The clock has struck - it is now 2025! Happy New Year dear friends. As has become a bit of a tradition around here, I wanted to take this moment to reflect on 2024, including lessons learned, and refine ideas or things to continue into this new year.
Reflections on Last Year
Physical Well Being
If you know me in real life, you'll know that I like to exercise very early in the morning, get up and get it done is my motto. Over the past few years, it's been tougher finding running buddies that are willing to awake that early (not judging, just stating facts), so I decided to invest in a treadmill this past year.
As always, I did my due diligence on vendors and went with a Nordic Track treadmill which came with a 30 day trial of an interactive coaching program called iFIT. I admit that I thought I wouldn't use the program at all. Wrong! I tried a couple of trainers until I found a long distance endurance athlete named Thomas Rivers Puzey, aka Tommy Rivs through their program and I am hooked. He has been such a welcome, mindful voice through my runs over the past year.
After his cancer journey, he started a series for iFIT called "The Road to Recovery" as he learned how to be fit again post-treatment, and he's really been instrumental in showing me how to show up with grace for myself as I age and things change in my own running journey or as old injuries flare up. This morning he shared a quote, forgive me as I was running and couldn't jot it down, but the gist of it was that when the run gets difficult or intense, remember that your mind might tell you to just stop or quit running because it's too hard, but really all you have to slow down the pace and rest or readjust before continuing on. It's a good metaphor for life too.
Grief Therapy
By far, the best thing I did for myself this year, mentally that is, was starting grief counseling.
I know not everybody's comfortable talking about it, and not everybody has done therapy or would be open to therapy, but I definitely think it's one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves. After all, your brain is one of your biggest muscles, and if you hurt your ankle or your elbow or your shoulder or whatever, you would hopefully go get it checked up by a doctor. IMHO, the healthiest people are the people that realize they need help and are willing to ask for it.
After losing a dear friend and both of my parents in quick succession, I had a heavy feeling in my heart I just couldn't shake in the midst of living my everyday life. Luckily, my husband was very supportive, and though it took a couple of tries to find the right therapist for me, but I would recommend it to anyone dealing with a grief and not knowing what to do with the feelings you have after a big loss and for me, help with redefining relationships after death.
If you'd like a point in the right direction privately, I'm happy to share some resources as well.
The Year of the House
2024 was the year of the house for my family- something we had thought about and planned a few years back, but life happens, and we were delayed about three years before we were able to get our big house projects done. I do believe everything happens for a reason, and I am so over the moon elated about our house projects, our primary bathroom especially.
If you're thinking about a renovation soon, have a look at the planning and timeline of that particular project below:
Final photos have yet to be shot, but now that the other major projects are over and finishing touches almost complete throughout the house, I'm lining my favorite photographer. Rest assured, they will absolutely be shared here but here's a quick sneak peek...
The kids' rooms also got a refresh, so I'm glad everyone gets to experience a new environment with some great history in the walls. And now with all of that now done, we're looking to 2025 as the year of travel!
It's bittersweet to type the following words but now that we're in the last year and a half of our last kid being at home, gulp, our travel may not include big overseas trips just yet but at least long weekend trips and long-time-coming trips to see beloved friends and favorite cities around the country!
Working in Alignment
As previous years have taught me, working in alignment with clients will always be the guiding light as I navigate running my own interior design business. Everyone is not for me, and I am not for everyone. I insist that expectations from both sides are made clear from the beginning, and if we don't align in those expectations, we will not be working together. It sounds maybe too simple, but that is truly my guiding light after 2024, and going into 2025.
This year has involved a lot of growing indeed, in healthy body and mind, project scopes, and relationships, all of which I feel enormously grateful for. I truly feel it in my bones that 2025 is going to be the year of reaping the harvest of the seeds that have been planted and tended to over the last four or five years. #growwhereyou'replanted,thenreapwhatyousow
I said this last year, and I am just as fiercely convicted about the sentiment going into 2025:
Here's to a new year filled with living life to the fullest, with passion for everything I get to do and everyone I love, to deeply cultivate compassion for those around us, to find new ways to give myself in service to others in the community, to enjoy plenty of laughs along the way, and to do it all with more than just a dash of style, fun, joy, and gratitude.
Happy New Year, y'all. ✨ What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail? Go do that! It's Your Year ✨
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