Well you guys, we made it--Monday after the holidays is here and I just can't even believe it's January of 2016.

I have never been so happy to put a year behind me than I was with 2015, and now that we're here, I feel like I have so much to look forward to in 2016. Alt Summit is this month and I'll once again be traveling to Salt Lake City to attend, and then Rob and I have a Miami vacation planned for early February. There will be a few weddings and hopefully lots of weekends with friends in the spring, summer, and fall. Our lease is up in August and we're thinking about moving from our two-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom house with a yard. There are a lot of little exciting things in the pipeline but overall, I'm praying for an uneventful year.

I started my first Whole 30 on January 1st after spending New Year's Eve on the couch with a bottle of champagne, a couple large bags of potato chips, and one too many days of looking in the mirror and feeling bad about what I saw. So now I'm four days in and already feeling so much better--day two is no joke though. I'll be sharing my experience with The Whole30 once I'm done, because up until December 31st of 2015, I was actually kind of anti-food/diet challenges.

I want to be able to say that things are going to be different and that I have a ton of things planned for this year (both on and off the blog), but the truth is that pretty often I'm still taking things one day at a time. I know that life isn't magically going to get easier because the calendar changes at the end of the year, but it's been nice to spend these two weeks of holidays resting and relaxing; reminiscing and getting inspired for the year ahead.

As always, I appreciate all of you so much. I hope you had the happiest of holidays, and that you get out there and crush it this Monday! Let's do this thing.

Photo by V.A. Photography.

Can you believe it's New Year's Eve? 2015 went by in a flash. Rob and I went out for a delicious dinner last night and have plans to sit on our couch with Chinese food and champagne tonight, which is why today's post is especially appropriate!

A few weeks ago, before the rush of the holidays, I had two of my best Charlotte girlfriends over for a movie night complete with hot apple cider and some super festive popcorn. This little tradition started for me when I lived in Minneapolis and my friend Daci came over to help us decorate our tree, eat snacks, drink warm beverages, and watch Elf.  Then she invited me over with a few other girlfriends for more cider, cornbread, and Love Actually. 

Basically you just need snacks, some festive warm drinks, and a holiday movie. Pop Works & Company was nice enough to send me some popcorn to share with my friends: we feasted on the Salted Caramel & Fudge, Cookies & Cream, and Birthday Cake flavors. (They're all awesome but my favorite was definitely the Salted Caramel & Fudge.)

And since it's New Year's Eve and if you're like me you are refusing to watch a holiday movie tonight, I've included a list of non-holiday holiday movies, which are a thing if you didn't know. But I think they're different for every person. Here are mine, and why (yes they're all musicals):

• Rent, because it takes place around the holidays and I'm pretty sure ends on New Year's Eve. Don't hold me to that--it's been a while since I've seen it, but I always want to watch it around this time and I think I'm going to.
• Les Misérables, because it was released in theaters on Christmas day but isn't about Christmas so I listened to the soundtrack nonstop after seeing the film and also because there's really never a bad time to watch Hugh Jackman and/or Eddie Redmayne do their thing.
• Frozen, because it takes place during a magical winter and it's cozy.

Pop Works & Company is offering their Pop Box (what I received--three different flavors) for $15.99 and you can get free shipping through tonight (New Year's Eve)!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

I hope 2015 was a year that asked questions, because I don't have very much room for any more uncertainty these days.

2015 was a bad year.

• My parents split up and moved out of the house that used to be one of my favorite places in the world.
• Rob and I were in a car accident.
• My mom got cancer and had two surgeries.
• I took a step back from blogging and came back uninspired; feeling like I was flailing about in a sea of uncertainty while my peers raced ahead steadily.
• I tested positive for a BRCA gene mutation that increases my risk of breast cancer up to 84%.

And yet, it was a good one, too.

• We rescued a puppy and fell in love with him (as I'm sure you could tell from his ridiculous first birthday party).
• I was invited to speak at my alma mater about creating an unconventional job with an English degree, which I will always look back on as the first big honor of my career.
• We celebrated our first year of marriage in a city that finally feels like home.
• I teamed up with Courtney of Sweet C's Designs to pitch my first really huge blogging project and found myself on a sponsored trip to California to put our plans in action.
• We made a handful of really great friends and managed to maintain some old traditions in new ways--including sushi and bowling the day after Thanksgiving and a Love Actually girls night after a visit to a local holiday market.

I'm looking forward to so many new things in 2016--more travel, reading a ton of books, studying Spanish again, learning a few new skills (I have my heart set on hand lettering), and hopefully less heartbreak.

We all have so much to be thankful for, don't we?

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to run on the light.”

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Happy New Year, friends.