HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE! Here is a SUPER insightful [not really insightful at all] list of 14 things I learned in 2014.
1. People change. And it's okay that they do. They always will. If everything always stayed the same it would be a very boring world. And I'm changing too! I'm growing. I'm becoming this person that I'm supposed to be. So is everyone else. Give them the benefit of the doubt, because I desperately want that from everyone else too.
2. Eat a salad every now and then. Yes I love pizza and bread and pasta and meat and sugar and… bacon. I'll never say don't eat those things because… um… have you met me? But, I can't deny that it feels good to eat healthy and my body will thanks me for it. Make it fun though. It doesn't have to be a wimpy salad. You can throw some steak on there and all the vegetables. How bout quinoa? Um Bacon anyone? Take a cue from Jessica and make a hot bacon fat dressing. okay i think i ruined this one… but I'm still learning.
3. Vacations are important. They are relaxing. You should take them when you can. All I want to do is save up money and vacation time but sometimes getting away from it all is just good for the soul. Even if it's just a week of sitting on your couch watching netflix for a staycation. do it. it's worth it.
4. Call your grandma. Or whoever is important to you in your life. I consistently call my grandma every Sunday. I visit her every time I'm home. She loves it. It gives her something to look forward to. She'll answer the phone on a Sunday and just assume it's me. She spends all week waiting to hear from me about my life and to tell me whether she won at bingo or not. It takes fifteen minutes out of my day and gives me so much more.
5. Always make time to reflect. Reflect on your relationships, on your career, on yourself. I don't spend a lot of time doing it. But I just like to think about the me from a year ago. What is different? Is it good or is it bad? What would I change about how I handled things. How do I want to change going forward. I think introspection is healthy and it can be motivating.
6. It's totally okay to binge watch crap tv or read crappy novels or whatever you do to blow off steam. You spend all day being serious about your life, career, family. Sometimes keeping up with the kardasians will be the only thing that keeps you sane…. or shamelessly searching for youtube interviews by your favorite celebrity couples to watch for hours like some of us [me] might do. It doesn't make you less intelligent… at least I hope it doesn't.
7. Patience is a virtue. Of which I possess little. <- that basically just summed up the weekly conversations I have with my grandmother on Sundays. She tells me all I need is to be patient and I tell her that I have no patience. But my experiences this year have shown me that good things come to those who wait… as long as you don't lose your mind while you're waiting.
8. A change in plans won't end the world. I try to stay pretty cool and calm most of the time (mainly because NO ONE, myself included, wants to deal with me when I'm freaking out) but I find when plans change I can't handle it. This year I've had to really focus on not losing it when things don't go how I expect them to. Because pretty much everything this year didn't go how I expected.
9. Midi rings are a thing. A cool thing. Thanks britt. And pheobe from friends.
10. You are your own worst critic. Stop that. Stop being dissapointed in yourself. No one else cares. You hear me? NO ONE ELSE CARES. I wrote this huge long post about how scared I was that people would judge me for moving home so soon and guess what? The only person who was mean to me about it was a grumpy, old, retired jerk who “told me I wouldn't last” when he still worked with me. Do I really care what he thinks? Was that really what I was scared of? My world didn't end. And most of the people I talk to are incredibly excited for me.
11. Sparkling water is not, in fact, the worst. This one was fun to learn. I HATED sparkling water. I thought it was designed to taste awful…. until I came across la croix this year and fell in loveeeee. Well actually I learned to like it by drinking vodka sodas with a lemon and a lime (shh.), then I ventutred into making my own cucumber soda on the blog (thanks soda streammm). I basically taught myself to not hate sparking water, but it wasn't until I experimented with making my own la croix at home that I fell in love. But the moral of the story is to throw in some citrus juice to sparkling water and it is completely transformed into something drinkable with about a MILLION less calories than soda. You're welcome.
12. Invest in good friends. Good friends will save you from yourself everytime. They're irreplaceable and so important to my sanity. I feel like I've gotten even closer to the ones I have this year and I think we all know that was because I was COMPLTELY freaked out about everything that was going on in my life. I can't appreciate them enough. There aren't enough words to describe how much I love them.
13. Taylor Swift is bae and so is this mashup.
14. Be adventurous. Be yourself. You only get one shot at this life thing. Live it to your fullest. And don't waste it being someone you're not. Moving to new york is probably the scariest, most exciting thing I have ever done… and I can't wait, because I finally realized that I'm the only one who can make myself happy.
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