Last Updated on December 31, 2022 by Natalie
Hi! 2022 has brought a lot of changes for my family and even the blog. Let’s get into the Blissmersion year in review 2022! Oh, how I love when things rhyme.
Goals for 2022
I decided to set a few goals again in 2022.
- Read 100 books
- Walk 200 miles
- Finish writing 1 story
For me, walking 200 miles in the year is pretty ambitious. Reading 100 books isn’t ambitious, as based on my past two years of reading, I’ve averaged 241.5 books per year. I’m planning to continue reading, so I figured a goal would be great. Additionally, I want to have time to do other things so I don’t spend all of my time reading. I would, because that’s fun. In order to read 241.5 books per year, I am reading in most of my free time. As I want to accomplish some other things, I needed to read less.
Disclaimer
Blissmersion is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Posts on this site might contain affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission. I pay for all of my own vacations, flights, hotels, car rentals, and gadgets.
Travel Stats
Number of hotel stays: 7 separate stays (including three weeks while moving)
Number of wild zebras spotted: 1
Number of zorses spotted: 1 (the zebra’s baby)
Number of international moves completed: 1
Number of boxes in our international shipment: 112
Days between shipment being packed up and then delivered: 89
January
January started nearly the same as last year. We’d returned to Mexico on New Year’s Eve (it’s such a GREAT day to fly, all things considered, though I still managed to have a minorly bitchy flight attendant who was suddenly way less bitchy when she realized my husband was in first class, but whatever).
Except I returned this year feeling a lot better about life. We are definitely moving back to Ohio this summer. I know I’ll miss Mexico and I also know it’s the right time to go back. The past two years have actually been pretty awful. Stupidity runs even more rampant here than in the US regarding all things co-vid. All of that dumbness has taken a lot of my spark and optimism.
About two weeks later, I was again suffocated by the news and getting that oh-so-blah feeling. I’m trying to get out and walk more because that has a way of calming the soul. I’ve also been reading a lot again. Just as I did last year, I set a 100 book goal. New goal this year: 200 miles of walking.
I started focusing on my walking goal, which helped me get out of my funk.
February
It was the first time in a long time that I started out February without feeling like January lasted about 100 years. Even here, with our lovely weather, it sometimes felt like it lasted forever. I’m trying to be in the presence and not imagine next winter when I’ll be in Ohio, yet I am.
Also, in early February, we found out about a cute little boutique spa and hotel. I know the owners, but I found out through the husband of a teacher at my kids’ school. I’m teaching a conversational English class, which is how I know the husband. We spent the night and then the next mornings, our friends drove over from our old city for a mountain hike.
There’s a zebra that lives up there with a herd of horses and we hiked up there to try to see the herd. This was a hard hike. It was much more challenging than I expected, even though I definitely didn’t expect it to be easy. It had beautiful views, but we weren’t able to spot the zebra.
It was still an incredible day. We finished the hike around 12:30 pm and drove home right after. My husband and I were so exhausted! I thought I was going to fall asleep and I’m not typically able to nap.
February also marked the return where I started making some videos for Blissmersion. I documented our hike looking for the zebra and you can watch it below.
March
March started with me trying to figure out where we could go for Spring Break. At least, until one day early in the month. I was trying to go back to sleep one morning and I turned my head and felt what I thought was pain. I almost asked my husband to work from home that day, but then decided that I would be fine. I went about my morning as normal. Late morning, I stretched and suddenly felt really bad. It was dizziness, though even then I was still associating it as pain. I decided that I needed a cold pack to put on my neck and when I bent over the freezer, I realized I was incredibly dizzy. My instinct was to lay down because I was worried I’d faint. Laying down was so much worse and I still thought I was going to pass out. Immediately, I sat up again. I needed to make sure someone was going to be able to pick up my kids.
First, I texted the woman who helps us with things. I told her I needed help. I explained the situation and she said she’d take me to the emergency room. I called my husband and asked him if he could come home and work from home the rest of the day because I was dizzy and needed him to pick up the kids. He packed up immediately, no questions asked. He did call me back when he was walking out of the office and asked me what was going on. I told him that I needed to go to the ER because I was super dizzy.
He ended up working from home the rest of the week. I made a short video about that experience, too (which was really good).
As for the pain association, since I was complaining about my neck, I got an Xray of my neck. All three doctors I saw in the ER asked if I’d been in an accident because I had a neck sprain. I haven’t been in an accident and I still have no idea how I ended up with a neck sprain. Also, I guess there was a reason that I was associating the dizziness with pain.
To make a long story a little bit shorter, I ended up having to wear a soft neck collar for the vertigo for two weeks and I couldn’t drive for nearly three weeks. I’ve discovered that I get the dizziness side effect to one of the medications I was given, so that was fun. I spent almost all of March in my house.
April
April came in hot this year. It got hot fast. We spent a lot of time swimming.
April also brought some really crazy personal stuff that isn’t mine to share but affected me nonetheless.
