Five days into 2018 and 2017 already seems like a million years ago. I feel like I was a different person then. How is that even possible? It's only been five days! But already I see our lives changing, in positive ways and just-plain-hard ways. It'll be interesting to see where we are 365 days from now, because I know one thing is for sure: I won't be the same person then that I am today.
So before 2017's Rinda is a distant memory, I wanted to take a minute to jot down a couple of my favorite things from last year, both trivial and monumental.
Favorite TV Shows
2017 wasn't an awesome movie year for us. We only went to a few movies in the theater, and only made it through a few new ones at home (most of those took two or three nights to get through). Oddly enough, however, 2017 was a great year for TV. Here are some of the shows I spent far too much time watching, in order of my favorites:
- MacGyver
- Bull
- Victoria
- Timeless
- This is Us
- Wisdom of the Crowd
- Great British Baking Show (seasons 2-4, mostly binge-watched while in labor)
- Anne with an E
- Mercy Street (I'm kind of relieved that this one didn't get renewed, as it got harder and harder to watch)
- Crimson Field (an old PBS series I found on Amazon, worth watching even though it was cancelled after one season)
- Poldark (I had a love-hate relationship with this one and found myself doing A LOT of fast-forwarding)
Five-Star Books Read in 2017
I read somewhere around 75 books last year, not including the hundreds of children's books read to and with my children. Few of the novels I read were ground-breaking, but I still managed to read several that I rated five stars on Goodreads.
- The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
- Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
- Jackaby and Beastly Bones by William Ritter (the third and fourth books were disappointing)
- The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by Josephine Leslie
- Sixteen Brides by Stephanie Grace Whitson
- Greenglass House by Kate Milford
- Genevieve's War by Patricia Reilly Giff
- George Washington's Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade
- The Girl from the Train by Irma Joubert
- The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler
- The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor
- Wedded to War by Jocelyn Green
- Wonder by RJ Palacio
- The Apprentices (The Apothecary Trilogy) by Maile Meloy
Honorable Mentions go to:
- Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia Wrede (The sequel was highly disappointing)
- Out of the Easy by Ruta Septys (never though I'd enjoy a book about a brothel, but this one was excellent)
- The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill and The Ladies of Ivy Cottage by Julie Klassen
- Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael
- To the Farthest Shores, From This Moment and Beyond All Dreams by Elizabeth Camden
Kevin's Bedtime Stories for 2017
Kevin and I made it through several books this year, and Sly even joined us for a few. Some were enjoyable and some were not. We gave up on The BFG because she said it was getting too scary for her. Here are the books we finished:
- The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook by Shel Silverstein
- Nancy Clancy, Secret Admirer by Jane O'Connor
- The Princess Test and The Fairy's Mistake by Gail Carson Levine
- Felicity's Surprise by Valerie Tripp
- Ramona The Pest and Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
- The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
- Eloise and Eloise in Paris by Kay Thompson
- The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook by Joyce L Brisley
Meals I Made The Most in 2017
Haha. I mostly made Scotty cook, which means we had a lot of pasta and tacos and turkey steaks and breakfast-for-dinner. You can be jealous. My husband cooks AND gets up with the baby at night. He's the best ever.
I do want to list here that I accomplished the feat of being assigned to bring homemade rolls for holiday dinners. It's a BIG deal.
Random Cool Things That Happened to Me in 2017
- I got to go to NYC for a weekend in September. No kids, just me and three other women (my bff, my sis-in-law, and a complete stranger). We saw three Broadway musicals, walked through Castle Gardens National Park, took pictures by the fierce little girl statue, ate cheesecake, walked all over, happened upon a labor parade and Race for the Cure run, saw Alexander Hamilton's grave, visited the place where George Washington took the oath of office, and ended it all with a black & white shake at JFK international airport.
- A woodpecker visited our backyard not once but twice,
- I dragged my husband and kids all over the backroads of Iowa and it was the highlight of our Nauvoo vacation and my summer (for me, not so much for them).
- I visited all of these states: Utah (drove to St George by myself, a first), Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and New York.
- I had a baby. She's amazing. If you meet her, you will smile.
- I managed to potty train my son. That's probably the biggest accomplishment of the year.
Bring it on, 2018.
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