and there were no tourists (except us, ha ha). We figured out the layout, checked our coats and bags, and went and found the law library. Everybody was so nice there! The librarian helped Belinda find the section on Space Law that she asked about, and the bookshelves were all pushed up together but they came apart with a crank on the side (it was seriously the coolest thing ever) and then she left us to that section – you can take books off the shelves yourself in the law library. Belinda got a Space Law book and I selected one on Maritime Law – the law of the sea (for all you Arrested Development fans out there). We found a cozy place to read and it was nice and quiet, with other patrons browsing, researching, and readings.

After looking at entries on shipwrecks and piracy, I became weary of maritime law and picked up the Library of Congress magazine on the table in front of us, and that was really interesting. I discovered that there used to be a tunnel between the Jefferson Building and Congress, so the Congressmen could have quick access to the library holdings, but it was closed when the Capitol Visitor Center was built. And that got me thinking about National Treasure and 39 Clues type of things, and how much I would like to read a book that included some sort of exciting secret with that tunnel. I guess I should write it!

We never ate lunch, so we went to a place called Good Stuff Eatery and had chicken strips and fries. We sat up on the second floor and the place was empty except for us and we looked out the windows and all the people coming and going. I have been guiltily getting chocolate milkshakes lately from McDonalds (I had no idea they had gotten so good!) and so I really wanted a chocolate milkshake, but they also had a toasted marshmallow flavor and so I got that. It was okay, but I think the chocolate shakes from McDonalds are better! I guess I like all those fake ingredients, I don’t know.

At home, the family was having a funeral for Nutmeg. Belinda and I were sorry that we couldn’t be there, but glad because we did love on her while she was with us. Sweet kitty.

Anyway, we took an uber back because it was getting dark and we were tired. The man who drove us was from Ethiopia. We haven’t been making small talk with any of our drivers but this man took the lead and so we chatted with him. It was interesting learning about his life and we told him a little about Oklahoma. He was surprised to learn that no one really honks their horn much in Oklahoma, and that we felt personally victimized when people honk their horn around us. He said there’s so much honking in DC that it’s like music to him, ha ha! We had to pretend to hear him sometimes over the noise but we did okay.

Now we are back in the room and hanging out. It’s nice to just be with Belinda.

Identify five of your favorite conversations from this year

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I thought these couldn’t get any worse but here we are.

“December Journaling If You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” has done me dirty once again with this one.

Identify five of your favorite conversations from this year.

I do not know how I am going to even begin to think of favorite conversations. I am starting to doubt the authority of the person who created this. What credentials entitled them to create this calendar and take over my life for a month?

Anyway…I don’t know. I have a lot of fun conversations but not a lot of deep conversations, you get me? I love texting and emailing, so I can go back and see things again. I don’t remember a lot of day to day stuff. Does anyone?

We have had such a year. The last 12 months have been such a roller coaster with so many huge life changes. I do know that some of my favorite times this year have been with family, especially when the whole family comes over and does something together, like play trivial pursuit or another game. Also when we do things like the medallion hunt or go for walks or watch a movie. These are my favorite times. I also am really happy when Belinda comes home for the weekend, and when Bennett comes for lunch because Mia is at work, so I get to spoil him with his comfort foods. It was also wonderful when Lenora and Ben R were in the apartment and I got to watch podcasts with her. And when Sarah is so happy to see me after school! And when Karlene and I went to all the football games together, and then we got to see them win state together! These were very good times.

So instead of conversations, which are only words, I’m going to choose to remember the feelings that I had those times, and all the joy they brought me. I love my family so very much.