2018 Favorites + Words for 2019

 

best of 2018

 

Today I thought I would share some of my favorites from 2018 and talk a little bit about how I’m approaching goal setting in 2019. There is always good energy buzzing with change and possibility this time of year, but I think it’s important to acknowledge all the great things that happened. I’m not going to share an in depth retrospective or anything, but I thought I’d share some of my favorites from this past year. (No affiliate links included, just sharing for the sake of sharing.)

Books

Timehop reminded me yesterday that a few years ago I had only read 9 books and 7 of them I ranked as 1 or 2 Stars. LAME. While I only read 9 books again this year, most of them were 4-5 star reads to me. My favorites leaned toward non fiction. I loved Busy Philipps’ memoir This Will Only Hurt A Little. I listened to it on Audible and it was the perfect mix of juicy celebrity gossip + vulnerable human insights — both of which I need to have in order to love a celebrity memoir. Highly Recommend.

I also continue to think almost daily about Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura Vanderkam. It’s not just a book about hacks. It is a book that helps you examine the stories you tell yourself about your time, and how to reframe (or change) those stories so that your life feels more abundant and productive. Excellent, excellent read.

Music

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I’m including this for a laugh, as it is worth noting that my kid asks for the Top 5 songs to be played on repeat, which highly influenced this list. 🙂 But it is what it is…this is what was playing most of the time when I had the music on. Both Garrett + I want to listen to more music this year — both old and new…as well as see more shows. It’s a hobby we used to share many moons ago, so hopefully we can get back into enjoying and sharing music.

Podcasts

Hands down, my favorite podcast this year was Best of Both Worlds. Great dialogue about practical tips for moms who also work outside the home. I have implemented a number of strategies/perspectives this year that I learned from this podcast. I always enjoy podcasts about real people talking about how they make their lives work.

A close second was Young House Love Has A Podcast. I hadn’t really kept up with John and Sherry Petersik in a long time and I am not quite sure what made me download their podcast, but it is a good combination of practical and fluff/fun so I enjoyed it quite a bit this year.

Purchases

The best thing we bought this year, was a new car for Garrett. He was still driving the 1998 white Subaru Legacy that his parents bought him in high school. I MEAN COME ON, IT WAS TIME!!!! (It had been time for years, but he just loved that dang car.)  🙂  Guess what he bought?  A 2018 Subaru Legacy. HAHAHAHAHA This is my husband in a nutshell. But the car has been great for his commute, and he’s been enjoying all the technology upgrades. 2019 will be the year I get a new car as well, so that is exciting!

We also bought a dining room table from Costco and I have been so pleased with it!

Makeup Faves

I feel like 2018 was a good year for nailing down my absolute favorites when it comes to makeup. Here is the briefest overview of some of my holy grail favorites.

Foundation: Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation FOREVER (Monday through Friday.) And on the weekends I’m usually wearing IT Cosmetics CC Cream.

Concealer: Tarte Creaseless Under Eye Concealer or Estee Lauder Double Wear Concealer

Blush: Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush (Mood Exposure, Luminous Flush and Dim Infusion are my go-tos.)

Bronzer: Marc Jacobs O!Mega Coconut Bronzer in Tantastic

Eyeshadows: Viseart FOREVER AND EVER AMEN. I have many of their palettes and the quality is so, so good!

Experiences

Getting away with my family to Humboldt County for my 40th birthday for sure! Also our weekender to Napa. Pre-kiddo, Garrett and I were all about the quick weekenders throughout California. I hope to incorporate more of that in 2019.

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Themes for 2019

So with all that said — what will 2019 look like from a goals perspective? I’m not quite sure exactly yet. There are so many fun ways people talk about their approaches to goals at this time of year – Lists, Categories, Words of the Year, Challenges, Box Checking. If you know me at all, you know I love all of these things. For the last two years, I haven’t made any goals. It’s felt too daunting to do anything except to just keep swimming. This year I think I have the bandwidth to be more intentional and more focused. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll “measure” that, or how I will share that here, but I’ve had a few words swimming around in my head about what I want 2019 to feel like.

