Reflection of 2021:

This is the end of the year 2021.  All in all, this was a year that had a lot of highs and lows personally.  2020 was incredibly hard as it was the year of the lockdown from Covid, not being able to run regular school classes and a summer program, as well as the loss of my grandpa and dog, Kaiser.  This year started hard as I lost my aunt Rhonda, but since that rough start, I was able to finish my second year of teaching (that also was my first year completely in person) and I was able to have a normal summer program at the Bridge of Storm Lake.  I am in my third year of teaching now, and while I will not say it has been the easiest time, I am still continuing to grow as a teacher and am feeling a bit more confident in my job.  

One thing about my year of 2021 was my word of the year which was joy.  This was not always easy, which is why I believe that picking the word of joy was a good decision.  I will say that this is the year that I have struggled the most with my mental health.  Again, there were a few deaths in the family, going back to school after a pandemic, and growing disrespect in the classrooms.  There have been a lot of reasons why it is not always the easiest to be the happiest.  However, I know that joy is always most important.  I had a joy journal where I wrote down one joyful thing from everyday.  Even when there were lows, this helped me remember to find joy in everyday and in every situation.   

Some of my goals from the year of 2021 were reading 30 books, run 800 miles, squat 200 pounds, and participate in my first golf tournament. I have achieved these goals, and I do believe that I have grown as a person in these certain areas.  I am a goal setting person, and I am happy that I have these simple goals that help me grow in knowledge and exercise.  The one goal that I didn’t completely achieve was writing a draft of my first book.   I have done a lot of writing, including writing for this blog every week, but I know that I have a lot of growing to do in my writing and patience in order to achieve a full draft of a book.   

This year I also had an opportunity to be a coach figure in more ways than one.  At the beginning of this year, I finished my first season as a speech coach, and this included both Large Group and Individual.  I am also currently in that season right now.  While this can provide me with a lot of stress, there is a lot of joy that comes out of seeing my students get to be creative and have fun developing their roles in Reader’s Theatre and Choral Reading.  I also found that I really enjoy working with individual speech students and developing their skills at speaking in front of others.  I also got the chance to work as an assistant cross country coach for the first time this year.  If you know me, and/or have read my blog you know that I loved cross country in high school, and I obviously still love to run, so getting this opportunity to run and work with my middle/high school cross country team was a wonderful experience.  I loved the chance to run or bike next to the runners, and I loved getting to cheer them on at every cross country meet, including the state meet at the end of the season.  

This year I also got the chance to lead the summer team at the Bridge for my second year.  However, this year was the first summer I led that was more “normal” and didn’t have as many Covid restrictions.  I have found more and more that I love getting the chance to develop college age students into leaders and getting to support them throughout both the summer and in their college careers. I have gotten the chance to see one of my summer team members play football in college, and I saw the other one participate in a play.  It was great to see their other passions and know that even though the summer was over, I know they will be wonderful people and will grow into powerful leaders, whatever it is they choose to do with their lives.  

There are a few different ways that I need to grow in this following year of 2022.  One of those things is growing financially.  I don’t always spend the greatest amount of thinking in regard to my financial decisions.  I would really like to finish paying off my student loans from college, so that will be another great help to my financial health and saving of money.  Another item is to continue to make exercise and fitness goals.  However, I have decided instead of making a total miles goal, I would rather be able to run a 10k race in less than an hour. However,  I hope that I can run about the same amount of miles that I have the past two years, which is between 750 and 800 miles.  Along with exercising, I would like to increase my squatting to 230 pounds.  Besides that, I want to be able to find more ways to volunteer at anti-human trafficking organizations, and compete in a few more writing competitions (especially now that I received a manual typewriter for Christmas).  

In conclusion, 2021 was another long year in a pandemic, but it was also a year where I got to develop friendships, achieve goals, and complete different jobs.  There was a way to get more exposure in my writing through my first writing competition, raise over $1000 for Dressember, and run a half-marathon.  All in all, this was a good year, and I am hopeful that I can continue to grow in the year of 2022.  I am grateful for the year the Lord has given me, and I am excited about the opportunity for the next one.