This month also brought spring break. The same spring break that I didn’t make any plans for the entire two weeks. We did end up heading to the town we used to live in Guanajuato state and spent time with our friends. The kids and I also watched Sonic 2 in Spanish. That was actually pretty awesome.
We ended up spending three weekends in hotels for various reasons. The first week of spring break, my neighborhood stupidly changed the pool rules and suddenly, instead of a 1 hour time slot once a day (kind of as many times per week as you want), they switched up to 2 hour time slots and you’re only allowed to go twice a week. This April has been the hottest April I’ve experience while here and not having access to the pool on a regular basis has stunk. I’m also acutely aware that I won’t have pool access when we leave – at least, it’s not going to be as convenient and included in the price of my rent. We chose this neighborhood mostly because of the pool and location. Overall, I’ve despised living here. They should never have restricted pool use in the first place – it wasn’t ever their responsibility to “protect” my health. And this late in the game, the restrictions getting worse is asinine. Though I enjoy my hour time slot alone in the pool (or with another house), I’m ready for it to be a free for all. Let those who are scared work on their own issues with their therapists and the rest of us can use the amenities we are paying for.
My husband had to take a last minute work trip to the USA. He was supposed to leave Wednesday and return Friday. He ended up staying an additional week, not returning until the following Friday. While he was gone, I spent $100 to take my kids to a hotel so we could use their unrestricted pool. I made a video about how that went (spoiler: it didn’t go quite as expected and it was still fun).
May
My husband returned from the US early afternoon on the last Friday in April and we met friends of ours at yet another hotel in Queretaro. This time, it was more of a boutique style hotel. These are common in Queretaro and in my experience, great little, unique hotels. This one was pretty large, but still nice.
The video below documents some of our fun and a little bit about the hotel. I didn’t take any pictures of our room, which was pretty nice. For reference, I chose a mid-grade room and not the cheapest option. It gave us at least double the space, which worked out nicely.
Additionally, we ended up having a small good-bye gathering for another expat who was leaving in very early June. I took some footage of the weekend.
June
June came along and surprised me. All of a sudden, we had a month left to live here in Queretaro and that just seems unreal for some reason. Again, we spent time with friends.
The beginning of June gave us only about 21 days left in our house and I decided to do a partial home tour which included seeing our furniture in the space. I made a video and a few days later, someone came and picked up a bunch of our furniture!
As I’m updating this in June, it’s mostly because I’m currently procrastinating from getting “sorting and throwing” done. Meaning, I’ve got to go through the boxes we never got unpacked here and see what things can be given away, tossed, or will be packed and headed back to the USA.
June also brought a little craziness on the health front. I decided to pursue physical therapy for my long term neck problems. I can’t tell if it’s helping that much yet, but I do have exercises to do when my neck pain acts up after we are back in Ohio. Additionally, I had some other non-urgent but still important healthcare items to take care of quickly for someone else in my family.
I’m also trying soooo hard to convince the family to go back to the place where we looked for the zebra. With only three weekends left, I don’t think we are going to swing it. I’m a little disappointed, but I’m not completely defeated yet. Time will tell and by the time you read this, you’ll know if it happened.
The big move
June also brought the ending time of our 5 year assignment in Mexico. On June 21, the movers came to start packing our items. They returned the following day to finish up the packing and get everything into the truck. I’ll be candid – it was a stressful time for our family even though we weren’t the ones doing the hard work during these particular days. Leading up to it, we did do a lot of work and got rid of a lot of items in order assure that we were under our weight limit.
We did have a small mess up that felt huge at the time. It ended up being caused by miscommunications between three companies (at least, that’s what it sounded like after the fact). It set the movers behind by three hours, but they still wrapped up before 6 pm on the second day. Like I said, it was stressful.
Also, living in a hotel for 11+ days isn’t really all that fun, especially when the entire family starts not feeling well.
After the move was done, we did have two small little goodbye times in our first place of residence in Mexico. One was a little gathering for whomever wanted to stop by the mall and see us. It was lovely to see some of the kids’ first classmates again – and to see how much they’ve grown in 2.5 years!
Our best friends had a dinner for us, too, which was low key and lovely. I cried a little as we were leaving. It’s hard to leave our good friends, even though I think that we will probably see them again sometime.
This about wraps up June, which definitely felt like the busiest month of 2022. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes.
July
88 books read
125 miles walked
We went to Cozumel – and I ended up making a series of videos about our trip. After we returned back to the US on July 15, so much started happening. It has been a deep dive into the history of my family as I help to clean out my grandmother’s house so that I can live there. When we are done living there, my family will be able to sell it because we’ve taken care of the clean up and the important repairs.
August
August is actually when all of the things we needed to do with the house started in earnest. Additionally, we planned a trip to North Carolina to see my sister and her family. The timing was a little off, because things regarding our shipment and such didn’t go quite as expected. It wasn’t until mid-August that our Mexico shipment actually cleared customs. One family member has been ill and unable to help with certain things that must get done before we can receive our shipment. Our new-to-us house is fairly small and we need some large items moved so that we have the additional space.
