Yesterday I saw that one of our newest Coil members, Catera Combs posted this article with the #good2020challenge in the title. I'm not sure if she was intending on starting a Coil challenge or not, but I absolutely love the positivity and wanted to jump in on it. Also if you're not following her, definitely check Catera out, I'm LOVING her content.

We're about halfway through the year and like Catera said, it's not exactly been a great one over all. But we can find a bit of positivity in every situation. Even if life hasn't gone to plan, it certainly hasn't for me, you can still find things that makes life special. I'm going to put my own twist on the challenge and name one good thing that has happened each month this year!

I got to spend New Years with my family! For those of you who don't know, I moved from the metro-Detroit area to Nashville, Tennessee two years ago (on July 1st!). It's been hard being so far away from my family and so I treasure every trip I can get back home. We went to Michigan for three weeks over Christmas, but the last week we were there was really special. I truly got to enjoy time with my family and it was nice to ring in the new year with them!

I focused on my health. I finally went to see a doctor that I desperately needed to see, got on a new diet, started exercising and I lost 22 lbs that month. I know it sounds crazy, but it was exactly what my body needed. I felt so good that month, I had more energy than ever and my mental health issues dropped drastically. I also released “Please Don't Make Me Leave My Couch” which recently hit 60k streams!

Probably my favorite month so far... we got pregnant! March 17th, St. Patricks day, we found out that we are pregnant with our rainbow baby, currently known as “Baby H” until our gender reveal in July!

We celebrated our 1 year anniversary of marriage!! It was bittersweet because of the pandemic, but Dustin and I snuck out of the house for contactless pickup and we had our anniversary lunch in the truck. It was sweet and reminded me of when we first started dating. This month was a bit harder to find a silver lining in, pandemic struck hard and I was exhausted this entire month from early pregnancy, but we had our first ultrasound EVER that month, which was a milestone I was afraid we'd never hit. I also got to spend an immense amount of quality time with Dustin since we were quarantined at home together and I got to sleep as much as I wanted. It really was a blessing in disguise.

Also a slightly difficult month, but I got to hear Baby H's heartbeat, another milestone I never thought I'd hit and I released “Love Myself”, a song I'd written about the journey I was on to establish true self love. That one has truly not gone as well as my other songs, but it was in part because of the pandemic and tight funds for advertising. The silver lining? I'm building a back log of music for my true fans to enjoy.

After a very slow few months for my web design business, I finally got a few jobs.. all in the same week. It's been crazy but it's been great to be back to work. I also entered my 2nd Trimester and my energy has been up significantly which has been wonderful. Dustin also went back to work this month which means we'll be moving soon and getting ready for sweet baby who's coming in November!

This was a really fun article to write because I have a hard time not focusing on the negative 24/7. Dustin is much more the positive one in our relationship and I'm sure it's just as exhausting for him to be around negative nelly all the time as it is for me being around positive polly. 😂 But I will digress it was nice to try and find the silver lining from each month and look back at just how great this year has been, despite the climate of the world right now.

If you'd like to participate, make sure you give credit where credit is due, to Catera!

xoxo – Ry