How to Write Year-in-Review | Planning Season Series
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At this time last year, I definitely didn’t see this year coming.
I spent the holiday season holed up in the loft, completing a puzzle by myself and trying desperately to understand (i.e. avoid the truth about) my situation. The world I inhabited felt like a bad dream from which I couldn’t wake-up, no matter how hard I pinched myself.
Have you ever felt that way?
Despite feeling like I didn’t have much to look forward to, I leaned into planning with the hopes of putting order to the chaos. I set financial goals, relationship goals, house goals, business goals… all with the underlying belief that none of it would be possible, due to my inability to trust myself.
I was in this situation, after all, by my own accord - and at the continued ignoring of my whispering intuition.
It didn’t take but a few weeks into the year to realize what my intuition was calling for: radical change.
I spent the last week of January in a hotel room with my cat, dog, and a weekend’s worth of clothes, calling friends and catching them up - some of them for the first time in over a year.
Without my friends, this entire year wouldn’t have been possible. It’s been the year of nurturing, of expansion, and of abundance.
At the end of January, I moved in with a friend from work, trusted another friend from work to hang onto my cat for six months, and started my life anew.
I leaned into my strengths in spite of my fears.
With a whole new life ahead of me, and a strong inclination to never again end up where I was, I jumped headfirst into what I knew (well, felt pretty sure) that I was good at. I kicked off the year teaching a bullet journaling and planning workshop at The Hive with another friend - one who would later become my roommate - and worked with Knoxville Weekend on a video of the same topic. [small photo]
At the same time, I was negotiating a biography writing contract for the subject of one of my Blank Newspaper articles. Had I ever written a biography? Of course not. Full length book? Nope - can’t say I’ve been much a finisher in my life, but when my subject acknowledged my skill and an acute understanding of his personality and life, we both decided to take the opportunity.
In leaning into my strengths, I found myself more connected and known than ever before.
Moving to a new city and starting fresh is hard. I wrote a post about it this year called How to Make Friends in a New City modeled after my trials and errors assimilating into Knoxville since late-2017. What I found most effective in getting connected and staying connected was:
Show up - networking (the cool kind), local events (galleries, grand openings, etc.), joining groups or clubs (my interests being entrepreneurship and marketing), and simply being at gathering spaces like cafes and collaboration spaces.
Follow-up - when I meet someone I like, someone who shares a common interest or would be fun to collaborate or hang out with, I make sure to stay connected and put another get-together on the books. And, if we can’t then, I flag it in my email and remind myself in my calendar when is appropriate to follow back up.
One of these connections invited me to speak at the Lady Bosses Luncheon at The Hive, topic: Planning and Organization.
My mom actually laughed, because I have been the most disorganized, messy, all-over-the-place person for most of my life. But, planning helps!
I played my absolute dream role in a local play, Hermione at St. Mungo’s, playing a delusional woman named Melanie who - in a psychiatric hospital - believes she is Hermione Granger simply at a stay in London’s Wizard’s hospital.
And in September, nervous and unsure if I’d even be welcome, I attended the Maker City Summit. Walking in and seeing so many friends - from networking and business, from previous projects, from my time working with The Maker City - it felt like a homecoming.
Within 10 minutes of being there, the event organizer stopped me and said I’d be recommended as a stand-in expert on marketing and branding, as theirs called in sick today. I found myself mentoring entrepreneurs at a moment’s notice, one of which would go on to take the advice and launch a brand new course.
Freedom gave me free time and space to travel.
In-between running ambr. creative, healing my heart, and figuring out what my next move would be, I did some long-overdue traveling.
I visited the closest family member to my Dad, my Uncle Mike. We went galavanting around his favorite spots in my town - Las Vegas - and saw as many national and state parks as we could manage.
I went home to St Pete for the first time since I moved away. This trip was a tricky one. I still feel some type of way about how I left St Pete. It wasn’t my finest hour, though most of my friends disagree with me (bless y’all). Before, I always imagined I’d come back with my tail between my legs, regretting my choice and seeing all the wonderful life I was missing back home.
