Every year around this time, a handful of magazines and websites put out their lists of words to retire in the coming new year. They’re a sort of “famous last words” to my mind, lists of words publicly declared as to be used for the last time.

There are a few words and expressions I would nominate for these lists, but mainly for myself. “It can’t be that hard,” is right at the top. I say it a lot, but even before I finish the thought, I know that I’m probably wrong, and really, it shouldn’t be that hard for me to remember. After this many years in the newspaper business, I’ve lost track of how often a “simple” story turned into a many-headed beast that took weeks to understand, let alone write about.

So, as we head into a new year, I’m going to do a little more thinking and a little less talking. This past year was hard to witness — the refugee crisis, major earthquakes, disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks — but I consider myself lucky that all I did was witness those things, and didn’t have to endure any of them. Even most of our anticipated weather disasters, here and nationwide, weren’t as severe as they were predicted to be.

Next year offers us plenty of reasons for optimism, too, at the local level, where it can create the greatest effect:

• The SnoValley Homeless Teen Action Group is meeting monthly and working actively to help a shocking segment of our area’s homeless population, kids 18 and younger. They’ve already coordinated efforts with the Snoqualmie Valley Winter Shelter to allow unaccompanied minors to stay in the shelter for part of the night. Since the winter shelter isn’t licensed for youth, teens can’t stay there overnight, but they can get a hot meal, a place to warm up and charge their phones and, if they want it, a ride to the Friends of Youth shelter in Kirkland.

• Members of the Snoqualmie Mosque are hosting another open house, “Meet Your Muslim Neighbors,” Jan. 28. Their event last year, prompted in part by anti-Muslim rhetoric, was a welcoming, informed and fear-free response to questions and curiosity about their faith — all things that we could really use again this year. The 2016 event filled the Snoqualmie City Council chambers, so this year’s event is moving, to the Timber Ridge Elementary School gym, 34412 S.E. Swenson Dr., Snoqualmie. Presentations will be made at 10 a.m. with a Q&A session following at 11 a.m. If you didn’t go last year, plan to this year.

• Every Valley community is hard at work on improvements to their cities, from Snoqualmie’s Riverwalk to North Bend’s pedestrian plaza and new city hall.

• The long-awaited construction on the new Mount Si High School is underway. This community should be sending students to this 21st-century learning facility by the start of the 2019-20 school year.

There will always be work to do, but we have lots to look forward to, as well.

Happy New Year to all of you.