Tag: personal

Odds & Ends, vol. 4: Autumn Reads and an Easy Home Styling Hack

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Autumn Reads

This time of year always makes me want to read The Night Circus. It’s one of my absolute favorite books, especially this time of year. It’s in my top 3 all-time favorite books and is one of very few that I’ve taken the time to re-read. (Also great for fall: Caraval, Harry Potter, Practical Magic, Bread & Wine (pictured above), and Ninth House.)

An Easy Home Styling Hack

This is the easiest way to make all those random dresser-top things look nicer. (1) Get a nice looking hardcover book or two. (2) Line everything up. That’s it – I recently tried this with my dresser and think it made a big difference! Look at this before and after:

Recent Buys

Target has had some surprisingly great workout clothes recently! I’ve been working out much more often and found that I needed some new things so I wasn’t having to do laundry every other day. A few recent buys have been this workout tee (nice fit, good quality) and this tank top (cute pattern and good fabric, but runs big).

Master Bedroom Inspiration

This master bedroom by Studio McGee is so good! It’s been a major inspiration for our master bedroom refresh. I almost bought this very similar (but much cheaper) bed from Target for our bedroom, but we ended up not using it since it needs a box spring.

An Easy Meal Idea

Grill chicken for dinner and made extra to add to a salad or eat for lunch the next day. (Cold grilled chicken is one of my favorite lunches – which may sound weird but it’s delicious.) A simple but tasty marinade we’ve been using is olive oil + salt and pepper + jerk seasoning + lemon juice. It’s great with hummus and pita for lunch or dinner!

Life Lately

Nothing very new here! Jamie still runs around and talks a lot, and he is at a very fun age where he loves to “help” us work on the house. We’ve been (slowly) working on a few fun home projects; our powder bathroom is starting to take shape after a long leak-related hiatus, our upstairs linen closet has nice new matching baskets, and we rearranged our living room!

Goals for 2016

MichelleLeave a comment

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The first day of a new year is such a refreshing time. I love the feeling of starting fresh, and it’s exciting to think about the year ahead! 2015 was a great year for me (it’s hard to not have a good year when it’s the year you got married), and I’m really thinking that 2016 will be even better! I’ve been thinking about some goals I want to set for the new year, and to keep myself accountable, I’ve been thinking of lettering my goals into some sort of poster that I can hang above my desk. Here’s what I want to accomplish in 2016:

Take More (Nice) Pictures

I feel like since the dawn of smartphone, people have been focusing on taking more pictures, and not on taking more good pictures. This year, I want to start taking more pictures with my nice DSLR, and I want to be taking pictures that document my life in the way I want to remember it. This means less pictures of meals and details and more pictures of experiences and memories.

Post Consistently

Since I’m still brand-new to the blogging game, I am going to set a goal for posting. I’m hoping to do 3 posts a week minimum, which means I’ll be devoting more of my free time to creating content and less time to netflix (which is probably good). I feel like it’s important for me to be involved in some sort of creative endeavor, especially once I finish school, since I think it may feel like I have little to accomplish after school is over.

Finish School + Start a Job

This will hopefully be a pretty easy goal to fulfill – I’m definitely planning on graduating in the spring – I should be good as long as I can get some sort of a job. It’s exciting to feel like I’m really moving onto the next stage in my life (since I got married before finishing college, it can feel a little weird to still be in school), and I’m looking forward to starting a career!

Travel Somewhere New

In 2016, I want to go somewhere I’ve never been before. Scott and I have been saving to take a vacation, and I’m hoping we can go someplace new. We’re both interested in visiting the Pacific Northwest, so if we can afford it, I think we will likely travel there!

Keep Learning

I think it can be all too easy to stop learning new things after school is done – especially things that aren’t directly useful to your job. I’m hoping to learn more about blogging and photography next year, especially the business side of things. I am also hoping to really dig in with the She Reads Truth Bible studies this year, which I think is a great thing to devote my learning time to!

Read One Book per Month

College has killed my love of reading – when you have to read over a hundred pages per week of scientific articles and textbooks, it can be difficult to want to read anything else. I have at least 12 books in our apartment that I’ve been wanting to read but haven’t yet, so I’m hoping to get to those this year!

What are your goals for 2016, and how are you going to make sure you meet those goals? Are you using a goal tracking worksheet or having an accountability partner? Let me know in the comments!