Wasn’t 2017 just awful? Like, I experienced a lot of nagging, near-constant terribleness throughout. A whopping case of bronchitis at the top of the year led swiftly (and directly) to throwing out my lower back, which kept me bed-ridden for like a month. I battled vertigo, I re-injured my back right before a big birthday trip (which was thusly cancelled), and then strangely I developed an acute case of debilitating tendinitis in my right hand that I suffered with for over a month (as soon as my back felt good again, naturally) , that only a ginormous shot helped relieve.

Not to mention we got the biggest lame-o president ever, here in the States, but that’s just, like, macro-level stuff that I can’t even fathom right now.

Suffice it to say: I’m so done with 2017.

[A little aside here that it wasn’t all bad – some really cool stuff happened in 2017, too: I completed my 2017 Goodreads Challenge by reading over 24 books (averaging 337 pages!), and I became an Affiliate on Twitch and made a bunch of new friends online who are totally stellar humans!]

But as the year came to a close and I spent a couple of amazing weeks with Mr. Wez and Benny, I felt really buoyed and optimistic about this new year. Assuming my body doesn’t murder me this year, it can only get better, right? (Best not to check King Orange-One’s tweets right now…)

So as the December days crawled towards their end and January was nearly upon us, I began to imagine what I wanted to do with myself in 2018. How could I take the proverbial reins and find some absorbing challenges for myself that would give me a sense of ownership in this time of my life where everything feels like super cray-cray? A few things sprang to mind, and I’ll share them here!

In no particular order:

Stream more, but don’t take it as seriously. This first half of this would be almost impossible not to do since I had to take a bunch of time off in 2017 when my back and hand went out. I’m going a step further and extending my hours by two each streaming day (starting at 2pm pacific time instead of 4pm). As for the not taking it as seriously: I’ve been approaching streaming as a job. I track my income, keep receipts, constantly strive to improve quality, pay a lot of attention to followers gained and lost… Only one of those is really valuable right now, and I’ll let you guess which. I need to take a step back, breathe a bit, and take stock in why I got involved on Twitch in the first place: it’s a platform I totally dig, using technology I totally dig, whilst playing videogames (which I also, totally dig). I’m gonna work at taking the “work” out of streaming. And who knows, maybe more fun = more friends?

Continue reading. I set my 2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal to 18 books – splitting the difference between 2016 and 2017, because while I still wanna push my reading, I wanna spread out my bonus time to more endeavors. I still can’t believe I’ve completed these challenges two years in a row! Would you like to take the challenge with me? Feel free to find and friend me here on Goodreads!

Drum more. Many of you may not know that I was quite the accomplished little drummer girl in high school. I was in all the school bands (marching band, drumline, jazz band, wind ensemble – I even made the All-American High School Band!), and was also in my fair share of cringe-named rock bands who played even-more-cringe-named venues (“The Vampyr Lounge”, which was an early-90’s era local coffee shop **cringe**). I have an amazing Roland V-drum kit gathering dust in the guest room and I can’t believe I don’t play it more. It’s always so fun (and quite the workout!), so I’m promising myself to play at least once a week – even if for only one punishing Queens of the Stone Age song!

Get outside. I love hiking. Like, more than I should what with having clumsy, arthritic feet. 2014 was the year I got serious about hiking and exploring the Pacific Northwest – I never felt so empowered and adventurous! I wanna get back to ascending those heights, walking through tree-filled forests, and generally getting the good kind of sore and sweaty. I have a lot of conditioning to do, but what better way to do it than attempt the #52HikeChallenge? I stumbled across this challenge on Instagram and while it seems daunting, it also totally seems doable. WanderWez is born! I’ll be sharing more of my hiking exploits here and on Twitter, so stay tuned.

I think that’s more-than-enough resolutions for me this year. I feel like this list is more the embracing-one’s-wants type of list than a rejecting-one’s-flaws type, and I feel pretty great about that. What resolutions have you made for yourself for 2018?  Share in the comments!