Hello, my bucket list friends! wow this year has been wild! There were so many ups and downs that I lost count. It’s safe to say that I have grown a lot this year. My self-confidence is much higher than it has ever been. I know now that I’m capable of accomplishing much more than I ever thought I could, but this year also had some situations that I had a hard time facing. Let’s take a walk down 2017 lane and I will tell you about some of the most impactful moments of my year.
The Wonderful
This year was full of many wonderful moments, the one that stands out to me first, Is my surprise trip to Disneyland! (you can read about it here) Talk about the perfect surprise at the perfect time. Then there was my Los Angeles bucket list trip! I crossed five items off in just a few days. (you can read about it here) There is no way I could forget about my NHI graduation! (read about it here) Oh and yeah, I turned 27 this year and I celebrated with my little pony birthday (read about it here) I also went to Idaho for the first time ever and I loved going to the zoo and aquarium. (read about it here) This year was packed with wonderful positive memories. I had a Better than expect summer complete with two amazing concerts one from the band Boston at my favorite outdoor venue and the other was a concert on the beach from the band Quite Riot, I did tons of shopping spent lots of time with family and friends including going to my cousin’s beautiful wedding (you can read about my summer here , here ,here. and here) I saw some great movies this year, the my little pony movie was amazing I also really enjoyed the movies hidden figures and COCO and of course Star Wars!  There is no way I can forget crossing off #55 (ride on the back of a motorcycle) and #215(get some Lisa Frank clothes) off my list. (read about it here and here) There are so many good things that happened thins year it is hard to list them all, but I’ll do my best. I was so blessed to start two wonderful jobs this year that I love. One is a front desk receptionist at a massage studio the other is as a teacher’s aide at a preschool. Having two jobs that I love has done a lot of good for my mental health.  Other fun adventures include my trip to the Walt Disney family museum, ( read about it here) posting a lot of YouTube videos including  my bucket list talk videos , ( read about it here ) getting a new smart  phone ( I got the Google Pixel and it is my favorite phone that I have ever had ) , Then there was #207 Where I got something that I had been wanting for a long time  ( you can read about it here )and of course all the time that I spent with the people I love .  As busy as this year was I crossed eight items off my bucket list. This year was filled with great times with great people and I’m excited to have more great times in 2018!
The not so wonderful
As I said at the beginning of this post this year was wild and Like every year there was some challenging things that happened. The one that comes to mind first is my grandparents moving away I’ve wrote a little bit about this and don’t get me wrong I had a great time going to visit them and I’m very happy for them, but it was very hard for me when they moved so far away. I cried plenty of tears over them leaving. Time has been the best healer for this pain and I’m getting much better but that was one of the most difficult things that happened this year. The beginning of this year got off to a rocky start with some pretty crazy weather complete with fallen power polls and trees. The road was blocked for a while and parking was a little hard to come by while work was going on to clean up the mess. Until April I was working retail, I enjoyed working at the store and I loved the people I worked with but sometimes hours could be hard to come by and that’s how it was at the beginning of this year. I was getting called by bill collectors and that was a very stressful thing and I felt helpless. It was not a good feeling at all but here I am ending this year with two amazing jobs that have steady hours. Another very stressful thing that happened this year was when my cat cooper got stuck in a tree for hours! ( you can read about it here ) We had to call a tree service to come get him and it was a night that I had to go to school. As I wrote about in the post before this one, I failed the MBLEX and that was a hard disappointment to face but with the new year comes new opportunities and I’m ready to move past all the hardships of 2017 and go into 2018  with my head held high .
I hope all of you have a blessed 2018 . Rock on – Christina Epperly
