Fairwell to 2018, Hello 2019!

This year has been an interesting ride on so many levels and while none of it was horrible I am kind of glad it's over. Looking forward to a much better year in 2019. Ending the year with a little freewrite, if you've followed me for anytime you know it's with beer in hand and after I've already had a few...so don't judge..lol.

This year on Steemit I accomplished a few things that I'm pretty proud of including launching a new account for @pifc for it's Curation Contest. This contest was created to allow everyone a place to show how amazing they are by Paying It Forward to others. Each week some amazing people take time out of their week to find a couple high quality posts to feature and help them gain some much needed exposure. We have reached so many people and more then a few have told me via comments or discord messages that they were about to leave Steemit before finding the @pifc community. This means the efforts to Pay It Forward to others has been working and I love that.

From @pifc came the need to find a way to help support some of the high quality producing plankton that would be featured and who took the time to enter the Curation Contest. Many of them creating great posts while sometimes not even reaching the dust level for their rewards. I know some might think that a few extra pennies doesn't help keep someone motivated, but knowing that each post will at least pay out vs all efforts being dusted away helps a ton per those we have helped. The creation of the Minnow Builder Project (@minnowbuilder, @minnowbuilder2, @minnowbuilder3, @minnowbuilder4, @minnowbuilder5) has allowed us to support multiple plankton with free daily upvotes and a few have even already turned into Minnows allowing a new group of people to be supported. While this program is still very small it is having a meaningful impact on the lives of a few. Hopefully 2019 will see this grow into something much larger and we can have an impact on many more steemians.

One thing I hope we can kiss goodbye in 2019 is the Crypto Winter. Really hoping that by Mid year we will be looking back wondering why we all didn't buy way more Crypto while the prices were so low. In my opinion this is the time to be building up your holdings. Invest even a little bit of cash to grow your accounts and other crypto holdings then down the road you will be able to reap the rewards for taking advantage of the simplest investing rule out there, Buy Low and Sell High.

On the personal side I'm just glad the unexpected expenses of 2018 are over with and looking forward to rebuilding my safety net during 2019. Hate not having a reserve large enough to cover me if something happened which kept me from working or to cover unexpected expenses. As those unexpected things seemed to pile on top of each other last year being topped off with the boiler issue it was a really good thing the safety net was there to start the year. Have already started it's rebuilding our savings and that makes me much more comfortable.

To many of my friends (both on and off steemit) have been struck by cancer this year by either having it or dealing with it so I would like to scream "Fuck Cancer" as loud as possible. It may not help @wolfhart, @headchange, @lynncoyle1, @briancourteau, or the others who are stuck by this nasty disease...but sometimes all we can do is scream to release a little bit of our anger. So for 2019 I am hoping those struggling with this get to spend a more time with their loved ones and they have the strength to let others in if they need a shoulder to lean on.

While I am looking forward to 2019 I really am worried 2019 might bring is health issues for family. We have 4 very elderly Grandparents who have each had their own Health issues during 2018 including the last just coming home after over a month in the hospital for heart issues. It's a lot of ups and downs when you have 90+ year olds still in your life that you are close to and I hope they all get to see 2020. That is a year that must seem crazy to them, like straight out of a futuristic movie they might have watched. Heck I'm only 41 and find the idea that 2020 is right around the corner completely crazy.

Well enough rambling on from me, time to get ready to party the night away! As I bring in this New Year tonight I will be hoping for all the best in 2019 for my steemit friends!!