This year at Steemfest, someone said that it has been his worst and best year. I sure know what he means. And I think many of us experienced the same. A great year to make connections, for those who attended Steemfest last year or even the year before. For those 'only' on the Steem blockchain as well.
It's been a year of very high highs and lower than low lows that's for sure, and in my case in pretty much all aspects in life.

Before Steemfest2, my earnings in regards to crypto were through the roof. After Steemfest even more so.
After New Year....well, we all know what happened then.
But I think that the crypto community, and especially the one here, is the most resilient community around, because we keep the faith and never give up. You don't lose if you don't sell. Right? Unfortunately, I had to sell a lot at a loss, but that's beside the point.
We've all kept the faith that soon, tomorrow or next week, these rotten cryptos would jump again. Jump in an upwards motion. Some of us will faithfully keep an eye on their coins each day, some only ever so often. Only to see that nothing has changed since January, if anything: it's gone from bad to worse.
All year, and especially the months leading up to Steemfest, I've heard people say: 'If only BTC would pick up, or Steem or...'
And it didn't.
Now, I am not one to let myself get beaten down by some numbers. I never have. And this is definitely not the time to start.
But I have to say that my thoughts about life in general weren't the most rosiest of thoughts.
I was stressed out of my head. Stress caused by others, outside of my control, but also by myself.
Worries that I needed to fight this endless fight I just couldn't seem to win. The fight against a system that has been created to make us all fail. People who've kept up with my blog, will know what I'm talking about.

On the last day of Steemfest2, I already promised myself, despite of everything, that I would make it to Steemfest3.
And I did. I also promised myself that I would buy a new camera. And I did.
But the closer the date of this year's event came, the more the tides were going against me.
To get to this Steemfest was a challenge to say the least. Especially the last few weeks, everything seemed to be going wrong. But the more went wrong, the more the desire grew to make it to Krakow this year.

And I did it! I made it! Armed with a new camera, and a brand-new shiny black eye:

Hell YEAH!!!

When I spoke to @guchtere and some others about what had happened to me just before Steemfest, they asked asked if I was still a bit in shock or something. Of course, getting hit by a car doesn't just go to the back-ground in one minute. But I have always been one who tries to see the good in a bad situation and who tries to make the best out of it. So I answered: "Well, I have something to write about..." And I look at it this way: I'm here, I'm alive and kicking when it could have been so much worse. See positives in things...Instead of saying: I could have been badly injured or worse, I say:

MAN! I am still here! How great is that!?!

When you start doing that, your whole look on life will be from a completely different angle.

That same week at Steemfest, one of my Steemfest buddies from last year, told me he had been in an accident too the past year. He was driving a car in Greece, got off the road and toppled over a couple of times. OH - MY - GOD!!! It could have been bad, but he is still here! And instantly, my accident was forgotten. I realized that I cared more about the fact that it could have been different if it had been bad for him, and how glad I was that it wasn't, than about what had happened to me. It's all about perspective.
We're two damn lucky Steemians, I can tell you that!

The past year and how it changed me.

The Good, The Bad...The Ugly.

The past year, as I said, has been a challenge in so many ways. But it has also been the best at the same time. Being here on Steemit, meeting the people I've met, going to 2 Steemfests. WOW.
It's been quite the roller coaster ride. In that regard, I am the luckiest woman alive.

But then, there has been this everlasting dark cloud hanging over me and my family.
The system in the form of CPS that has been trying to keep their grip on us, in whichever way they can. I won't go into the details now, because I have been writing about it for some time in the past, and will write about recent developments soon. But what I can tell you is, that I have been fighting back with everything I had.
It has cost me nearly all my money, my sanity and it hasn't been easy on my health and state of mind at all. So lately, I have been asking myself if it's really all worth it.
Part of me wants to keep fighting for our rights, and to prevent others from having to go through the same issues as us. And the other part of me is slowly coming to the realization that it is a battle in which I will always be on the losing side, whatever I do.

The tricks this system of idiots has up their sleeve, would put David Blaine to shame.
I now know, that it has everything to do with holding the power, maintaining it, and if the grip loosens, they come up with something new to dig their clutches even deeper.

So I decided to call defeat. Now, don't get me wrong, I'll be fighting until the bitter end, but there needs to be an exit strategy and I am working on that right now.

Leaving Ireland

This has been some time coming. It is nothing new. Those who know me here, also know that I've been playing with the thought of leaving Ireland for a while now.
But I had no concrete plans, kind of felt like I was stuck, didn't know what to do.
However, talking to people just before Steemfest and during, has helped put these puzzle pieces into place. The reason why I didn't leave yet, was because I didn't have a clearly set goal as to where we would be going. Portugal seemed really nice, but then again, Mexico or Belize also do. And that's the thing with intentions, they can't be scattered or the result will be too. If I think: 'Mwah, this sounds good, but this as well' the universe will respond with...nothing. But once the desired intentions have been set more clearly, the result will follow. So I changed my beat from: Uhhhh, I dunno... to: 'We'll do this first and then this...'

So here is the plan: I want to be closer to my friend in Holland for a while. However, I don't like that country, I left there for a reason. Also, there is one person in particular who I don't want to run into, and I definitely don't need the hassle of him (my ex) finding out that I am actually staying in Holland. That's crap I really don't need. So, I will be staying in Belgium, which is still close enough since my friend only lives about 20 minutes from the border. Now, I can't say how long we'll be staying there. It could be a few months, but I think it will only be a few weeks. I just get sick of the place fairly quickly every time, and I'd be fooling myself if I think this time will be different.
After that, we will be making our way through Eastern Europe, maybe even spend some time in Germany to polish up my German. Visiting the place where I used to live, would be nice... I've noticed at Steemfest, that I want to speak it, but I am just not fast enough. I understand everything they say, I just have been in English speaking countries for so long, I have to think too long to say anything in German. But I'd say a few weeks in Germany will remedy that. I have a friend in the Czech republic, who has offered to host us for quite a while now, and my friend has land in Bosnia, so those are two places settled already. I would really love to visit all of Eastern Europe, because so far, I've only been to Hungary and Poland. I've also had an invite by @free999enigma of @fundition for when we cross Romania. Now, I've checked the place where he lives, and it is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, so yeah: on the books. There are many homeschooling families all over Europe, so I am hoping to connect with a lot of them while I'm there. There's also another invitation by @hightouch and @addicttolife, also of Fundition, to visit in Strasbourg, France, and I definitely need to brush up my French, even though I took it in school and college for a total of 8 years! 😕😬
But first things first. I need a camper van, or a truck (that I can drive). Or something. It's not just me, but the whole family. And two dogs and three cats. I'm glad we re-homed our pet pig years ago, because that would have been a dilemma for sure 😜. We have a caravan, but I hate driving with the thing, so that one has to go.

Taking Steem/DaVinci-Utopian/Fundition on the road!

What I'll be doing? Well, I have a few ideas up my sleeve. And I have a few more people to talk to. More about that later. Furthermore, I recently had an interesting conversation with @pennsif, who had even more ideas. Either way, it will be blockchain, Steem, DaVinci and Fundition all the way. Something I had planned to do for some time now (here in Ireland), but due to (above) issues, it just never happened. So there it is:

Intentions - SET - GO!

Promoting Steem(it) will be easy with the new upcoming project that @anomadsoul and @coruscate have been working on and unveiled recently. Their @steemonboarding marketing tool will be a total game changer! And best of all: I won't even have to speak the language to explain it to people! I will just have to show them.

So there, it's here. Written in stone on the blockchain. This was my first step. The rest will follow...

Thank you for reading!