How mistaken of me. Instead, coming home also felt like a homecoming. My best friend Kindall picked me up from the airport and we were off on a 48-hour all-favorites excursion eating delicious food, drinking too much coffee, stopping every ten minutes to visit someone or shop somewhere… and everyone I met welcomed me with open arms.
If you’re feeling scared to go home, I hope you are surprised and find your homecoming waiting for you, too.
In the company of a very special new friend, I took some more ‘local’ trips. We ventured to Asheville to climb, eat Indian food, and ultimately to test our new friendship. You know when you like someone so much that you can do pretty much anything with them? Our mini trip to Asheville proved that, so we kicked it up a notch for the second jaunt.
We took a four-day trip to Charleston and my whole heart was stolen. By Charleston, by that very special friend… we ate expensive oysters and took a ghost tour and ate cheap pizza at a dive bar the same night we drove into town. We spent the whole day at the beach, then a whole day hunting for an antique glass jar in which I could collect sand for a memento. We stumbled into one cool experience after exciting find as we went. Every moment felt like serendipity.
Somehow, we managed to steal away to Chattanooga for a day in the summer. One of my favorite little cities of which I’ve barely scratched the surface… We enjoyed the aquarium, some very delicious food, and the incredible walkability of the city all in a single day-trip. Even more exciting than the fun activities was the discovery that both of us (not just me) love to take photos while traveling. Not just the “pose and smile in front of the monument” kind, either. We spent most of the day laughing and shooting and playing as though no one was watching.
I promised a friend I’d go with her to the Sheep & Wool Festival Rhinebeck, NY nine months in advance - and we made it. I stand by what I said when I signed up, “I’m just going for the sheep.” The multitudes of squishy sheep I was lucky enough to pet and snuggle with made my weekend, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. The trip was made even better by my stowaway, who when told I’d be going to Upstate New York to snuggle sheep and walk around a farm all day, he said, “Wow, that sounds like fun! Can I come?” I’m so glad you did.
Leaning into my strengths made way to step into my power.
What truly trapped me at the beginning of the year was feeling powerless. Everything I’d tried seemed not only to fail but spectacularly so. The ‘blew up in my face’ kind of failure. Taking the first step - which landed me in a hotel room and ultimately with a new family out on Chilhowee Mountain - helped me to regain my strength and to step into my power.
What I’m keeping rather quiet is that during the first half of this year, my life was full of direct and indirect conflict, especially surrounding my resources.
My car was co-owned by someone other than my partner, and that person was a stranger to me now.
There was (and still is) a 40-ft bus - and all its associated construction debt - chained to my leg and my credit report.
Many of my things still resided under the same roof as my car’s co-owner.
All that debt, being a young business owner (i.e. no W2), and limited cash flow due to the former meant that digging myself out of this hole was going to be very (potentially impossibly) tough.
Though I’d felt defeated for nearly two years prior, something about the freedom, my new community of supportive and positive friends, and the extra time not taking care of another person cleared my head for the challenge.
With the help of my community, nearly all of the above list items were solved.
My previous experience in real estate investing, mortgages, and finance (hello Bachelors in Entrepreneurship) helped me secure a car loan that freed me from toxic co-ownership. During the time in-between, a dear friend lent me a car and accompanied me to the transfer for my emotional safety.
Two friends brought their van and their unmistakable presence to help me clear the rest of my things from my previous storage place, modeling for me what true confidence in the face of challenge looks like.
Though that bus is still out there, I’m able to manage the debt (I think I’ll do a post of this later to better normalize being young and in-debt) thanks to the friends and members of my network who helped me grow my business by connecting me with their communities. It’s word-of-mouth (despite the fact that I’m a marketing professional!) that grows businesses and I wouldn’t be here without you.
We’re getting to the fun part…
While house hunting, I stumbled into an opportunity.
