It’s officially 2020! I’ve always been a live in the moment type person but as another year draws to a close and a new one opens, I like to take the time to both reflect on what’s past and anticipate what’s to come. This upcoming year seems particularly exciting to me because we are entering a new decade- the 2020’s! I have always loved the style of the 1920’s, and living in the 2020’s sounds so luxurious! Last year I joined in on the idea of picking one word to represent the year, and I picked the word, “grace,” to represent 2019. This may seem like a bit of an odd word to pick since grace is also my name, but I wanted to explore what this word meant and how it applied to my life. The word, grace, actually has a lot of meanings. What I found was that grace served me well in 2019. While I am all about karma, sometimes we all need a little grace. Grace is the opposite of karma. With karma we get what we deserve, and with grace we get what we don’t deserve. Grace can be defined as courteous goodwill. I found that when I approached difficult situations with grace, karma was on my side. There is so much to appreciate about 2019.

Living in the moment should not be confused with going through life aimlessly. While I’m the first to admit that I sometimes fly by the seat of my pants (and actually enjoy doing that), there is usually method in my madness. Whether it’s a spontaneous moment or something I’ve planned out carefully, I want every moment to serve my greater vision for myself. I believe we are creators of our own destiny, but it’s the creating part that’s more important than destiny. I was scrolling on Pinterest when I ran across the word, meraki, and its’ definition. I knew this would be my word for 2020.

Meraki

(n.) To do something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work

I wrote this pump up paragraph for myself for 2020. I thought I would share it because I think we all need to tell ourselves what need to hear and not rely on what we hear from anyone else. It really doesn’t matter what other people think of you, it’s only how you feel about yourself that matters. So, tell yourself a bunch of nice things this year. This is what I am telling myself:

I don’t want to hold any part of me back. I want to embrace my full potential and aspirations. I won’t let others’ words of doubt, disbelief, or discouragement cloud my drive. There are always going to be those people who tell you that tell you that you aren’t good enough, that you can’t do it, that your dreams are impossible. You don’t have to listen to them. You are worth it, strong, and beautiful.

Here are a few of my New Year’s Resolutions:

be the best version of myself
keep room clean
be productive
drink more water
get stronger
don’t waste time
be curious
get more sleep
be more grateful
explore more
get my zen on

and more…

Entering a new decade is deserving of some fanfare, so I set out to create some. I had a minor set back of coming down with the flu on Christmas Day, but after a dose of Xofluza and 4 days quarantined at home I was ready to roll. We live in an old house built in 1940 complete with a quirky, knotty pine basement. As my mom would say, we needed decorations that had a lot of “bang for the buck.” I had actually never heard this expression before. I guess every generation has their own lingo. We loaded up our Amazon cart with a lot of “bang” and as luck would have it, we didn’t even need the bucks. For some unknown reason we happened to have a lot of Amazon points. When Amazon says do you want to pay $0 for your purchase, we said heck yes we do!

Here is our Amazon New Year’s Eve party round up:

Gold streamers (definitely bang for your buck) here
Balloon arch kit (also a lot of bang, especially if your dad is willing to blow up all of the balloons!) here
2020 photo backdrop here
Random cute decor here
Party kit including hats, crowns, necklaces, and noise makers here
New Year’s plates and napkins here
New Year’s cupcake toppers here