Books of January

I started the year with a goal for a low number of books in 2017. I wanted to limit, to par down, to get intentional and to, I guess, restrict. Then January came and as it went I read almost half of that number I was trying to limit myself to for the year. Clearly limiting is not my specialty. So I went back to the drawing board on this goal and decided there wasn't a number, but there was a feeling that I was looking for. So now, instead of a number my goals for reading are as follows.

In 2017 I want to:

...choose each book intentionally and invested in it rather than speed read
...spend the time I previously spent to escaping in cheap/fast/shallow reads working on creating, working out, and cooking
...read outside of my norm, authors and stories I wouldn't normally read

Before last year ended I felt like I was flying through books without really liking or remembering them. It was like the candy I was eating. Another sugar hit, another book checked off a list. I don't know that I was getting much out of it and I have a feeling I was also avoiding a lot of my life in the practice. I'm excited to see what this year of reading brings me.

Books of January

*Finding God in the Waves* (started in Dec.) - Loooooved.

Anansi Boys (started in Dec.) - Liked American Gods and Good Omens better.

Milk & Honey - heartache and hope

Gluten is My Bitch - Funny, informative, haven't gone gluten free yet but will use as a resource

Cabin Porn - Gorgeous pictures, makes me want to get the heck out of town

Balancing In Heels - Light read, I do like Kristin Cavallari better after reading this

Scrappy Little Nobody - I liked it, I laughed, but I'm not sure I needed to read it.

*Chasing Slow* - I kept this for the whole time the library allowed me to, I did not want to let it go, I want to buy myself a copy for my shelf. There was so much, soooo much in this that I wanted to read again and again.

Strong is the New Beautiful - some good exercise and eating info

Six of Crows - read this for a book club and was not disappointed, excited to read the sequel

Cookbooks:
I Quit Sugar Cookbook
The Low FODMAP Cookbook
The Complete Low FODMAP Diet

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Books of 2016

So many books in 2016! Holy smokes and what not. I plan on reading a lot less in 2017 which sounds like a funny goal for someone that reads so dang much, but there is a reason. While I liked a lot of the books I read I don't think I invested in them very much, looking over this list I could mix up the story line of two or three at least. I want to read for enjoyment and not just to pass time in the coming year. I also want to spend more time doing active things so if I get real serious on my book limit (which will be very hard, I am shooting for only 22 books in 2017) then there will be more time for other things, like writing, or creating something, or finding a second job, or working out.

Enough about that though, here's the list of the books I read (and mostly remembered) this year.

Loved:
Daughter of Smoke and Bone Series (3)
Red Queen Series (3)
This Raging Light
Brain Maker
Saint Anything
All the Bright Places
The Museum of Intangible Things
The Dirty Life
How To Be a Person In the World
Present Over Perfect
The Disenchantments
The Book of Speculation
The City Baker's Guide to Country Living
Wild in the Hollow
Scary Close
Holding Up the Universe
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Harry Potter 3-7

Liked a lot:
Signs Point to Yes
Let's Get Lost
The Lake Season
Start with Why
Since You've Been Gone
Notes from a Blue Bike
The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo
Love Warrior
The 12 Days of Dash & Lily
Talking As Fast As I Can
Faithful

Somewhat enjoyed -> whatever:
Reasons to Stay Alive
The Crown
Art Before Breakfast
Maybe in Another Life
You Are Here
Knowing Your Value
Woman Code
You're So Money
The Geography of You and Me
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck
Outrageous Openness
The Spender's Guide to Debt-Free Living
Dear Emma
Adulthood is a Myth
Fangirl
Sane New World
Sleep Smarter
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
Now What?!
Loving My Actual Life
The Rules of Love and Grammar
Mystic Summer
The Museum of Heartbreak
The Islanders 1-8
Level Up Your Life
The Island House
Everything, Everything
Sex God

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2016 In Review

1. What was the single best thing that happened this past year?
The single best thing... goodness, such pressure on a question. I don't know that there is one big huge thing that happened that stands out, this year has been a lot of things working under the surface. I loved my time with Chelsea in New York, and sharing my city with Sarah and Dasha this summer. I am so stoked on the roommate I ended up with after some craziness, my salary that I got this year is nothing to turn my nose up at either.

2. What was the single most challenging thing that happened?
A relationship that I've been working through mentally.

3. What was an unexpected joy this past year?
Hearing myself say "I'll do my best, but I'm never going to be perfect." And feeling totally calm and accepting of that. (The conversation was in relation to God and faith and life and how it's not a merit based system and I have to keep reminding myself of that.)