Everyone told me, “Look in South Knox.” If you’re not from Knoxville, South Knox is arguably the hippest, up-and-coming, while also naturally abundant part of the city. It’s undergoing an immense gentrification effort while also experience major investment in its natural infrastructure (i.e. Ijams Nature Preserve, Baker Creek, Meads Quarry, Ft. Dickerson Park, etc).
So, that’s what I did. I looked in South Knox. My intent was to start as a renter, but move into the “lease with an option to buy” perspective with my landlord, so they knew up-front what I was looking for. Since there was no way I could get a conventional loan from a bank (I tried), I’d work my way into homeownership in a few years through this avenue.
Those of you who know me know that I love run-down, crappy project houses with good bones and old souls. I wasn’t afraid of a South Knox project.
After touring yet another boring house from the 60s that had been flipped to “contractor grade” (garbage - looks nice but is all cheap and basely on-trend) that was overpriced in a saturated rental market (and was damn-near dirty), I called it a day and my friends and I went out for tamales.
That lunch sprung a plan for a private loan, on a real house, the one I talk about when I get excited to get into real estate investing again.
Built prior to WWII, always good bones.
Single-family but with off-street parking and a yard for Gallow.
Up-and-coming neighborhood but still a year or two out before a spike. (I plan for 30% equity in three years like clockwork and talk with experts to confirm my hunch on the neighborhood)
Good neighbors, but an otherwise unbothered neighborhood.
Potential for curb appeal, but likely doesn’t have it at the time of sale.
Proximity to downtown - typically no more than a bike ride (even a difficult one).
Inexpensive, like - under-market inexpensive, and usually the seller would rather just be rid of the place.
Always with one or more friends - my realtor Rachel becoming one of my closest - I toured house after house after house.
I’m fortunate; my flexible scheduled allowed me to stop and drop everything to go view a house that would no-doubt have multiple, over-asking price offers by the end of the day. Knoxville’s housing market is a soap bubble and at the time, it was definitely a seller’s market. But that didn’t stop me.
I knew what I had to work with (financially and capability), I knew what I wanted, and I knew that though the friend I was living with wasn’t kicking me out anytime soon (thank you, forever), I was ready to start my own journey.
When I first toured Ashwood Place, I wasn’t sold.
Two old, yappy, slightly mangy dogs barked incessantly from the yard. The gate stuck a little when we attempted to get into it. The nice homeowner sat on the porch and waved us in as we passed the dogs, but stayed while we toured. The home was filled - beyond capacity - with her things. And dirt. So, so much dirt.
I can understand - knowing some of the personal details - why the house was in such a state. I thank the homeowner immensely for this gift that she’s given me in this home. But at the time, I couldn’t see through the clutter in front of me.
Three layers of curtains on every single window.
Soot on the walls up to the ceiling from a fireplace that had long-been too dirty to function.
Wallpaper - layers of it - on every wall.
A purple bathroom in which every opening leaked.
Water damage in the ceiling.
It seemed impossible that this place could fit my specifications, and seeing it full of stuff made it difficult to imagine what the house really looked like.
I left for a trip, the house went under contract, and I kept pursuing whatever would be next.
While touring another, completely unfitting four-bedroom farmhouse that looked like it’d be wired by a fourth-grader, my realtor got the call that the contract on Ashwood Place had fallen through and it was back on the market.
We toured it again. It was emptier now and I’d had over a week to think about the place. It was still dirty, still had damage, but my gut was whispering to me. I heard the same whisperings as I traipsed through the overgrown yard and into the unlocked, vacant, peanut shell-filled bungalow in St Pete five years ago.
“This is it. This is what you’ve been looking for.”
I wasn’t sure, but my trusted voices, including my own, were telling me to see past the grime and the potential for failure and go for it. We could always submit an offer contingent upon inspection.
