My 2017 Recap

2017 Was a crazy year for me.

It started out with me working on my Stars and Stripes project for American Heritage Girls a Christian scouting organization dedicated to building women of integrity.

The project was to repaint and add murals to the Sunday-school rooms at a local church. I started the project at the end of the year and finished it by the end of January, right before my birthday. As soon as I finished the project I got a bass guitar as a late Christmas present. I soon found out that it is my favorite instrument to play! During February I started dating one of my best friends at the time. That was great, for a while I was happy.

For 2017 because I am homeschooled I took what’s called a super senior year. I decided to wait to graduate until 2018 and spend another semester competing in speech and debate.

Well, plans changed and even though I chose to not do speech and debate this year. I decided to still do a super senior year.

In May I received the Stars and Stripes award. I also applied for a program called Praxis. This program is like an alternative to college. It’s an apprenticeship program for young entrepreneurs. The deal is Praxis is super selective about who they choose as participants. I didn’t end up making it into the program. So I sent them an email asking why? I was told I didn’t have enough person development projects. After hearing that I put a few projects together and worked on them over the summer.

Now summer is when things got crazy. I began working at a Christian summer camp called Camp Zephyr.

My relationship ended mid-summer. During this time I built this website and blog. I spent 60 days in a row blogging while working at camp. Now camp work days started between 6:30 and 7 AM when I would get up and I would start to work right after eating breakfast. At camp, you are pretty much running all day. We would finish most days around 11 PM. Unless we had midnight cleaning on those nights it would be 1 AM.  Most nights I would shower, blog, get ready for bed and do a devotional and by that point, it was 1 AM. Working at Zephyr has been one of the most tiring and satisfying things I have ever done and I loved it!

One thing that happened over the summer is I went to a camp called Camp Electric for my second year.

I met some of the most amazing girls at camp and now they are some of my best friends!

Summer came to an end and life went back to “normal.” Only most of my friends at home had moved for college. I became very bored, lonely and rather depressed. I no longer had my best friend or a relationship to lean on.

I  had stuff to do though so I focused on that. I also began to write music.

Most of my focus turned to a book I was writing called The Power Of Words For Teens. (You can find the paperback here and the ebook here)

In September I went to my first Con called Realms-Con. I cosplayed as the Tardis. I carried a basket that said Bad Wolf on it and wore a red cloak. That made me really happy and given the chance, I would love to start cosplaying and attending a lot more cons. I’d also like to make videos about the adventures.

between that, and my music I was less bored but still felt alone. I wanted to start a new adventure. Since music was on my mind I decided to audition for a few shows.

October 11th I took a trip to San Antonio and auditioned for American Idol. (If you would like me to make a blog post about that let me know in the comments!)

I didn’t make it onto the show. But I honestly didn’t mind because I got to spend the rest of my day with my best friend who I hadn’t seen in months.

After that, I continued to work on my book and finished it. I published it as an ebook on amazon.com.

By the time December came, I was ready to make it a paperback.

On December 8th I was in Houston ready for the America’s Got Tallent Audions. I had been practicing for a few months. I went and auditioned. Let me tell you, the party you see on tv is exactly what you get at the audition. It was so much fun.

One of the last things I did in 2017 was applied to Praxis once more. I honestly wasn’t sure if I had done enough to get in. I hold myself to extremely high standards and so as much as I did this last year I know I can do more.

Well to my surprise I heard back from Praxis a week earlier than I was expecting. I was accepted into the program! They said I had impressed them with what I had accomplished since I had applied last. I thought “Wow! Okay.” I honestly didn’t believe it.

I did a few other things over 2017 like start a Dream/vision board business, make a quilt and begin being a Dungeon Master for a small Dungeons and Dragons group.

So overall 2017 was a really eventful year. I met a lot of people, made friends and lost a few too. I think this has probably been one of the most productive years I’ve had so far.

So many things happened somethings will hopefully carry over to 2018 like hopefully, I will be on America’s Got Tallent. (I’ll find out in March)

 (Oh, and it Snowed in South Texas! Talk about crazy!)

2017 has been both good and bad. But I don’t think I would change much.

My life isn’t perfect and it never will be but as long as I continue to learn, have fun and enjoy life’s adventures. I have high hopes for the future!