The end of 2016 is only weeks away. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on this year. I guess it’s that time—time to look back, enjoy memories and evaluate. Soon, we’ll ring in a New Year—2017—and try not to write 2016 as the date. LOL

I’ll make a list of Resolutions (do you make them, too?) and decide which ones I’ll tackle. I’ve found over the years a resolution that makes the list every year but I don’t make time for has to be examined closely. If it doesn’t end up being that important to me, it gets tossed off the list forever. If it is, I resolve even more to accomplish it. Having a book published made my list five consecutive years before I made the time to sit down and write my first. Learning to surf, on the other hand, has been crossed off the list forever. It’s just not that important to me and it’s time to let the ‘this might be fun’ idea go.

But before I do that, it’s time to check the rearview…

There were trips:

A quick visit to Austin to celebrate my oldest son’s birthday in March.

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The next trip was June when my daughter accompanied me on a work trip to New York (one of my favorite places in the world!) to spend a day with the Book Obsessed Chicks at their annual Beach Bash.

Followed by another trip to New York, this time with middle son for a weekend in the fall. He attended a Gaming event while I met with bloggers (pictured to the left with Jennifer Butler).

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We added to the family:

At the beginning of summer, we took on a rescue puppy. He’s nine-months-old now (pictured on the right) and comes in at around sixty-pounds. Best of all, he’s settling into his personality and (more importantly) we survived the puppy stage!

On the career front, this has been one of my best years yet. I wrote seven books and played around with two additional story ideas, which I’m cultivating now. I had four releases. the Mason Ridge series ended and the Cattlemen Crime Club series kicked off in summer. The third book in that series hits stores Christmas week. ONE TOUGH TEXAN is almost here!

I had the honor of spending very special time with readers at The Annual Buns & Roses Romance Tea for Literacy in October. We set a record, raising more than $20,000 for literacy in a single weekend!  

Not everything was as joyous. We lost two cherished friends in almost back-to-back car crashes early on. Both are still deeply missed and they are never far from our thoughts.

My oldest spent the summer in Europe, trying to secure a postdoc position (fingers crossed one of those leads pans out for him) and he’s been so busy that I’ve hardly seen him this year. I hope we have more time together in 2017. And if he ends up working overseas after May’s graduation, well, my Passport is up-to-date.