4. What was an unexpected obstacle?
Dealing with the feeling of having a bit of a sabbatical but not knowing what to do and trying to stay somewhat positive. A month off that didn't really feel like a month off, in fact I forgot it happened.

5. Pick three words to describe this past year.
Listen (my word of the year worked!), dig, choppy

6&7 - About spouses, so N/A this year.

8. What were the best books you read this year?
I read 70+ books this year, started so many others and decided I didn't want to continue them. There were many I enjoyed but these stand out the most.
Present over Perfect
The City Baker's Guide to Country Living
Scary Close (2nd reading)
All the Bright Places
How to be a Person In the World
Harry Potter 6 & 7 (re-read)
Finding God In the Waves

9. With whom were your most valuable relationships?
Sarah, the ladies of WD's, the one with my counselor

10. What was your biggest personal change from January to December of this past year?
Allowing myself to be imperfect not just in theory and by logic but in feeling too.

11. In what way(s) did you grow emotionally?
I learned the beginnings of mindfulness, a practice that I see being very, very helpful moving forward.

12. In what way(s) did you grow spiritually?
I dug in and started questioning what my beliefs are, not just what I think and say they are but what is really going on underneath. I read books by several Christian authors, have another to either end this year with or start next year with. I questioned God, I got mad at God, I realized I was still operating under old beliefs of what God was and how he/she/it worked and I started questioning those. I allowed myself to feel and mentally speak to what I use to think were betraying thoughts. If God is all being and all knowing then He/She/Ze/It already knows what's going on so I may as well make it an open conversation.

13. In what way(s) did you grow physically?
It's just coming now at the end of the year but I started getting really tired of my excuses about my physical health. I realize I've been saying the same things for three plus years of why I can't do so many things I want to do and I'm tired of hearing myself talk. They are valid excuses, the road to getting better and being able to do some of those things if not all of them will be challenging to say the least but it's far from impossible.

14. In what way(s) did you grow in your relationships with others?
I backed off of some relationships but spent a lot of time working out different things I felt about them. My hope is that in the new year I will be able to come back to them with a better understanding of myself and my boundaries so we can rehabilitate and grow.
I learned to let people tell their own stories. It's something I will continually work on, but I think it's important. I want people to trust me, and I think they can, but I also realize that what I think is no big deal to share might be a huge deal to others.

15. What was the most enjoyable part of your work (both professionally and at home)?
That I have the time and the freedom to work on my health with doctor's appointments and health insurance. I also enjoy the steady income that has helped me work on budgeting.

16. What was the most challenging part of your work (both professionally and at home)?
Communication

17. What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?
Facebook and crushes

18. What was the best way you used your time this past year?
Going to counseling. Definitely.

19. What was biggest thing you learned this past year?
I learned that the previous assumptions I had about how life should be, ones I didn't even realize I had, were not quite right and were causing more distress than anything else. There has been a lot of shifting and reconfiguring and deciding where I want to be working in the middle of that.

20. Create a phrase or statement that describes this past year for you.
Neither of these are mine originally but they have been so very true: The only way out is through and the time will pass anyway.

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Salty Foods and Feeling Free

A faded red hatchback waiting in front of me at a stoplight. A girl in the back with a Burger King crown, reaching to pull back the bag of food being passed from the front. It looked like summer break, I could practically smell the fries. The light turned green and they moved forward. Despite the food bag transfer they pulled into Taco Bell. Maybe the first bag didn't hold enough, maybe this summer day was one for a fast food mission of epic proportions. I wanted to be there, in that car...I wanted my own crown, sitting in the back seat between my friends, listening to the song of the hour, passing salty foods and feeling free.

On Any Given Day

Where I'm at right now. I'm lost and found and right where I started but also, somehow so far ahead. I'm 30 and feeling no different than my 20's but starting to recognize the distinction. I'm spending weekend nights dancing with many my sister's age and wondering how much of my week to week it should really take up. I'm constantly being pulled to pictures of hiking and gorgeous views off of the highways. I listen to songs about small towns with few roads. I look at pictures of rooms that are set on expanses of land and I feel a pull.

I remember Montana and want so badly to go back. To the second story room with little decoration and abundant calm. To the porch across the hayfield where I sat with a puppy sleeping on my lap. I want to go back to the steady sway of the day, of sitting in the sun with dogs at my feet, to driving back up the dirt road, to laying in the bed with the sounds of Montana putting me to sleep.

