My 2017 Word of the Year

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The new year is upon us, and many people (myself included) use the new year to reevaluate, reset, and set some stellar goals for the year.  A trend that I’m seeing in many goal setting workbooks and tools nowadays involves choosing a word of the year.  This word is the word you use to inspire and remind yourself of your primary focus for the next 365 days.  There are so many words to choose from that I’ve often found it difficult to narrow it down to just one word for the year in years past, but this year I’ve managed to do it.  This year’s word of the year is: flourish.

The definition of flourish is:

  1. to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.
  2. develop rapidly and successfully
  3. to be working at the height of one’s career during a specific period.

Basically, this word completely sums up what I hope to do in 2017. 2016 was a year where, while some awesome things happened, I didn’t do a very good job of working to achieve any of my goals except for one (getting back on stage), and I find that very disappointing. I have nothing or no one to blame but myself. I have since forgiven myself for my failure that was 2016 and am ready to move on and embrace this new year with some new goals (and some of the same goals), a new game plan, and a fresh dose of motivation.   Read more…

2016 Goals

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2016 Goals

Hey readers! Long time, no blog post.  I’ve been a little MIA here on the blog for the holiday season (but I’ve been very active on my Youtube channel), but the holidays are officially over and it’s time to get back to work.  Let’s chat a little bit about 2015 and look ahead to 2016.

2015 Recap

2015 was a year of total chaos and change. I’m a believer in change being a good thing and all, but the amount of change that Mister and I went though was a little much.  Between the end of 2014 and the end of 2015 we called 7 different places home.  That’s right…SEVEN! That’s about  6 too many for my liking.  By this time (Jan 1) last year we were on our way to Japan for a 10 week study abroad adventure in a country where we didn’t speak a word of the language.  While Mister had classes and things to attend to, I was left in a less than ideal situation. While I was not pleased about it while we were there, now I do look back at our Japan journey fondly, appreciating all of the things I learned about the Japanese way of life. Read more…

2015 Goals

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2015 goals

2014 was a weird year for me.  This past year I experienced one of the happiest life milestones one can: getting married.  Along with that comes a whole new level of stressors and challenges; learning how to live as a family unit, balancing “us time” with the now harder to find “me time” or “not us time,” figuring out fair expectations of one another, surviving challenges like late hours at grad school and 10 week out of town internships… Marriage is not as easy as they make it look in the movies.

In addition to that (or perhaps because of that) I seem to have lost a bit of myself this past year.  I don’t seem to live with as much spark as I used to.  Work and chores had me feeling jaded and life has weighed me down.  I know this, and now it’s time to change it. Read more…

2014 Favorites

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2014 beauty faves

 

Beauty

Tarte Amazonian Clay Powder Foundation– Tarte Cosmetics has been one of my all time favorite brands for several years now.  I find their lip products to be divine and their face makeup to work amazingly with my overly troublesome skin.  This powder foundation offers outstanding, buildable coverage while having a natural, flawless finish.  Some of the “skinvigorating” ingredients include Amazonian clay, tourmaline, pearl powder, and camellia left extract. It’s formulated without paragons, mineral oil, and all that jazz, AND it doesn’t break me out.  I made sure I had an extra to take with me to Japan.  I loved the liquid Amazonian clay foundation, and the powder has me just as much in love.  

Read more…