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January Goal Update

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January was such a busy month- not only did I pack my schedule full of social activities (3 book club meetings; hosted a "board" party, a progressive dinner party with my neighbors, dry January non-alcoholic beer taste test, a movie night, and a game night; brewery yoga; Bunco holiday party) but I also had 3 releases for work that made me work nights and weekends, as well as a new project that made me travel in to Pittsburgh for a week! To say it was hectic is an understatement, and February is going to be even more busy! One of the highlights of my month that I talked about above was a neighborhood progressive dinner party. This was an idea a friend posted about and I shared with my neighbors a year ago- we finally made it happen! The way we made it work was that each course of the dinner was hosted at a different person's house. We started with cocktail hour at Wanda's house, then moved to my house for appetizers, went next door to AL's for the main course, then

2024 Goals!

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We are officially one week into the new year, and today I’ll be sharing my goals! This is probably more exciting to me than any other post that I create in a year. I absolutely love making goals for myself (in fact, every week I sit down and make a  list for the week and love to check each item off). This year I decided to do something different than usual. I keep seeing people doing 24 for 2024 lists since it’s such a nice and even number and breaks down to 2 per month, so that’s what I decided to base my goals on this year. I broke them down into four different areas, and tried to make 5 regular goals for each area as well as one year-long goal. Let’s get into the goals!   Fitness Run a trail race. I love to run trails and don’t get out nearly enough, so my goal this year is to make that happen. One way to force myself is by signing up for a trail race (hopefully more than one!). I already found a half marathon in May, so that will be my goal. I’m also looking for a few others so I’

2023 Year in Review

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Can you believe it's the end of the year? In some ways this felt like the fastest year ever, and in other ways it dragged. I'm looking forward to 2024 for a number of reasons (and will share some of my goals and plans for the year in another post) but for now I'm excited to recap 2023! I'll be sharing how my goals went, as well as some highlights and favorites. Annual Goals Korean Vegan Cookbook I started this really well at the start of the year, and it kind of trailed off towards the end. Going back into the office, working on house projects, and general winter laziness made me get way worse at meal planning, so I didn't finish up this goal. But- I did try a ton of new recipes from this cookbook and I'm excited to keep trying it when I get back into the groove of meal planning! My favorite recipe that I tried was the Curried Tteokbokki skewers from June  - they were so flavorful and unlike anything I've ever made or tried before. Temperature blanket This w

November Reads and Reviews

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It's almost the end of the year, and I'm getting very close to my annual reading goal! This month I was really busy with some trips and bathroom projects, so I listened to more books than usual. I also started some holiday books that were so disappointing, so if you have some good ones please let me know! Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon The premise of this book absolutely sold me- a woman has the worst one-night-stand of her life, then gets an amazing opportunity to ghost write a memoir for a celebrity and guess who it is?! Of course hijinks ensue, and while they're working together on a book, the writer is also teaching the celebrity how to be better in bed. It's pretty cheesy and predictable but I still enjoyed it as a quick and easy read. My Rating- 3.5/5 Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun I absolutely adore Christmas romances, so when I saw this on a list I picked it up without even reading what it was about. As it turns out, it's about another o

Europe Trip Highlights Part 4

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I realized today that I need to wrap up my posts about my trip to Europe, because we just booked our flights for our next trip! This is to a part of the world we’ve never been to before, and a new hemisphere! Any guesses where we’re going? But back to our last trip. So far I shared about going to the sea , the mountains , and the lake , but now we’re journeying up to Austria!  We went there for a good reason- the Red Bull Ring is right outside of Slovenia in the town of Spielberg, Austria. For those of you who don’t know, Dan and I are both big Formula One fans (he’s been one for a while and I got into it after watching Drive to Survive).  He found out that there are opportunities for regular people to drive cars on the same track that the race uses, so we had to do it! I got to be a passenger princess and it was such a cool experience- we got over 150 MPH and it was insane how fast it felt, but still way slower than the actual drivers. We also got a tour of the track and got to stand

October Reads and Reviews

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Somehow we're almost through with the month of November, but I still have lots of fun books to share that I read in October! Let's get right to them- Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez For the most part I really enjoyed this book- Abby always writes such great characters with so much depth and the conversations always seem so realistic. My only complaint about this was all of the fake drama- I usually love the fake relationship trope, but this time it just seemed so forced and dramatic for me. I liked the side characters a lot, particularly the grandpa and Jafar! Such a fun and easy read. My rating - 3.5/5 When in Rome by Sarah Adams This was another cute romance by an author I love to read and I know it'll just make me feel happy on the inside when I read it! This was a bit more of a slow burn to me- it took a while for me to get into it but once I did I couldn't stop. I liked the town setting and all of the quirky town people, and also loved the developing relationship. Supe

September Reads and Reviews

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I am so late with my book reviews this month, but I had a lot of really good reads and didn't want to skip sharing them! I'll get right to it- but be sure to let me know what you read this month and loved. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas This was my book club pick for the month and I'm so glad I got to read it! I know this series (Crescent City) is full of really long books, so I didn't really want to get started with them. This started a bit slow but I loved the world building and quickly was not able to put it down. I like how this was more of a modern world with fantasy elements. The characters were all great and I loved the relationships that got built! I do think it was way longer than it needed to be, but I'm excited to read book 2. My Rating - 4/5 The Ex Hex and The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling Spooky season meets romance! These books were so quick to read and were the perfect cozy little read for the month. I read them out of order but it doesn't