Category Archives: Blog Challenges

Ways you were your best self this year

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Last day. That makes me think of the chapter “Last Day” in Charlotte’s Web, which is one of the most powerful chapters in literature I know. I did a performance of it as a prose when I was a sophomore in high school, and I remember making the whole room – including the judges – break into tears.

But this is not that. This is “December Journaling if You Feel Like You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year,” and today is Ways You Were Your Best Self This Year.

I don’t like to brag on myself, because I know that any good is me is from God. I credit Him with my not freaking out, or getting depressed, or having a pity party while we have been going through financial difficulty. I credit Him for the times when I have apologized, the times when I have done more than I thought was really my fair share, the times when I have been hurt but did my best not to repay hurt with hurt. It’s truly not me, though. It’s God.

I want to finish this year by saying that if you not have a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, it is the most fulfilling thing in my life. Everything hinges off of it, and without it, I would have nothing. I invite you to ask me any questions about it, or visit your local Bible-believing church to find out more. Eternity has already started, and I know my life is worth living because He is in me!

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16

A heartwarming interaction from the year

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Well, it’s the last day of the year. I have this prompt and one more, and I will have completed “December Journaling if you Feel Like You Haven’t Accomplished Much This Year.” This, the penultimate entry, is A Heartwarming Interaction From the Year.

It’s hard to say. I’ve had heartwarming interactions with many members of my family this year. The first one that comes to mind is when I went to see Sarah after her first band competition, and when I walked up she was so excited and happy, and she hugged me sooo tightly and thanked me for making her do band! That was such a great moment.

How wonderful it is to feel loved and appreciated!

A beautiful moment in nature from the year

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Well, well, well, “December Journaling if you feel like you haven’t achieved anything this year,” we have made it to Day 29: A beautiful moment in nature from the year. And today is Dec. 30, so I’m practically caught up. I think I’ll save the last two for tomorrow though. I’m enjoying writing at the library but I intended to work on my novel. I always tell myself that blogging is my time to warm up, but it’s really a delay tactic. Real writing is HARD, ya’ll.

So my first thought was Spring Break, when we went to Roman Nose State Park and took a super long hiking trip. I should have put that, and Krislyn and my walks in Oklahoma City on my accomplishments in an earlier post but no turning back!

Anyway, Roman Nose. It was Ben and me, Krislyn, Lenora, Belinda, and Sarah. Krislyn and Belinda were super in shape and ready to hike the 10 miles or whatever we did. Sarah was the worst off. The rest of us lay somewhere in the middle. We were just getting a geocache. But wow, what a long, not well marked trail it was – especially since the normal trail was closed for construction, with nary a sign with that information until you were upon the closed area!

We also had a beautiful moment in nature at Gatlinburg, when we were outside the public library. It was just so very pretty.

This last one was from one of Krislyn and my walks (or maybe there was just one walk, that’s a little blurry now). Anyway, there was a lot of not pretty stuff on that walk, but there were a few pretty moments. Krislyn probably took this picture.

A memorable journey from the year

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“December Journaling if You Think You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” Day 28: A memorable journey from the year.

One thing that was memorable was Belinda’s final dance nationals competition. I got credit cards to pay for it, which I know wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I was unable to even consider not letting her do it. Getting to see her dance like that one last time was so wonderful. It was also really special to have that week where it was just Ben, Belinda, and me. We didn’t go too crazy with spending but we ate out a few times and I bought passes to go to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the Ripley’s Aquarium, and some Ripley’s mini golf thing. I really just did it for the aquarium, but the other things were interesting too. And Belinda loves mini golf. We got to go with her duet tap partner and her family. It was fun hanging out with them. We also went to the library, rode the free trolley a LOT, explored, went through the national forest, saw a lot of cool things. And I got to spend time with just Belinda. I am so glad we had that time before she went to college in August. I can treasure that forever. One thing I did not do is post any pictures onto facebook about it, because I was waiting for the dance media to go along with the post, but now I can’t even remember what I’ve done with that now. I’m sure it’s all saved on the hard drive, but I would like to do a post about it, so it will be in my memories each year. I’m thinking I will do it on the one year anniversary. Along with Bennett and Mia’s wedding. One year anniversary isn’t even a month away for that, so I need to gather my photos now!