I'm tired of planning, I'm tired of overthinking, I'm tired of disappointment in myself and anything else. I'm spending time in the morning writing, sometimes trying to examine my wishes and next steps, other times asking for direction. Please lead me, I don't want to keep leading myself. Where am I going to shine brightest? Where can I feel that peace again.

At the risk of sounding just awful, I am homesick for a place I'm not sure I've ever been.

I'm not here to write how to's. To wax poetic on things I know to be true. I am not here to create listicles or fancy images for click bait.
I've been looking for blogs that have heart, that tell the stories of the day to day. The small adventures, the actual vacations and not the "I gave up everything to travel the world and I'm making millions at it." I'm tired of the perfectly styled. I go toward the blogs that have fewer followers hoping to still find the accidental grittiness, the lack of filters.
I appreciate what people have been able to accomplish, I appreciate that wild hearts have been given space to create a life that they want to, but that's not what I came to the internet to see. I came here, to online journals and blogs so long ago to read other people's takes on ordinary days. To read about their dreams and their messy messy minds. I come here for that and yet I am tired to put it out there myself. So here's the real. Here's what is true in my head somedays and feels like a lie others.

I'm homesick often for places that don't actually exist, I'm also challenging myself to create space to feel home right where I am at. I'm wanting the peace that I found in the Montana days but also wondering if that's the prize after working on some other things.

I'm working on keeping my eyes looking straight ahead and less in the rearview mirror.

Lately

Proud of myself for: waiting to listen to the new Jason Aldean songs until the whole album was out. I had listened to the two that were played on the radio and one my sister recommended but after that I stopped. He kept releasing new ones and I didn't want to know half of the album before I got to hear the rest so for the first time ever I was patient and waited. Such a small thing but I found myself enjoying the wait. I wasn't mindlessly listening the minute I got the chance, I was intentional.

I've been doing a lot more of this kind of thing lately. I've been working on enjoying where I am at, not believing in the "I have to have/do/listen/read this thing Right.Now." I've been using the library for books and if I can't find it there then I don't read it. I zip through books way too fast to justify the spending. Not to mention, there are soooo many books out there that I could read. This one book that I want right this minute isn't actually going to change my life. Or rather, it isn't the only thing that's going to make my life better right now. I don't NEED it in order to keep moving forward. I get easily swept up in the "I need this to make my life better" and I've been questioning that a lot in the past year. I justified so much spending over the years because I told myself this one thing (many times over) was going to be the thing that turned my life around. Turns out, nope! So I've backed off.

Learning to:
+ question myself with curiosity and support instead of shame
+ speak my truth, sometimes it's messy and embarrassing as hell, sometimes it's eloquent and helpful
+ believe in my worth (not going to lie, typing that feels really uncomfortable still... but I guess that's why I'm learning)
+ allow myself to miss things while also working to really appreciate the benefits of the new situation

Thinking about: Clothes I want to add to my closet that I want to reach for, that are comfortable but also good to go to my casual workplace in, clothes that can be thrown in the washer at the very least, ideal if I can toss them in the dryer after. I told myself for years that clothes weren't that important to me or shouldn't be that important to me. Turns out, HEY, I was lying to myself. I like clothes, finding ones I like that fit me right is quite a task, that's the part I don't like. I also didn't leave myself any room in my budget to buy clothes so any time I did felt like I was overspending and breaking the bank and shame was attached, no wonder I thought I didn't care much about clothes. While this might seem like an unimportant thing to think about, it kept coming up so it was time to face it. Turns out I also have told myself I'm not creative so I didn't give myself space or money or time for creativity. I've told myself I'm not athletic, I've told myself a great many things that are simply untrue about myself and therefore didn't make room for them and have suffered a bit because of it. Sometimes clothes are just clothes, sometimes they are a symbol of things you do and do not allow yourself to have or want.

Watching: Parks and Rec! Oh my gosh how have I never watched this ever before? It is the best. THE BEST.

Looking forward to: New season of New Girl, the start of the show This Is Us (Mandy Moore? Jess from Gilmore Girls?!), speaking of... Gilmore Girls coming to Netflix!, maybe restarting Desperate Housewives. I didn't think of myself as a TV person but dang... I sure have some shows I love.