North Carolina is a lovely state and I’m taking advantage of not HAVING to do anything except enjoy time with the family. I’ve even been able to sleep in for two days in a row. The beds are much comfier than anything I’ve been sleeping on in awhile. My sister also has an awesome pool. This is where you can find me for the next few days!
As soon as we return to Ohio, we will again hit the ground running. We will start moving out of the apartment and into the house. I’ve managed to collect a lot of stuff already. Partially because the apartment wasn’t as well equipped as we’d hoped. There are dishes and pots, but really not enough to cook for a family of four easily. We borrowed a better cutting board from my mother, several pots from my mother in law, a sharp knife from my grandmother’s house to use in food prep (I don’t expect a sharp knife at a furnished rental, though), among other odds and ends. These items, plus purchasing a few dishes have helped make meal prep easier, at least.
Everything has felt quite chaotic this month. I haven’t been able to meet up with friends as quickly as I’d hoped. I had some major allergies hit me quickly after returning to Ohio and I didn’t feel like doing much. Now that I’ve either adjusted to the allergens or whatever I’m allergic to has stopped sending out pollen, I’m fine but not even in the city to see my friends. It’s okay – life works that way sometimes and it will all happen soon.
It’s a whirlwind. It’s crazier and more stressful that I’d expected. Also, the stress is from different sources than I’d expected. In the moment that I’m writing this, in August from North Carolina, I’m relaxing and enjoying myself. Things have calmed down and I’m too far away to worry about the items that haven’t yet been completed.
September
Our shipment from Mexico arrived in mid September. Our stuff that had been in storage for 5 years here in the USA arrived a few days after. It was stressful to receive so much stuff at once in a small house. The entire month was consumed with trying to get stuff organized and that is definitely an ongoing project.
October and November
I spent a lot of these two months making sure I was walking regularly and getting my kids outside as much as possible. The fall was mild, so it was an awesome time to walk.
December
December flew by, really. I’m wrapping this up on December 31st, thinking, “Wow, how is it the end of the month already?”
We joined a group that does group hikes weekly (with kids) and that has been great for getting outside, even on the cold days.
We planned a trip to North Carolina again for Christmas. Of course, our planned date to leave was Friday, December 23 and several states were hit with a bad winter storm that morning, Ohio included. Since we were driving down with my parents, we were renting a car. On the Thursday before, I asked my husband to check if he could get our rental a day early because it sounded like the weather was going to be bad. After a scramble, we did get the car on Thursday just before 5 pm. Everyone scrambled to finish packing and we got on the road around 6:30 pm. We stopped once we got out of Ohio and it turned out that we’d made the right decision. Weather reports from all over Ohio included level 2 snow advisories in several counties, reports of terrible accidents, etc. We had cold weather (around 1°F or -17ºC), but there wasn’t any snow in West Virginia!
Our Christmas trip to NC was otherwise uneventful in the best way and it was lovely to be together for Christmas.I walked the final mile of my 200 miles in 2022 on Christmas day. And my nephews requested going for a walk on our last two days of visiting, which made my day(s)!
Two days after Christmas, I woke up with hives (allergic reaction and yes, I know to what). So, other than being itchy the last day and during our trip home, everything was great. Luckily, the hives are already gone and I’m only a little bit itchy now.
We are spending New Year’s Eve with my husband’s family, which is also lovely. I woke up earlier than I expected this morning and I was able to wish my friend in Australia a Happy New Year before midnight in Sydney!
At the last minute, one of my shorts garnered over 1,000 views, which was kind of amazing for me.
I was SO excited to get to see the hippos in person (and with glass separating us for sure).
Did I accomplish my goals in 2022?
Here are the results:
- Read 100 books ✓
I read 132 this year.
- Walk 200 miles ✓
I walked 205 miles this year.
- Finish writing 1 story ×
Nope. Didn’t happen. I’m not sure if I did any creative fiction writing this year at all.
I’m planning to keep my goals the same going into 2023. Except in 2023, I want to focus more on writing. I had zero ambition in the latter half of 2022 to write. I made several videos for YouTube instead.
Reflecting on the year, I am happy that I accomplished two of my three goals. Though, as I really want to become a published author, I do need to focus more on writing. I purchased a writing course on Black Friday, with the hope that I will be able to learn a lot from it and finish a full-length novel. Or two. Writing is one of my hardest goals because when my internal motivation isn’t there, I don’t know how to force it.
In conclusion
2022 was a really challenging year in some ways. My blogging and writing motivation was almost nil, especially after moving back to the US from Mexico. I had more time in Mexico for these creative endeavors, but I have more places to walk and hike here in the US. I definitely drove more in just the first three months than I did in Mexico in the previous two years.
I dealt with vertigo in Mexico and still a bit in the US (though, I haven’t had an issue in a long time). I dealt with a wasp sting (it bothered me for quite awhile, actually) and then an allergic reaction that resulted in hives all over my body. There were other personal things going on and I was definitely really stressed out in August and September, especially.
As always, I’m looking forward to 2023. May it be ever better, may our health improve, and may the wind be at our backs.
How was YOUR 2022? What do you look forward to in 2023 and beyond?