I said, “Okay, but I don’t like it $140,000. I like it $125,000.” And that was honest. It needed a bathroom ($5,000 - $7,000), a million hours of deep cleaning and scraping, ceiling work, a kitchen (still working on that one), and much more. My realtor laughed but said, “Heck, why not.”
On May 31, I became the proud owner of Ashwood Place, my Appalachian Abode I’d been imagining for months.
I have so much more to say and share about Ashwood Place, but for now, it’s the launching point for the rest of my year.
For the first time in years, I have a place to live that is my own.
I have a desk where I work each day - I stop losing so many of my things.
I am able to keep a regular schedule that doesn’t involve long commutes or contorting around another person’s expectations of my presence.
I have a kitchen where I can cook three healthy meals a day, even meal prep, and as silly as it sounds - I have all my pans that I’m used to cooking with!
I buy furniture, bedding, houseplants, art, and trinkets that fully express my style and make me feel at home.
I go out into my yard and plant flowers, stake a bird feeder, place a doormat, and receive mail from the actual mailperson, not days later when I pick it up from an alternate place.
I do my dishes, my laundry, and my bathing inside my own house and with actual utilities.
These are all seemingly basic elements, but they were missing for me for years. So long that I didn’t realize what an impact they were having on my life.
Home, hearth, and a healthy environment had dramatic effects on my mental health and productivity.
After moving in, I worked with a contractor to make numerous updates to the house. There’s still more to come, but I chose to do it in stages for the financial burden and for the chance to live-in and decide how I wanted the house to flow in the future.
I wrote like crazy, publishing articles about new businesses, artsy movies, delicious food, my favorite local antique stores, and even interviewed the author of Lucy Negro Redux - Caroline Williams.
This is the year I worked with more clients than ever before, branched out into new work I didn’t realize I was capable of, and fired a client for their lack of integrity.
My newfound productivity led to the spontaneous development of the Instagram Masterclass Workshop.
In January, I offered to host the September (nine months away!) Tuesday’s Together networking meeting, topic: Instagram. Three weeks before the event, I thought “let’s go all out for this.”
Promoting the event in my otherwise small-ish network packed the house at Honeybee Coffee and started a buzz that’s still going strong today.
People I meet recognize me as “the Instagram girl” and tell their friend forwarded my workbook and that they love it. Though I only taught the workshop a few times, the experience of creating a curriculum, completing a workbook, developing the presentation, and giving the class was eye-opening. I didn’t realize this was a strength, but I know now - and I’ll leverage this in myself in 2020.
All throughout the year, I healed openly though quietly and in the company of friends.
These photos are somewhat difficult to share because - though they are beautiful and taken by Ashlyn Kittrell, my dream collaborator artistic comrade #1 - they show me more imperfectly and authentically than I’ve ever been captured.
I chose to keep our relationship fairly private this year. Those that have known me for years know this is uncommon, as it’s my showy storyteller nature to post photos and share experiences that paint the picture of an idyllic match. In our social media age, it always seemed like the right thing to do.
December is still unfolding as I write this post.
The year isn’t over yet, but this year-in-review is the capstone of an incredible experience. I still have planning left to do and some fun experiences on the books:
Tour de Lights in Downtown Knoxville
Biltmore Mansion at Christmas
Climbing in Asheville on the Solstice
Two weeks off of work and business to rest and recharge
More than anything, I’m excited to see the dreams I’ve put down for next year (and the next five years) become actionable steps, scheduled in my calendar, queued to become reality. Waking up each morning knowing I’m working toward a future that is even brighter - even bigger - and even more beautiful is what keeps me sane on the long, repetitive days.
Follow along each week as I share snapshots from my planning process + activities you can complete at home.
At the end of this planning season, my five-year plan will be set in writing and shared here on this blog. If you publish your own planning experiences from my activities, please drop them in the comments or send them in an email so I can cheer you on!
What did you find in your year-in-review? Are you surprised, let-down, or fired-up for next year? Share in the comments or on Instagram, where the discussion is always happening.
