Last year was a pretty big year for me, including more travelling than I’ve ever done, more WordCamps, heaps of knitting and crochet, one bunny died and a we adopted a new bunny to be friends with our remaining rabbit.
Nearly every month I ran and/or attended WordPress meetups in Sydney, in the CBD and north of the Harbour Bridge.
Here’s an overview of my year by the month.
January
At the end of January I travelled to Phoenix, Arizona for my first work team meetup. We did fun things like walk in the desert, eat mac & cheese, and tacos, drink margaritas, and play cards (as well as some work stuff).
February
Following the meetup my Mum flew to Phoenix to meet me for a one week road trip. It was Mum’s first trip to the US and my first time driving there. It was a great trip, with every stop being memorable and beautiful in some way.
March
I’m sure March was mainly recovering from February and getting back into the swing of life and work. Possibly most notable was The Royal Easter Show, which is held in Sydney around Easter every year. I remember going several times as a child, but I don’t think I had been since I was a teenager, and I didn’t remember partaking in many of the more rustic events like wood chopping. I went with my friend who gets member tickets each year, and her daughter; they showed me the ropes of an Aussie-experience Easter Show, sans showbags (which is the main thing I got excited about as a kid).
April
On the 10th I turned 30. I had a nice brunch with family.
May
May 11 was my one year anniversary working full-time time at Automattic. It was uneventful, but nice to note. It was also a good month for bunnies and yarn crafts.
I also spoke at WordCamp Sunshine Coast (Queensland, Australia).
June
In early June our nephew was born.
Later I flew to Prague for a few days holiday and sight seeing before WordCamp Europe in Vienna. I really enjoyed Prague, and particularly liked my day trip to Cesky Krumlov.
I volunteered at WordCamp and was really busy. It was huge, and interesting, and I’m volunteering again this year, in Paris!
July
July was apparently the most “normal” month. I had my usual WordPress meetups, bible studies, crochet/knitting group, and dates and meetings with friends.
August
A similarly normal month. I did happen to organise music and play guitar for a women’s day at church, which went really well.
September
September was particularly jam-packed. It started with Postmodern Jukebox at the Enmore Theatre, which was fantastic. I think my favorite artists on the night were Casey Abrams (who is my favorite anyway) and Melinda Dolittle.
My best friend gave birth to her daughter!
Very soon after that I flew to Vancouver for a few days of touristing before the Automattic Grand Meetup in Whistler. Vancouver was nice, not my favourite city in the world, but I particularly enjoyed Stanley Park.
Whistler was fantastic, and the Grand Meetup was great. The restaurants, shops and activities were fun, and the mountains beautiful. The meetup involved spending time with workmates that I usually only interact with online, discussing work, the world, and life, and learning and teaching new things. It was intense, but very good.
Then the day after I returned home we had WordCamp Sydney, which I helped organise!
While I was returning home from Canada, our rabbit Kaylee died. It was a shock and very sad.
October
It took a while to recover from my trip and WordCamp. There was also some accounting to be done post-WordCamp.
It was my husband’s birthday, and not too long after that we adopted our new bunny Zoë. It was hard work getting Monty and Zoë to become friends, but thankfully we got there before November!
At the end of the month we saw Arj Barker, a comedian. It was a fun night out.
November
My final trip of the year was to Singapore for a team meetup. We did some intense live chatting to share tips, techniques, and test out some theories about how best to staff live chat support. Our main activity other than work and shopping was a visit to Gardens By The Bay, which was quite lovely.
On the 21st we launched .Blog domains. It was a learning experience to say the least, but apart from a couple of hiccups, I think it was a success.
December
The end of the year was very busy and rather stressful.
The month started with me catching gastroenteritis. We attended the funeral for my husband’s grandmother. And we saw Bill Bailey at the State Theatre. He is hilarious and laughing made my tummy hurt (more than it already did).
Beyond that, I was preparing to run a holiday sailing camp for kids aged 9-12. Actually preparing for camp takes a lot longer and starts earlier than December, but with camp being the week before Christmas, December was crunch time, and then camp time. And then, of course, Christmas time.
Wowza! That’s all for now. I’ll write about my hopes & plans for 2017 soon.
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