Reading: A lot of faith based books lately. I struggle with faith and religion and the like but I keep finding myself drawn to it in different ways. Sometimes I find myself really enjoying the books and sometimes I find myself reacting to them strongly. I'm digging in more and I'm glad I am reading them.
Also:
How To Be a Person In the World - Ask Polly columns all together in a wonderful book!
Present Over Perfect - The best. Want to read over and over again
Loving My Actual Life - Fun, easy read. Read it right after Present over Perfect so I might have been a little burned out on it, but it has some good points in it, things I want to try.
Wild and Free - This one is bringing up a lot of resistance but I am continuing on because there are parts that are equally reassuring/helpful.
Since You've Been Gone - great/fun YA novel about a girl completing a list of dares/tasks her friend leaves her.

Almost ready for: Fall. There is a hint of crispness to the mornings that I love feeling. Sometimes the nights are cooler too. As much as I am not looking forward to winter, I would love a long Fall. A slow transition between the hot, hot summer and bundling up and dodging ice.

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January Review

I keep going back and forth about what I want to do here, if I want to write at all, what I want to document, because it still feels like another chore, and I've decided that at the bare minimum I can document my goal/word of the year/etc progress month by month. So here we go.

Word of the year:
Listen

Intentions/Goals:
Reach out /// Manage money
Cook new things /// Create more
Scroll less

My word of the year is working well even when I forget about it. As I mentioned probably numerous times to people around me and on here, I have been going to a counselor and working with her has been so phenomenal to the way I process my thoughts it's life changing. I still get lows and I still spiral from time to time but it's not nearly as much as now I have set an automatic habit of questioning certain thoughts as they pop into my head and thinking about why I feel crabby or sad or anything else and what negative beliefs about myself I am holding on to when I'm feeling low. My spirals are more shallow than they were before, I can snap myself out of some of them, I can figure out what I need to do next, I can explore what triggers that specific feeling and I also have this awesome sense of confidence growing. I have new positive messages to be replacing the old negative ones with and I am so grateful. Life. Changing. My hope is that by the end of the year I will be even better at managing my lows and spirals not just through thought practices but also better eating and exercise. With that I really look forward to the positive inner mentor showing up more. I'm looking forward to getting a sense of who I really am underneath all these things I've held myself contained with. Some hard work is being done and it's so worth it.

Intentions and goals:
I have been reaching out here and there pushing myself beyond my normal boundaries and comfort zone. I am taking more dance classes because I love them and while that may not seem like a reach it really is. I am allowing myself to not be as good as I want to be, to show up and practice and embarrass myself in order to get to where I want to go, and to do what I love to do.
Managing money has been going really well. I have a goal of how much I want to make in the next year, I am listening to a lot of podcasts about it, I'm keeping positive thoughts around it, I am writing down my credit card balance weekly and watching it shrink little by little. I'm liking the process, the shift from thinking of money as a drag to something exciting is a journey for sure, but I can't want to see what it brings.
I do this in waves. Sometimes I just get in a cooking mode and make 4 new things and other times I do the same old same old. I have been incorporating kale into some of my meals, tried different kale smoothies and kale and quinoa mixes and haven't been too disappointed yet.
I don't know that I've been creating all that much. I'm still figuring out my schedule of taking care of my big goals and creating doesn't have a good spot quite yet. But I'm working on it, always on my mind.
Scroll less.... well, I can't say I'm as good at this as I want to be yet, but I did mute a lot of people on my FB feed, I added a couple groups that were about goals and community and I have been paying more attention to when I get glazed from scrolling and reading too many things. It's in motion, I could do better, I'll get there sooner or later.

What else has been going on? Well February 1st I started Chalene Johnson's 30 day challenge and it has been pretty awesome so far. I will probably be sticking with her goal achieving process for a while. Through her program I have figured out 10 goals that I am working on, one of which is an overarching Push Goal which helps a lot of the other ones fall into place. I was going to wait for my birthday to start really laying down my measurable goals for the year and beyond but this came at the right time and now for my birthday I'm just going to have a list of fun/silly things I want to do in my 30th year. Pretty pumped about all of it.

Other goals and things:
Started a plan for drinking more water. It's going really well for the first time ever!
Working out with a trainer
Going line dancing once a week at least!!!
Started really searching for my next job. March 31st is my last day at my current one.

Other things I'm thinking about:
Mindfulness/Meditation and Living in the present
Drinking more water
Eating at least one green a day... eventually one with lunch and dinner (progress is a slow process with me and veggies)
Getting back to the things I love
Intentions and Values

In less than a month I'm going to be 30!!! Crazy. Awesome. I'm ready for the next decade.

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