2016 – A Year of Trials + November Goals Update & December Goals

I’ve been MIA this last week for a number of reasons, but one of them being yet another life or death experience in my family.

Last January my older sister (33 at the time), Mabry was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  And it was bad.  She was in an advanced stage with a tumor 8cm in size and cancer cells in the nearby lymph nodes.  The plan was to do chemo and radiation to shrink the tumor in order to take it out surgically, but when the cancer spread to the lymph nodes, that wasn’t an option because the surgery would have killed her (too close to certain organs).  Therefore, we had to pray the chemo and radiation would kill it all.

AND IT DID!  Miraculously, after several months of “pure hell” as Mabry put it, the cancer was gone!  It was nothing short of a miracle.  She is currently cancer free and we are grateful.  My sister kept this private until she was cancer free, but she had a swarm of prayers all around her of those who are family and close friends.

Then, not even a couple months later at the end of November (last Monday to be exact), my younger sister, Cami, goes into cardiopulmonary (heart and lungs) arrest at 37 weeks pregnant and they had to take the baby out via emergency c-section because they didn’t know if Cami was going to make it.  The baby, who was a surprise girl, was born with only a short visit to the NICU.

Cami however, was in for a rough journey.  After they revived her, she was ventilated and monitored 24/7 in ICU.  Two days later, on Wednesday (after getting the ventilator out and eating some yogurt), she went into cardiopulmonary arrest again!  My parents were coming back into the ICU when they were stopped by security who said the ICU was shut down because they had a code blue.  My parents look down the hall and see dozens of doctors and nurses around Cami.  Once they realized they were her parents, they let them through to anxiously wait for good news.  By the grace of God, they were able to revive her again.  They had to ventilate her again and hook her up to so many machines, you lose count.  She’s in Louisiana (close to New Orleans), so she’s not here where we could help physically.

I reached out for prayers on Facebook and was blown away.  As of Sunday, she was released from ICU and put into a regular hospital room (with cardio specialty doctors…not sure if that’s a certain floor or area of hospital).  I was able to talk to her on Sunday and she sounded good.  Not sure how long she will be in the hospital recovering.  She’s got a long road to recovery ahead of her.  The outpouring of prayers was such a light in that dark, scary time.

Needless to say, 2016 was a scary year for my immediate family.  It was also a year of witnessing miracles and God’s grace.  It also revealed how strong my parents are.  Through each of these incidents, my parents dropped everything and took care of each of them.  Both my parents were working full time jobs during Mabry’s trial (my dad went to every single chemo treatment and prior treatments to that) and my dad recently retired last month (my mom was about to start back teaching her Kindergartners at a NEW building the very next day, when she got the call about Cami).  I am truly blessed by parents who demonstrate sacrificial love!  I feel for my parents this year!

Although some good things happened in 2016 through these tough times, I’m hoping 2017 doesn’t have so much trauma!

Aside from that, November was a good month for goals.

Here is how I did last month:

Blog/Shop Goals:

1. Add subscribe button pop up on blog, along with an incentive – No

2. Start Pinterest scheduler for my Pinterest account – Started it, but still learning it.

3. Add dormant signs to my shop (signs sitting in files ready to be listed on Etsy) – No, but I made a list and did add a couple.  

4. Create and add a Goal board in my office – Yes.  And it definitely has helped with goals.

5. Explore Amazon affiliates more for upcoming holiday season – No, never had time.  

Home/Simplify Goals:

1. Decorate for Christmas – Yes.  Hopefully I can share some pictures tomorrow.

 

2. Clean up patio, including porch lights hanging – I majorly cleaned up the porch last month, but never hung the lights.  We have that metal covering, so I’m not really sure how to hang the lights.

3. Sell furniture and donate other items (items I’ve decluttered) – Kind of.  I’m over waiting for it to sell and just want it out of my house 🙂

4. Go through the boys clothes and start bringing out warmer clothing – Yes.  I just need to buy some clothing for Beckham, which I’ve slowly been doing.  I’m always impressed by what I find at consignment stores for boys (they need stuff they can wear and tear easily since they destroy everything, so these places are great).  I’ll get a few nice pieces at Target, Kohl’s, and Old Navy usually.

5. Sit down over the weekend and really plan my week so things run smoothly (things like grocery shopping, clean house, go over calendar, etc).  Eh!  Yep, I’m pretty much in survival mode these days.

Personal Goals:

1. Start planning Christmas gifts.  You can see how we budget for a debt free Christmas here – I’ve actually just started this, but am pretty behind schedule this year.

2. Finish planning B’s party – Yes, he had a great party.

3. Plan my 2nd annual Girls Christmas party – Yes, and I can’t wait for some fun this Thursday.

4. Get family pictures done.  Create Christmas cards with pics (will send out beginning of December) – Done and done!  I got mine from Shutterfly this year and I really like them.  Here’s one I liked that we’re not using on the card.

5. Join Church.  We have found a church and have one more step in the membership process – No.  I’ll probably plan to do this in January (you have to share your testimony with a member of the church).

6. Get dental work done – No, but plan on doing this next week if they can get me in.

On top of that, I was able to update my computer with Dell (they do a very thorough “investigation” of my computer and clean it up).

I’m not making any new goals for December.  I’m simply going to finish any goals I didn’t complete in November and enjoy this season.  My shop keeps my insanely busy this time of year, so that’s pretty much the only goal I need to do.  I’m not even sure what Christmas will look like this year with my family, but we have some fun things planned with the boys.

I don’t know what this month in blogging will look like (probably more personal posts than anything else).  Social media makes my head spin, but I’m pretty active on Instagram  (@oliviacsnyder) if you want to follow.

I’m ready for a fresh start in 2017.  Does anyone have any new goals for 2017?