Consistent. I want to show up for myself with respect to self-care. This includes everything from diet and exercise to getting my hair cut. I want to consistently keep the focus on caring for myself. Also I want to consistently show up: for friends, in this space, with my husband and child. You get where I’m going right? 🙂

 

Collaborative. I want to lean into relationships, old and new. I want to continue to feed the communities I am apart of, as well find new ones.

Evolving. I hope to spend this year learning and changing and I anticipate my family will learn and change just based on the fact that we have a two year old and EVERYTHING IS A PHASE. So I know in December things will look different. I think the reason “evolve” resonates with me is that I don’t want things to feel hectic, and disruptive. I want to flow with the changes and slowly develop. Does that makes sense? Am I sounding like a lunatic?

So that’s the plan. (Or the lack of plan? I reserve the right to incorporate detailed lists as the year goes on. hahah)  What are you all working on for 2019? And if you feel so inclined, share with me some of your favorites from the last year.

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7 Responses to 2018 Favorites + Words for 2019

  1. I love your words for the year! I still need to finish my post about it, but my theme for 2019 is “live bigger and bolder!”

    • Holly says:

      Thank you! And I love that theme — bigger and bolder sounds awesome. I heard someone say recently they wanted to make at least 4 big mistakes this year. Something about giving themselves permission to do that made them feel like they had the space to try bigger things. If it didn’t work out — then they accomplished their goal of making mistakes. If it did work out…then they had done something awesome. I loved that! Good luck this year!

  2. Kimberly C says:

    I am a super long time lurker on your blog and love everything about it. I have a son who was born just a few months before Holden and it’s fun to see the life similarities. I work while my husband stays home with the kids and I can relate to the anxieties about not having enough time. Thank you for sharing about the “Off the Clock” book. I’m going to add it to my reading list.

    A goal for 2019 is to make more of an effort to have things going on in my life that aren’t just my kids. I’ve been listening to TED talks while I pump at work and that’s helped me feel more connected with the outside world and given me something to talk about other than diapers.

    A second goal is to pay more attention to my relationships with friends and to step out of my comfort zone and try to make new friends (which is why I’m finally commenting after years of lurking 🙂 ).

    • Holly says:

      Hooray for stepping out of your comfort zone! haha And thank you for commenting. It’s been so long since I’ve written here regularly that a part of me wondered if anyone was even out there anymore. Plus everyone says blogging is dead. BUT I MISS IT, DANG IT! 🙂

      I have found it takes a lot more effort than I thought to have things going on in my life that aren’t my kid, and I only have one. I imagine it gets exponentially harder with more than one. One of the things I’m doing this year is trying to intentionally plan one date night, one fun thing for only me (as easy as making time to hit up a coffee shop with my planner one weekend morning), one fun “experience” for my family (taking Holden to the zoo or something that takes slightly more effort than the park), and one fun thing with friends. I literally made a chart for every month of the year and I’m just planning very literally. I’m hoping that just making space for all of that will help me feel like I’ve got more going on than commuting to work all week and recovering on the weekends.

      Good luck to you this year!

  3. Jillian says:

    Just subscribed to the Best of Both Worlds podcast. I can’t wait to listen to the episode on emotional labor. Did you read How Not to Hate Your Husband after Kids? It was one of my favorite books I read last year. (I don’t hate my husband, but it really helped me with the resentment around emotional labor.)

  4. Amber says:

    Still here! Still love (some) blogs! I am always glad to see an update from you. I miss blogging on the regular in my space as well. It’s so hard to make the time for it with the kiddo.

    Interested to hear what you’ve been doing lately with your diet. And I know you’ve been riding your Peleton but have you been lifting at all, did you give up CrossFit completely?

    Happy New Year!

    • Holly says:

      Our CrossFit gym closed down a few months after Holden was born which sort of delayed my getting back into it. Then we moved to a town about 30 minutes away. The two closest CrossFit gyms didn’t have child care or schedules that really worked with our work schedules and one of them really caters to competition athletes. (HAHAHAHAHAHA, no.) So we’ve been floundering and I REALLY MISS IT. I don’t think CrossFit will fit into 2019 either, but I *have to* figure out a strength option because the difference in being strong vs. not strong is AWFUL (I can’t think of a better way to word that, but I think know you know what I’m saying here.)