Last year was unlike any other year I’ve ever had. I think the silence on this blog kind of reflects that. Trucking along in a quieter-than-usual but other wise normal year, and then June 17th comes and off the grid I go. That’s when we finished packing up everything we owned in NJ (everything that was left after weeks of purging, yard sales, and donations), left the house we’d owned for 10 years, 7 months, and 12 days, spent a week driving across the country to Washington, moved into a rental apartment, spent three months looking at houses/putting offers on houses/buying a house, and then moved into our farmhouse on the 28th of September. It’s on six acres of forested woodlands, it’s beautiful, and I’m so in love with it out here.

Things I didn’t do in 2018:

• Take many pictures of myself (that big, waving photo in the middle up there was taken on the last day in our NJ house before the movers came and packed the mirror)
• Read much (an abysmal 45 books for the year, including picture books — by far my worst year since recording the years)
• Make much (only 2 quilts, a couple of small sewing projects, and one science experiment)
• Wear many outfits beyond denim shorts and yoga pants
• Publish a single thing outside of my full-time job for Wirecutter (but I had a really, really good year at my day job)
• Use my planners
• Travel for reasons other than moving (except that amazing, soul-filling weekend on my own in Charleston, the only time I set foot on a plane all year)

Things I’m Giving Myself a Hard Time About Not Doing in 2018:

• Not a damn thing. We turned our lives inside out and upside down, and that took all the time and focus I had. It was a good way to spend a year. Now it’s 2019, and I’m ready to settle in and get back to some stuff. Lots of writing, reading, making to come, now with more homesteading and farm life!