Holly Jolly 2019 Blog Roundup

The end of the year is upon us. It’s one of my favorite times because I enjoy looking back at the year. Going into a new year is always a bit daunting. New Years resolutions, goals, now people are setting intentional “words” for the year. How is it all going to pan out?

Well, it does. It did. We’re here. We did it.

For this post, I’d like to borrow K.M Allen’s 2019 blog round up template.

Blog Posts

Your Favorite Blog Posts

These are the top five most viewed blog posts of 2019. Not unsurprising, two of my oldest blog posts rank the highest. As search engines can tell you, the longer content is out there the more likely it is to attract views.

My Favorite Blog Posts

Here is a list of the top five posts I most enjoyed writing this year.

The blogs that kept me entertained

Ryan Schultz

“News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse”

I stumbled across Ryan Schultz’s blog this year. While I’m not into social VR worlds like Sansar, I do enjoy Schultz’s commentary on virtual reality. I especially like hearing his thoughts on Facebook Horizon and editorials about the state of VR.

Suzanne Showcasing VR

“Virtual reality news & stories round up”

Suzanne is another blogger you must follow if you like virtual reality. Suzanne covers VR news and makes tutorials. One of the things I most admire about Suzanne is that she is the founder of Pivotal Reality Ltd, a company that uses virtual reality for people living with dementia. Read about her latest findings in this post.

eLearning and Emerging Technologies @GVSU

“eLearning and Emerging Technologies provides instructional design, @Blackboard, digital studio, instructional technology, and @gvtechshowcase resources @GVSU”

I was so excited to discover my college has a WordPress blog dedicated to e-learning and their technology showcase that I had to share their site here. I love reading about what students and educators are doing with virtual reality and other emerging technologies at Grand Valley. Eric and Hunter even gave me a tour after I reached out on WordPress.

J. K. I’m Exploring!

I started following J.K. I’m Exploring during Blogtober this year. I kept following her because I enjoy her posts, especially reading about her latest coding projects.

Life Lessons

For me, this year was all about time management. For nine months my husband was deployed. At home, it was me, my son, and our dog. Despite the impossibility that deployment seemed, I made time to work and volunteer.

In a world where people pride themselves on how busy they are, I took pride in taking a step back and slowing down. I focused on the key parts of my life I needed to function. That meant cutting out the fluff and making time for the essentials.

I deleted Facebook and took all social media apps off my phone.

I wrote down one thing I wanted to accomplish each day. Any more than one and I was sure to be overwhelmed and disappointed. Because, it turns out babies have a mind of their own when it comes to what we’ll do that day.

Goals for 2020

This time of year I see so many posts on setting intentions, resolutions, and picking “words” for the new year. I also see plenty of posts claiming resolutions don’t work (I don’t believe that personally). As 2019 winds down, here are two projects I think would be cool to accomplish in the New Year.

Write 100,000 words on Lilyotron: This year I published 56,000 words on Lilyotron. Put all those posts together and it’s a book! Why not double that for 2020? 2020 itself is a doubling of numbers, 20 and 20. Plus, writing is a practice. The more of it you do, the better at it you become.

Visit at least three friends in different states, perhaps even a different country: Being in the military means my friends are scattered to the wind. I have friends across the USA and even some overseas. However, having a toddler makes travelling all that more difficult. But I love showing him new places and giving him the experience of travel. It’s so cool to see everything new from his eyes. Heck, he’s not even two and he’s already been to one other country and nine different states!

Email Subscribers: Revamp by email newsletter and offer valuable content for email subscribers. This means treating Lilyotron more like a business than hobby which I think would be fun. *nerd alert* who else thinks treating their blog like a business is fun? Haha.

Do another race: Since I had my son last year and injured by ankle this year I haven’t done a race since 2017. Yikes! I’d like to at least do a 5k but would love to get back into Duathlons.

Stretch Projects for 2020

Start a podcast. How many of you would be interested in a commentary take on VR/AR news? I see so many cool things and good articles. I think it would be fun to put it together in a bi-weekly podcast.

Write a book. Ever since I met Honorée Corder at the Nashville Writers Festival I can’t stop thinking about writing a book. You Must Write a Book sits right next to my laptop. Come on, what are you waiting for?

Memories

I keep coming across different types annual reviews people do of their blogs and year. This memory idea is from Perell’s blog.

Best Surprise: My husband coming home early from deployment.

Best Meal: German pretzel french toast in Chicago.

Coolest New Experience: Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN.

Favorite Weekend: West Point, New York for the Army vs. VMI football game with my family.

Favorite First Meeting: Michelle and Anna from the Society of Military Spouses in STEM.

Favorite New City: Gatlinburg, TN and the Great Smokey Mountains.

Favorite Work of Art: My son’s painting from day care. 🥰

Favorite Tour: West Point Museum & Visitor’s Center.

Most Intense Week: Homecoming Week.

Favorite Artist: During my visits home, my mom got me hooked on Songland. Able Heart caught my attention with his song Greenlight (recorded by the Jonas Brothers).

Favorite Song: This year it’s a toss up between God’s Country by Blake Shelton and Antisocial by Ed Sheeran & Travis Scott.

Favorite Concert: Jake Owen at Fort Campbell.

Favorite Quote: “Writer’s feel called to write and share it with an audience.” – from Writer Fest Nashville

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