And Possibly Dinosaurs
The best parts of being a homebody
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Well hey there! It’s been just over six months since I’ve blogged regularly, and I’ve really been missing it. A lot has changed since my last update!
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Well, the joke is on me for starting a series of Annual Favorites in 2019. 2020 was definitely rough. My grandma died, work anxiety increased more than tenfold, my mental health has never been worse… but despite all of that, there’s still so much good to be found this year.
I’m really glad I started this series last year, because I definitely wouldn’t have taken the time to make this list if I hadn’t. And when everything else seems to be going to shit, a little bit of gratitude goes a long way.
So without further ado, here are my favorites from the past year.
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Over the past year or so, Sean and I have started drinking a lot of La Croix. I’ll blame it on our trip to South Carolina last summer—we drank a lot of La Croix then, and kept up the habit when we got back.
I liked the idea of getting our own water carbonator to replace our La Croix habit, but I always assumed the only option was SodaStream, which I was 100% uninterested in purchasing.
Then a few months ago, after a comment from my sister about the environmental impact of purchasing all those La Croix cans, I did some digging and found different water carbonator to try: Drinkmate.
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More than six years ago, as I was still adjusting to life after college, I downloaded an app to help me organize my closet. Well, I downloaded two apps, compared them in a massive blog post, and chose one to use moving forward: Stylebook.
To be honest, I’m not sure I expected to still be using the app six years later. But I am. In fact, it’s pinned to the bottom of my iPhone so I have easy access to it, no matter which screen I’m on.
Now that I’ve got six years of use under my belt (and more than 1,100 days of continuous calendar recording!), I thought it would be helpful to provide an update on the original post about what features I’m still using every single day.
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As a blogger, I’ve got a lot of tasks to juggle. In the past few months, I’ve started creating more content, and while I love every second of it, it creates a plethora of tasks to juggle.
And since this isn’t my full-time job (to be honest, it’s not even a side hustle any more), I’m trying to balance all of those tasks with my actual job, social life, and hobbies.
That’s when I realized a key tool in my CoSchedule editorial calendar that I was under-utilizing in the past: events.
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I’m always looking for more ways to get organized. My Passion Planners are always within an arm’s reach, my Notes app is full of things I need to reference, and I organize my books by color (don’t @ me).
Now that I own a house, I’m blessed to not have to deal with the small-space storage woes many people my age struggle with. But ample storage space doesn’t mean everything is automatically organized; especially for an over-buyer like me.
We have a pretty lean budget in our family (but our student loans will be gone before we turn 30!), so any organization purchases we make have to be worth it. And all of these purchases fit the bill.
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When Passion Planner announced the Passion Planner Daily this fall, I wasn’t super into it. I wanted to be into it, because it’s a Passion Planner product, but I didn’t see how it would fit into my life. I had already bought a 2020 Passion Planner, so I’d need to use them together, and I already have a to do list going in the Notes app on my phone. Did I really need a second planner?
But then I printed out the sample pages to test them out… and fell in love with them. A few days later, I ended up ordering my set of four Passion Planner Dailies (I went with Tranquil Tones!) on Kickstarter and began testing out how I would use them in conjunction with my regular Passion Planner.
I have the feeling this will evolve over the next year, but I wanted to share my current set up in case it inspires anyone else currently struggling to balance the two!
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I’m going to be honest… as of late, I’ve felt pretty negative about 2019. It was a hard year! But last week, I saw Carly’s roundup of her 2019 favorites, and I decided I’d like to start doing similar posts on an annual basis, just like she does.
And you know what? I’m so glad I did. As soon as Sean and I started reminiscing about all the things we did this year, I felt so much more positive about 2019. It was definitely a lesson in gratitude!
Let’s recap the best parts of 2019.
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We’re almost halfway through the year, so I thought it would be fun to do a mid-year review of my 2019 Passion Planner!
I did an original post back in January that goes through how I had it set up. I’ve been using it for 5.5 months now, and for the most part everything is the same. But I’ve definitely learned some lessons along the way!
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As much as I love digital tools for keeping myself organized, I’m a sucker for paper planners. And for the fourth year in a row, I’m using the Passion Planner!
I first started using it in 2016 when my friend Angela recommended I try it out. I had been using a cheap planner from Staples up until then, and I’ve been a loyal member of the #pashfam ever since!
As you may have noticed on Instagram and some previous blog posts, I got a new camera bag!
I’ve been eying the Kelly Moore + A Beautiful Mess bag for a while now. I’d been using the ONA Any Bag Camera Bag Insert inside one of the weekender bags I got in Uganda. I really love the bag, and the ONA Insert worked great, but it was far from professional. It was time for an upgrade.
The only problem: it’s expensive. And I spent $80 on the ONA Insert not too long ago, so the idea of dishing out another $229 made my bank account hurt.
Luckily, good karma finally caught up with me, and $250 basically fell into my lap. But that’s a story for another day.
I, like most people, made being healthier one of my New Year’s Resolutions.
I knew I wanted a fitness tracker, and after months of deliberating, I decided on the Fitbit.
The next problem: which one did I want?
I knew I wanted something that I could wear on my wrist, so the Zip and One were off the table. I also knew that if I was going to wear it on my wrist every day, it better have a clock on it, so the Flex was out, too. The ones left, then, were the Charge, Charge HR, and Surge.
At the time, only the Fitbit Charge was available, so I bought it, figuring I might return it when the Charge HR and Surge come out.
They came out the day after I got the Charge in the mail. Womp.
Sean convinced me to get both the Charge HR and the Surge, try all three out, and decide after using them which one I like the best. I could then return the other two.
He’s such a bad influence on me.
So, here’s what I thought of each one.
