2020 Review Post

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I started writing these blog posts last year to document where I am in my business journey. I got the idea from a friend of mine who publishes her own posts reviewing her year. You can read my previous Review Posts here: 2019

January

Started using a calendar software called Acuity Scheduling to manage my appointments
Had an appointment with my photographer to update my head shots.
Donated blood to the American Red Cross. This donation marked a half a gallon of blood donated!
Started using a conversion software called ConvertBox.

February

Joined a project to co-author a book with other successful entrepreneurs titled, The Success Code.
Bought the domain name for my publishing company, Inbetween Publishing.

March

Joined a live round of a friend’s training to create, and sell, Paid Live Trainings, but due to the Coronavirus, I made the tough decision to put the promoting and selling of them on hold for the time being. My friend let us know that she was going to do another live round of the program, so I said I was going to wait on launching/promoting/doing my paid live trainings until the next live round.
The Coronavirus Pandemic wreaked havoc around the world. The sad part about this is that some people halted business dealings. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to do myself. So, I created a few different resources for people and I hosted a writing project. You can learn more about it here: What I Did During the Coronavirus Pandemic Writing Project. (Though I’m thankful to all who contributed and helped with the creation of this project, maybe it was a good thing it didn’t come to fruition completely because now—January 2021—Amazon isn’t allowing anything with the word “Coronavirus” in the title to be published/it is removing titles that have the word in them or making it so they’re hard to find, from what I’m hearing from friends.)
Had to cancel my scheduled blood donation appointment at the Red Cross due to the Coronavirus. Little did I know, I would be out of the chair for about ten months.
Had my first real chat in my website’s live chat system, Chatra!

April

Sent in my piece for The Success Code and was informed that the publication date was going to be pushed back from May 26 to June 30, 2020
April saw the continuation of the social distancing orders.

May

The publication date for The Success Code was pushed back again to August 4, 2020.
I met a girl and she agreed to go on a virtual date with me. Since then, we have been talking every day. At the end of June, I officially asked her to be my girlfriend and she said yes!

June

June 15 marks one year since I started my blood donation journey; however, due to the Coronavirus, I only have four units. If I was able to stay on the donation schedule I was on at that point in time, I was supposed to be close to the one gallon mark by this time.
A store in my local community, Tattered Pages, announced its closure after thirteen years in business. My blog post for June talks about my experience at the shop and my friendship with the owner, Trish Eldridge.

July

The Success Code was put on pre-order on Amazon.

August

The Success Code launched on Amazon in Kindle and paperback on August 4.
I met my girlfriend, Cassie, in Tennessee! I stayed with her the whole week. Originally, we had agreed that we would move in together when her lease was up at the apartment she was staying in at the time down in Georgia, but events transpired that made her want to change that situation rather quickly, so we spoke to our respective families and made the decision to start looking for an apartment. (The process was gruesome!)

September

As we were looking for apartments, my dad expressed his concern about being locked into a 12-month lease, so he suggested we do a shorter term lease (such as three months), but that was astronomically more expensive than going month to month in a longer term lease, and it was way out of our budget; so, my father spoke to a friend of ours who is a realtor, and she went on the hunt for us. We saw a few wonderful houses, but a few houses that… weren’t so wonderful. We ended up finding a townhouse that is about ten minutes away from where I grew up and my parents started the process to purchase the home!
Went to Author Advantage Live for the second year in a row. You can read about my experiences here: What I learned at Author Advantage Live 2020.
On September 30, 2020, at 7:42pm, Cassie touched down in the Albany airport. We were together again after 53 days!

October

The townhouse was supposed to close on October 23, but events transpired and that didn’t happen. We hoped we’d be in by Christmas.

November

I was on Facebook one day and saw that my alma mater, Hudson Valley Community College, had posted a tribute to the sixth president of the college, Andrew J. “Drew” Matonak, Ed.D. He passed away on November 7 after a courageous battle with cancer. My blog post for November was about him: Thank you, Drew.
The townhouse closed on November 19. We commenced the renovations we had to do.

December

Although there were some bumps in the road, my girlfriend, Cassie, and I moved into our own house! The townhouse was closed on November 19, and it took a few weeks for us to get the house ready for us to live in. That was completed in about four weeks, and we moved in on December 17, 2020! A special thank you to my mom and dad for working tirelessly to get Cassie and I into the house before we were set to leave for Georgia!
Cassie and I went down to Georgia for a few days to visit her family for Christmas. It was a lovely time meeting everyone! We exchanged gifts and had a lot of delicious food; but, in the end, I was glad that Cas was able to visit with her family and friends after so long of being apart.
My family and I went to Tennessee to see the penultimate show of our friends, The Great Victorian Amusement Company, at Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre, in Gatlinburg. While there, I proposed to Cassie, and she said YES!

Final Thoughts

2020, all in all, was a magical year for me. I co-authored two books and made preparations to republish my memoir in 2021. Although the Coronavirus took me for a loop for a good part of the year, I used that time to really look at my business and figure out how to move forward for prosperous months ahead.

However, 2020 did have its not-so-magical points…

In late March, Kenny Rogers died at age 81. I wrote a blog post about him back in April: The Gambler went to the Great Poker Room in the Sky. It was a tough time for many Country music fans around the world.
In November, my alma mater, Hudson Valley Community College, posted on their Facebook page that the sixth president of the college, Andrew J. “Drew” Matonak, Ed.D., passed away after a courageous battle with a rare form of cancer. I wrote a blog post about him at tne end of November: Thank you, Drew.

It was a sobering realization that, even if things may be going well one minute, there can be bumps in the road when you least expect them.

Blog posts I wrote this year

Blog posts my mom wrote this year

My mom writes for my blog. We call her portion, Mom’s Corner.