January 2020 – Page 4 – The Hermits' Rest

Highs and Lows of 2019

Yeah, so I said I wouldn’t be posting about goals for the year, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t pause to reflect a bit. I finally have a few minutes to actually do that, so I’m going to answer some questions originally shared by my friend (and brilliant writer) Teresa Pitman. I will also add some cheerful flower photos to prove it’s still colorful, at least among the tiny flowers outside our former church building!

What made 2019 unforgettable for you?

The most unforgettable thing is that other than one sentence when we ran into each other in the summer, my older son didn’t speak to me in 2019. I’m still at a loss about what the reason is, but I’ll never forget 2019 for that very unexpected turn of events. I honestly thought we had a good relationship and could discuss any issues that came up. It’s a mother’s nightmare, but dwelling on it and going through possible scenarios won’t help. I’ll keep waiting and sending love.

What did you most enjoy doing in 2019?

There’s no one answer to this one! I crammed a lot of good stuff into the year. Here are some of my favorite things:

Riding on Apache and exploring the ranch
Playing with the dogs
Walking in Austin and at the ranch
Attending book club
Learning from Master Naturalists
Writing
Brainstorming in all my jobs
Traveling to beautiful places
Spending time with my family

Some New Pages

Hey readers! If any of you happen to visit the website for this blog, you will see a few new pages on the top menu.

I saw a feature on someone else’s blog that I decided to imitate (especially since someone actually ASKED for this). You can now see a list of blog posts on some of the most popular topics from the past year or so. They have little excerpts of the posts, so you can decide if you want to read more. I’ve made:

Rants and Ramblings: These are the posts where I talk about issues that matter to me or what currently makes me annoyed. Always a favorite.

Animal Tales: For those of you who love our dogs, the equines, or the chickens. Here they are, in all their glory.

Nature and Travel: Naturalists and lovers of scenery might enjoy this section.

I’m hoping this might help anyone looking for old favorites, or wants to browse and see a little about each post.

Any ideas for other pages?

Do We NEED to Be Goal Oriented?

Ooh, this is a controversial topic in my family right now. When I first started this blog, I wrote that my main goal was to live in the moment. I’m basically sticking with that one, along with:

Keep learning
Be kind
Like myself just as I am

There. I’m done. My yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals are right there.

On the other hand…

My Cameron housemates, Lee and Kathleen, are very big on goals. They have fancy goal-monitoring journals that take a long time to set up. The journals help them set their goals for every period of time, and encourage them to evaluate how they are going, whether they are reasonable or not, and whether they need to be changed, due to life or whatever.

Top Posts of 2019

A blogger I enjoy (V, of Millennial Life Crisis), posted her top posts of 2019. I wondered what mine were, so I checked. Here ya go.

What were these about? I’ll share in a bit. But what really interests me is that they aren’t necessarily my most fascinating posts; instead at least the first few are on there because someone else shared them. Thanks, other people!

Bar Blogging: This post from April was me “live blogging” a performance by a young woman named Emma G, who is a friend of my ranch neighbors. Anita and I went with Sara to see her, and had a great time. Someone must have linked to my post from their page, because it keeps getting hits every day or so. it really makes me wonder why it’s gotten MORE popular in recent months.

So, I have fired up the Google Search Console, and when it finishes processing, I’ll let y’all know why this post is so popular.

Book Review: Dignity: I know why this one from June got lots of hits. In addition to being a review of a really interesting book about the underclasses in the US, the author saw my review and tweeted it. I wrote a little bit about it (in one of my posts that got the fewest hits this year, as a matter of fact). I was glad the author enjoyed my review. I hope lots of people are reading it. This is by FAR my most popular book review (usually they get a middling number of hits).

Crisis of Faith – Or Denomination: This is the post from last August where I share that I have decided to not be affiliated with any church or denomination, after many years as a Unitarian Universalist. I think a lot of people who are my UU friends read it and shared it. It turned out a LOT of people were thinking along the same lines. I think I made a good point about why an institutional fixation on political correctness can really alienate people, even those who basically agree with you.