One of the things I started doing almost a decade ago is keeping a document titled 2022 Year in Review (or whatever the year happens to be). I include a number of categories that are meaningful to me and then I update it throughout the year. It’s fascinating to pull up previous years and be reminded at a glance of important happenings. The categories I include are:
- Items Produced
- Speaking Engagements
- Travels
- Books Read
- Births
- Marriages
- Deaths
Obviously one could include any categories of their choosing, but these are the ones I’ve stuck with over the years. Rather than give a rundown of everything, I thought it would be fun to just share a highlight from each category, some studio-related, some not.
Items Produced
Heartbeat Rhythms was a project I had in mind to create for a long time! Originally the idea was gleaned from D’Net Layton’s blog and the idea was to use pieces of wood of differing lengths to represent the duration of each note value. I’m not particularly handy with tools, so this project stayed on the back burner year after year. Until last year. All of a sudden it occurred to me that I could achieve the same objective using laminated pieces of paper cut to various sizes, which would also require a much smaller footprint for storage. I combined that idea with a Heartbeat Rhythms worksheet that I’ve used for a long time and now we have a manipulative ready to go for fun rhythm activities during private lessons and group classes!
Speaking Engagements
One of our local music teachers associations asked me to present a workshop at one of their meetings last fall. They left it wide open for me to choose any topic I wanted! An idea for a workshop had been mulling in my mind for a while, so I was excited for the occasion to organize my thoughts and put together a complete presentation. I titled it Freedom to Play: How Improvisation and Rote Teaching Can Revolutionize Your Studio. It was a jam-packed workshop, taking the other teachers on a journey with me through 25 years of exploration and discovery into these realms of creativity that have been instrumental in my own teaching and playing.
Travels
In December my husband and I celebrated our anniversary with a trip south to Belize. Since our anniversary is in December, we always aim for somewhere closer to the equator where we can enjoy a reprieve from the cold! The climate was a critical factor, but Belize also appealed to us because we got a good deal on airline tickets, the official language is English, and the country is home to numerous ancient Mayan ruins – an era of history that we enjoy exploring. This photo is from the top of El Castilo at Xunantunich, which we reached from our Airbnb in San Ignacio via a bus ride, a hand-cranked ferry, and a steep hike. So worth it! [If you’re interested, you can read more about our Belize trip on our blog Hammock in the Woods.]
Books Read
An assortment of books is always lingering on my nightstand, from biographies and memoirs, to Christian living, to economics and finance, to music teaching, to gardening, to cooking, to marriage and family, to an occasional mystery. I love having a variety to choose from at any given time depending on my reading mood. This year I managed to make it through 44 books, but the one that stands out the most as a fascinating and memorable story is The Small Woman by Alan Burgess. This became the inspiration for the Biography Night that I shared for some women from our church. Mr. Burgess’ writing is vivid and Gladys’ life is truly awe-inspiring!
Births
Of course, the most incredible highlight in this category (probably of the year!) was the birth of my first granddaughter. Here’s a shot of the two of us on Mother’s Day. Who could have imagined that in the last 10 years I would transition from being a single, full-time music teacher to a wife, mom, homeschool teacher, and now grandma?! What an adventure this life is, and how grateful I am for God’s many undeserved blessings!
Marriages
Perhaps most notable in this category is the wedding we didn’t make it to. Our niece was getting married in Orlando on Thursday during spring break week and my husband, daughter, and I arrived at the airport that Tuesday for our flight. We were informed that our budget airline had canceled the flight in January “due to safety concerns” and there would not be another flight until Friday. We tried for several hours to re-book or figure out any viable means of getting to Florida, but all to no avail. So we cut our losses and spent several days visiting small towns around Kansas City instead. (This marked our third canceled trip in a row, so we were eager to salvage it in any way we could!) The silver lining was finding the charming town of Weston, Missouri and snagging a last-minute opening at an otherwise-booked hotel, then meandering through the shops and enjoying a late night cup of tea while listening to live music in a second-floor Irish pub.
Deaths
Last year brought a slew of unexpected and difficult deaths, beginning on January 5 and ending on November 30, with ten others in between. A number of my friends lost spouses or parents. Some were barely older than me. Many were younger than my parents. It was a sobering reminder of the reality succinctly expressed by Solomon in Ecclesiastes that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven,” including “a time to die.” We don’t know when our time will come, so as I reflect on the year behind and make plans for the year to come, I’m mindful that life is short and I want to make the most of it – not just for the here and now, but for what will matter in eternity.
I’m curious to know if anyone else keeps any kind of Year in Review record. If so, what categories do you include?
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