Friday Favorites + Monthly Recap

New acrylic D in the office. D, not for my name, but for Drive, Determination and Dreams!

Where has this month gone by, seriously! Yes, I’m totally not about the winter but I am for time taking a chill pill. Couldn’t you just take a seat and relax with us. I feel like this week was productive, yet as the same time it wasn’t. But overall, January has been a great month! Looking back at my yearly goals I set for this month, I couldn’t be happier with how I’m coming along, the things I’ve finally taken up, and the habits I’m working on improving. It’s my mother’s birthday this Sunday, so I plan to gift her with flowers, and a homemade birthday breakfast and lunch, with of course cake! A weekend indoors avoiding the mountains of snow, cooking and baking, oh yes I’m in!

I’m a very organized person by nature, but my parents not so much, so you can imagine my frustration when things aren’t put quite in their proper spot. I thought I’d finally start reading this popular book during this first month of the new year, in hopes I could help my parents become tidier people. I tackled each room in sections, and aside from the attic, which mostly houses a mess from event supplies and decor, the house has become much organized! We’re still working on it, but it has become simpler, and easier to maintain on a daily basis. Although my parents are definitely a work in progress, it felt great to give my room “my space,” a detox by getting rid of old clothes, and a giving my jewelry and makeup a fresh cleaning too.

The space I benefitted from this organization projection the most, was the office. Not only did I organize the desk, shelves and drawers with new supplies, I also organized The Dreamery filing system a step further. I created more detailed binders and simpler forms, and the same went for my computer and phone too. I gave those a good clean up and kept the necessary items in order to keep them functioning properly. 

I’ve been staying on track, choosing healthy meals throughout the day and taking moments to remember the happiest memory from my week, and I owe that to my Simplified Planner. I use it as a my master planner, for personal and work, while the pretty Sugar and Paper hanging wall and planners, I received for Christmas, as my work organizers. It’s really helped to have a specific planner dedicated to tasks needed for The Dreamery events or orders I’m working on, while also managing the blog. I set a schedule for this past month of blog ideas I wanted to do, and was able to accomplish most of them, as well as get in the hang of preparing posts and scheduling them in advance to have more time to work on parties and projects/recipes.

No matter what, whenever I go to Michaels I always pick up a goodie or two that I don’t necessarily need, like these New Kate Spade inspired bow pins, and gold ink for when my calligraphy set comes in! I used A Beautiful Mess‘s new app, A Color Story, to edit the photo above of my “work in progress” desk. It’s got great fun, bright filters, and has become a new favorite for editing photos. 

It took me two years, but I finally found the blush pink coat of my dreams! You can find it on sale here. I was happy to finally wear it for the first time on an interview in the city. And it’s so warm too! I love wearing it with my new furry beanie. I’ve also been real nice to myself; using holiday money to gift myself with quality fashion pieces I’ve been wanting, weekly face and body masks, and more time “in the present”. Meaning I’ve been really improving my no technology {specifically phone} past 11pm. This is a working progress for sure, but I’ve been getting there, and can only see more days of shutting down early, and more nights ending with a good book. Okay, so I failed. One of my goals, like this quote, was to finally face a fear to get back into pilates/yoga classes. Somehow I switched my workouts and whenever I wanted to attend a class, my schedule didn’t permit, yet for whatever excuse I managed to muster as a reason, I never attended that class. BUT I kicked off my half marathon training two weeks ago, and my running has felt great, like better than the first time around. Then the snow came, and is still here, and so I haven’t ran in these last few days of the year. Thankfully the new gym has just opened in my town, feet can run again! And to kill to birds with one stone, the new gym has dance, pilates and yoga classes that fit my schedule! I’ll definiltey need a few extra minutes running to burn off the delicious sweets I’ve been enjoying before kicking them to the curb for a cleanse. It seems weird to want to take on the goal of learning something new the first month of a new year, when most want to simply focus on restarting their system, get back to a healthy lifestyle, and really simplify things. Well, for me, if I’m going to learn something, whatever the activity may be, I want to be really good at it. My ukulele is still standing against my wall, but I finally took up something I’ve been wanting to learn for years. Italian! I saw DuoLingo on TV and thought, why not give it a shot. Actually, initially I thought this would be an easy way for J to finally learn Portuguese. But this language learning app is great! You can take 5 minutes, 10, or even hour of your day to take the short lessons focusing on specific words. It makes it easy and fun, and even allows you to interact by tracking your speech too. I’ve found myself repeating sentences from the lesson throughout the day. Plus, its a great way to take a quick break from doing work!

With Valentine’s Day pretties and a vacation, February is starting to look like a lovely month. I can’t wait to continue working on my goals, and some new ones! Cheers to the end of one month, & the kick off to more opportunities and great possibilities…