2018 In Review

The new year has already ushered itself in so now is the time to look back at the year that was. In 2018 this blog had 79 posts, 19 fewer posts from 2017, but 29 posts more than 2016.

2018 also saw the return of the Affordable Group Break. I had gotten away from my hosting duties as I had gotten a little burnt out and needed some time to focus on other things...like getting my collection organized...which still hasn't fully happened. I suspended the breaks in late 2018, but I may bring it back at some point in the first quarter of 2019 if I think there are enough people interested.

On the topic of breaks, I held a break that benefited a friend and his family quest to adopt a child from overseas. The break was successful and we collectively were able to make a decent size donation to their GoFundMe account...which by the way they did make their goal to have a successful adoption!

Last week I read somewhere that they though card blogging was dead and that many people had moved onto using Twitter as their medium for collecting and sharing cards. While I somewhat agree with their statement, I'm not ready to give up the blog. Granted my blogging activity is down, I know I'm not the only one that suffers from finding time to blog. I'm still collecting, still adding cards to my want lists and trade lists and when I have time, I'm still reading other blogs and trying to make trades when possible. I also try to stay engaged with several fellow card collectors on Twitter. If you're not already following me and you want to, @flywheels is my handle. However my Twitter account is used across all of my blogging platforms so if you only follow card bloggers, but know that you may see a toy or video game related tweet from time to time.

 

I'm not one to create goals for myself in the new year as I already feel as if I have enough on my plate. I really want to get myself and my collection more organized...who doesn't?! I have started to take steps at putting sets I've actively building into binders. This will make it easier for me to add the new cards to the set as well as enjoy the sets I'm building. I've already purchased Avery spine labels and made myself a template I plan on using for the binders. If I'm going to take the time to do binders, then I want to do it right. I hope to dive into creating the binders and the spine inserts really soon as this is a project I've been excited about undertaking.

After I complete the binders, it's back to organizing my monster boxes that house my team collections. I'd love to put these in pages too, but time/money/space won't allow that right now. Plus my ADD doesn't allow me to put cards in pages unless there are perfectly in alphabetical order by card release.

I was able to pick up some good cards in 2018 as well. Some came through group breaks that I either hosted or participated in, trades or eBay purchases. I'm really behind on my scanning of cards so here are just a few that I already happened to have scans of readily available.

You would think that with me working from home so much during the year that I would be able to create more content for this blog and the rest of the ones I operate, but between work, family and my other hobbies it's a constant struggle that doesn't seem to be getting any better any time soon.

I'm looking forward to a new year of cards, with 2019 Topps just a few weeks away from being released. I hope to be able to continue to build the annual sets that I enjoy (Gypsy Queen, Allen & Ginter, Archives) while I continue to chip away at filling holes and cleaning up my want lists.

A huge thank you goes out to everyone that I've met along the way. The card blogging landscape continues to change and I know we haven't seen the last of these changes. I continue to enjoy sharing and talking cards with everyone, whether it's here on the blog, on Facebook or on Twitter.