T-SQL Tuesday #121: Gifts received for this year Redux 2020 from Blog Posts

At the end of 2019, Mala (b|t) invited us to write about the gifts we’ve gotten during the year. I’ve decided to try to make this yearly habit. This year with COVID I know it’s hard to be as thankful with lockdowns and not being able to see love ones and holidays not being the same but I think we all still have something we can be thankful and see as a gift. I’ve been gifted with things this year personally and professionally. So to honor the 12 days of Christmas here are 12 gifts I have received.

Here is the post from 2019.

My physical health, with COVID going around everywhere that is very important, although my doctor suspects I had in February before it was known thing to get tested for. Other than that two weeks I have been perfectly healthy.
My mental health has taken some bumpy roads this year as I don’t like being cut off from people, but I have a therapist and some amazing #SQLFamily that have helped during and after our Happy Hour and well anytime. I’m well medicated and adjusted now and with the therapy I’ve gotten over the last year, the holidays aren’t bothering me and tanking me into depression.
I’ve advocated for five different children this year, still advocating for two of them through the North Carolina Guardian ad Litem program, putting me up to I 54 kids in 17 years. Read more about that here. This is absolutely my favorite job, the DBA job just pays me money so I can volunteer for things like this. Who can have enough volunteer jobs, not me. I’m up to three outside the SQL Community. See my newest on at #12.
I had the pleasure of speaking at PASS Summit for the fourth year in a row and on Mental Health this time. I got greater reviews which you can read here and my highest score ever. I spoke at several user groups and about 13 SQLSaturdays again. Something I never take for granted. When I first started talking on Mental Health I meet some resistance and even got a really nasty evaluation from an attendee but now I get user group leaders asking to give the presentation because COVID has made the times more stressful for people. If anybody would like for me to present this to your group or conference just ping, email and Twitter at the bottom of the page.
I’ve mentored a couple people along the way career wise and to be speakers, that seems like a gift for them but really is a gift for me as I like giving more than receiving.
After Rob Sewell helped me learn how to write checks for dbachecks, I set the world on fire writing dbachecks for CIS compliance and may have added a couple of more based on requests.
I’ve embraced my colorful hair self having orange hair, then red/blue hair, now yellow/purple and about to be red/green for Christmas.
#SQLFamily has been a tremendous rock in life of people that I can count. I had a situation in May where I was able to reach out to members and they were able to keep me sane.
My job, I’ve been financially secure despite the dramatic shift in economy in the US.
I was awarded the PASS PASSion Award at Summit this year for my efforts in the SQL Community.
I was awarded the MVP Data Platform Award in August.
I am starting to volunteer with NAMI in my county in NC. To help give more talks about personal experience with mental illness, education, and maybe with their website.

Along the way I’ve acquired many more people as part of my #sqlfamily, personal family, and to my core value of making a difference. I hope every had a blessed Christmas and has as many gifts for the year to be thankful for as I do.

Despite the difficult year I would like to encourage everyone to look for the gifts they have in life no matter how small they are. Bring on 2021 and vaccines and let’s see what gifts we find next year.

The post T-SQL Tuesday #121: Gifts received for this year Redux 2020 first appeared on Tracy Boggiano's SQL Server Blog.

The post T-SQL Tuesday #121: Gifts received for this year Redux 2020 appeared first on SQLServerCentral.