Hi! Today’s 10 things post is a mishmash of personal feelings and all of the media I’ve been enjoying in 2024! This is one of those posts that’s purely for me and it has been really therapeutic to get my thoughts down into a nicely organized list. Let me know what you’ve been up to and enjoying since the start of the year!
1) I feel like I’ve been in such a weird creative funk lately and I’m not really sure how to come out of it (but penning a more personal post is one of the ways I’m trying). I have a bunch of YouTube videos filmed, but I haven’t felt like editing them at all. I’ve read a ton of books, but I haven’t felt like reviewing them or filming a new wrap up. And I’ve taken a bunch of instagram photos of books I’ve been excited to read or receive, but I have yet to post them. I’m definitely having a consuming-instead-of-creating moment and it’s making me feel bad about myself even though I know that’s crazy. The only thing I’ve felt really passionate about lately is my next item:
2) My best friend Alexa, her husband Macky and I have begun doing a year long Taylor Swift deep dive project (though it’s likely going to last longer than a year with all of the ideas we have and all of the news that Taylor has been sharing lately, HELLO TTPD!). Basically, we’re spending each month doing a deep dive on each of Taylor’s albums including what was going on in her personal and professional life at the time, her fashion during that era, and dissecting the music videos and live performances. I was a casual Taylor Swift fan for a long time, but I somehow took a turn last year and I’ve officially entered the unhinged fandom. So far, we’ve posted an introductory live show to our project and I’m so excited to talk about Taylor’s debut album at the end of the month (tell me why I have 10 pages of typed notes already). You can watch our first show here!
3) One thing I have been indulging in lately is gaming. Andrew and I played through Hades on Nintendo Switch and I’m completely in love. I even made a two page bullet journal spread about it. I tend to avoid games because I know how consumed and obsessed I become (we literally spent an entire weekend playing Hades and I felt like those characters watching Battlestar Galactica on Portlandia). But this game has just been such a hit for me and I think it’s because it combines my love of Greek mythology with my love of getting to beat things up (in video games- I am a button masher), and beautiful graphics. I really hope Hades 2 comes out this year because I will be first in line to buy it! We also tried a new board game called Four Gardens which is a lot of fun! It’s fairly complicated and there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of so I wouldn’t recommend it as a good place to start if you’re not an avid board game player. And lastly, a day to day game that I always play first thing every morning is Connections on the NYT website. It’s more challenging than Wordle and I like that there’s a certain amount of trivia that goes into being able to work out the word groups.
4) I’m just about done with my great Sarah J. Maas re-read (I’m in the middle of listening to the graphic audio of A Court of Silver Flames and then I’ll be done), and I so thoroughly enjoyed being back in Sarah’s worlds and with her characters. I’ve re-read Throne of Glass a bunch, but I never re-read ACOTAR in full and it was a delightful experience. I also re-read House of Earth and Blood, read House of Sky and Breath for the first time, and finished House of Flame in Shadows in just a couple of days. I have had the hugest book hangover since finishing and it’s left me emotionally exhausted and unable to focus on new stories. Can confirm that Throne of Glass is still my favorite<3
5) And this is why I’ve been reading a lot of manga this year! I barely read any manga the last few years but I’ve been getting back in touch with my love for the medium and it’s been really delightful. I binge read My Happy Marriage (and loved it so much that I also watched the anime and I’m tempted to pick up the light novels), as well as The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World, which was also so much fun! I ordered three new volume ones so I can pick out my next fantasy romance series since that’s what I’m gravitating toward. I also read the first volume of One Piece and I really liked it! I think it has the potential to become a new favorite as I keep reading. I’m excited to watch the live action adaptation too.
6) I feel like I’ve been baking nonstop since Christmas and I’m glad I’ve had the time to do it since I really enjoy it! I experimented with making some new types of cookies this year and my family have been my taste testers. Everyone really liked these Neapolitan cookies I made, but the consensus was that the strawberry portion was our favorite part of the cookie, so I want to make a batch of purely strawberry cookies. It would actually be a lot simpler than needing 3 different types of dough and having to connect them together into one cookie.
7) One of my big goals for 2024 is to exercise on a regular basis and it’s been going very well so far. This ties back into item 2, but I’ve found these Taylor Swift exercise videos on YouTube where you’re doing cardio or hiit workouts for 25-30 minutes all while listening to Taylor’s music. It’s gotten me excited to come home, change into my workout clothes and sing along while I exercise. It’s also helped that Andrew and I have made it a new habit to come home and workout before getting involved in anything else so it feels very routine. I’m terrible about exercising on days where I’m home all day (outside of going on long walks), but I’m grateful to have developed a new positive habit.
8) Andrew and I celebrated our 10 year dating anniversary this weekend! It’s so wild to me that we’ve been together for so long. 10 years sounds like such a huge number, but in most ways, it feels like Andrew has always been part of my life and I can’t even imagine what things were like before him. After all this time, he still makes me laugh on a daily basis and there’s no one I love to spend my time with more than him. I feel so lucky to have found my person and my partner in everything.
9) And this item ties back into item 1, but in addition to being in a creative rut, we also have some personal things up in the air at the moment and it’s been impossible to plan anything until we get resolutions or find out next steps to everything pending. As a very intense and anxious Type A planner, this does not work well for me or my personality type. I feel like I’m trapped in a directionless limbo and instead of enjoying the present moment, my mind is being consumed by the what ifs. Everything we have pending is positive and would be exciting changes, but I need definitives to really function.
10) To end on a positive note, Andrew asked me in the car yesterday if forcing myself to do some of the things I haven’t felt like doing would be helpful and after thinking about it all of yesterday, I woke up deciding that it would. So today I’m writing and publishing this blog post, cleaning out my bookshelves and doing some rearranging, and starting a closet cleanout since I’ve been more realistic about what I own and actually wear lately. Basically, I’m going to work on controlling some things that are within my power to control and hope that I can go into my next workweek with a brighter outlook.