Another memorable journey was Karlene and my journey to support Sarah’s first year in marching band. We went to almost all the football games (Northwestern Parents Day got in the way one time, and the haunted house at the theater was the other) and not only did we get to see her perform, we also got to watch the Tigers have an undefeated season and win state! Sarah had never been to a Tuttle football game before this. What a way to start! Not only that, we got to see the band perform their routine at competitions and I really enjoyed that. Sarah was always so happy to see me there. Made my heart joyful! And Karlene and I traveled to out of town games, had dinner together at interesting places, and stayed the night in a very odd motel. We spent the night because the next day we all buried Sarah’s stepmom’s ashes, and that was quite a journey in itself. And it’s not quite over, since she doesn’t have a headstone yet. That can be a 2026 project.

And it’s not really traveling, but this journey through being “poverty people” (a Righteous Gemstones reference that I adopted) was extremely memorable. Food pantries, medical issues, financial assistance, cutoff notices, watching our bank account dip below zero once again, pushing pride to the side to accept help from other people, and still knowing that God has held all of us through all of it has been so good for our family. I would have rather learned these lessons without being so strapped, but I know that if this is the path God chose it was the right one for us! I am so thankful for everything that has happened this year.

Lifelong goals and achievements you’re still working toward

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This one is a lot easier than the others have been lately. It’s much simpler to think towards the future than remember the past, at least with the way my brain has been the last few years.

So this “December Journaling If You Feel LIke You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year” is Day 27: Lifelong goals and achievements you’re still working toward.

-To be a better Christian.
-Pray more, read the Bible more, proclaim God’s love more, and love more.
-To remember to be thankful in everything, and to express that thankfulness regularly.
-To have the fruits of the spirit all the time.
-To be a better wife, parent, daughter, relative, friend.
-To actually have a clean house that stays cleanish and organized.
-To be traditionally published!!
-To be a best-selling author!
-To be more healthy.
-To not always feel like I don’t know what’s going on and that I’m left out and don’t really understand how things work. (I should probably change this one to continuing to accept myself for who I am!)

I think that’s a pretty good list.

Decisions you made this year, big and small

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These are frustrating. I know I’ve lots of big and small decisions. People make decisions every day. Am I going to get up or not, shower or not, brush my teeth or not, eat healthy or not, stay in place or run for the hills. Every time a person from Tuttle goes for a quick run to Walmart, they must make the decision: Mustang or Newcastle? Both are the same distance, and both have different pros and cons. I generally choose Mustang, but Newcastle is the only one that has the limited edition Ice Breakers Orange Cream Pop mints, and I really like these because I can actually taste them somewhat, and I also like the citrus-y feel in my mouth. I keep buying extra containers but I know they will run out eventually and that makes me sad. I have to make the decision every time I am there to not spend $200 I don’t have and buy out the remaining containers of mints. (But I wish I could.) I’ve also gone up to regularly putting two mints in my mouth at a time instead of one, and I’m sure that’s also not a great practice. But that citrus-y mouth feel is so nice.

Anyway, I forgot to write “December Journaling If You Feel LIke You Haven’t Achieved Much This Year.” We’re on Day 26: Decisions you made this year, big and small.

Today I made the decision to return my library books to the Metropolitan Library in OKC. I chose the Newcastle way over the Mustang way. I chose to go to the Almonte branch. Then I chose to go to Wild Hero to see Belinda at her job. I also chose not to buy anything. Then I chose to go to the library. I chose to pass over the single parking space left on the east side and instead parked on the south side. I went to the bathroom and chose the fourth stall and was rewarded with a freshly-cleaned toilet (seat was still up) and then I came in the library, chose to pick up the book I ordered (“The Favorites” by Layne Fargo) and then I chose the chair I’m currently sitting in and pulled out my laptop. Right now I’m choosing to increase the volume of the playlist I chose on Spotify (Sixties Instruments for Mellow Squares) instead of continuing to glance up at the mom and kids that just came in and are VERY LOUD.

I don’t know what other decisions I made. I guess I made the decision to have Sarah come live with us. That was a big one. I made the decision to move Mom into the side suite of the house instead of the apartment section. I made the decision to stop doing church lunch for everybody, since my kids all quit coming and it seemed ridiculous to make myself crazy on Saturday and also on Sunday morning if no one was going to come eat.

I made the decision on how we rearranged the living room with all the added furniture, and to put the tv in the living room. I liked what we had before but this is okay too. I just would like to have nice blinds so the TV wouldn’t show when you’re walking up the sidewalk. I don’t like how that looks.

I made the decision to take Mom to the emergency room when she had the TIA (ministroke). She seemed okay but it really was the right thing to do. I’m glad I saw her do it. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have ever known what happened. She might have had some before or still be having them now and I’m just missing them.

I made the decision to bring someone in a few times a week to help with Mom and give me a little break.

I’m tired of this one. That’s enough.

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.