Imma just go ahead and copy and paste my opening from last year to this post: It’s time for A Month of Faves, one of my favorite blogging events! I don’t know about you, but I neeeeeeed some cheer and joy in my life right now. I’m so so happy that Tanya, Andi, and Tamara are hosting this again. SO MUCH YAY.
As most readers of my blog know, I made a huge life change this year and moved from Florida to California. This was a year of big changes for many other reasons as well, one of which was my daughter’s high school graduation.
So here are my favorite things that happened this year (that I can remember; I’m sure I’ll think of more after I hit publish. Or wake up tomorrow):
1. I got a new job and moved to California where I have always wanted to live.
2. My daughter graduated from high school.
3. I am ibuprofen-free.
4. I scored AP exams.
5. I got to go to Jasmine’s for Thanksgiving, finally. (We had been trying to coordinate this for years!)
6. I learned to actually and truly ask for help.
Here are a few of my favorite things that I own/have that are new to me:
1. My new apartment is pretty baller. And it has a fireplace, which means I can actually hang stockings over a fireplace for the first time in my life.
2. My friend Maggie sent me a bike, and it is magnificent. The guys at the bike shop (where I took it to get put together) said that everybody who came in was eyeballing it and kept trying to buy it. Also, it’s a Schwinn, which means that every time I look at it, I think of the exchange from Girls Just Want to Have Fun between Drew and Natalie:
Drew: Nice car. I drive exotic wheels myself.
Natalie: What is it? A Schwinn ten-speed?
She’s being snotty, which is her way, but that was one of my favorite movies growing up so it’s nice to have the reminder.
As I mentioned earlier, I learned to ask for help this year, and I received it from so many people, and I am so so so thankful. I appreciate everyone who was so gracious and giving and kind. My move would not have been possible without them. I also got to connect with so many people in Gainesville before I moved, and that was wonderful.
Also, I have to give a shout-out to two women who really made my year so much better: my friends Holly and Amber. I really just cannot express how much they both touched my life this past year.
While I am naming names, I also want to thank my girl TNT for texting me almost every day and keeping me connected, especially those days I felt super lonely because I didn’t really know anybody out here yet.
Which means I also have to say how grateful I am for the new friends I have made here or the online friends I finally got to connect with in person (yay internet friends who are now RL friends).
So a lot in the world is terrible right now but so much in my everyday life is not. And for that, I am truly grateful.
The Englishist 