Loribeth recently wrote a year in review post for her blog, reminding me that I try to do this too, in lieu of the missing Creme de la Creme that Mel used to run. The idea is to choose your favourite posts of the year, so that your readers can enjoy them again, or see them if they missed them in the first place.
I will freely confess that 2018 wasn't my best blogging year here on No Kidding. I blogged my heart out on x365 Take Two, where I blogged daily for the entire year, had lots of fun in months where we covered themes like Food and Travel or Objects, but found it quite stressful in months when we covered Horror/Suspense or other scary things, and Whining/Negativity. Both these months were hard, and made harder in some ways because I concentrated on the negative, rather than looked for the positive. That experience reinforced for me that my choice here to look at the positive - where possible - is right for me. (This is almost encroaching on thoughts about blogging for another post, so I'll stop there.)
I can see that I started last year as I started this one, by thinking and writing about ageing without children, with three posts on the topic last January! It's an issue that has been top of mind the last few years, with my mother's death then intensive periods of caring for the elderly in-laws during and after illnesses, followed by my MIL's death and now all the relevant FIL-care issues.
Ageing without children (again)
https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2018/01/ageing-without-children-plan.html
Another (3 this month) on ageing without children
February and March were busy months, but by April I can see I had a resurgence, thinking about the positives of life without children, or simply how it gets better, even when we can't imagine that might be possible. I also had more thoughts about my belief that the No Kidding or childless are also success stories, given the mountains we've had to climb, and continue to climb in our post-infertile lives.
Childless Success Stories Revisited
As autumn and winter wore on, I finally finished my Gifts of Infertility series (woo hoo!), and thought about:
Acceptance,
That Question,
and being Worthy.
I think my favourite post though was where I thought about the resilience skills I'd learnt as I came to grips with living a No Kidding life, and was able to apply that to a stressful situation here.
Redirecting No Kidding Resilience
Oh, and I produced a little book - No Kidding in Brief.
And that was 2018 here on No Kidding in NZ.
It was a good year for No Kidding, even as you tackled difficult subjects! I can see why the Aging Without Children was such a focus. I loved the resilience, and I love my No Kidding In Brief book... it has a place of honor in my office. Here's to a new year of positivity and embracing the No Kidding benefits (and hugging the parts that hurt).
ReplyDeletePerhaps you had less quantity here in 2018... but the quality is always present in abundance!! :)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I tried to order one of your books (hard copy), but the Canadian provinces weren't included in the drop-down menu in the address field -- just American states. :p (and no way to add in the correct info) This is not uncommon with American websites, unfortunately...! Not sure how to get around it, but perhaps I'll try the e-book option...??