5 Things I am Doing to Prepare for 2020

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. We are only one day away from a new year and a new decade! It has been such a good year and I am looking forward to 2020 being even better. It is the year I get married, so it is going to be a busy and exciting year.

I feel like a new year is a fresh start and we can start fresh on our goals, start good habits, and learn new things. It makes me feel like being the best version of myself and I feel like starting strong this year and continuing throughout the year to work on myself and my goals.

There are five things I have started doing and will continue doing tomorrow as well to start 2020 on the right foot. Some have been on my to-do list for awhile and some things are fun and I just thought they would be a fun motivation for a good start to the year.

1. Clean and tidy apartment 
I would like to go around and tidy up some of the Christmas mess that has emerged over the past month.I would also like to put some stuff away and clean up a few areas. I want to vacuum and give the floor sweep, dusting, and a mop. Just to freshen up our home to start the year off with a clean and refreshed space.

2. Write down goals and resolutions and how to achieve them
During Blogmas I wrote a post with a list of resolutions and I will write these down and ways to achieve them this year. I will make a spread in my planner for this to visit throughout the year. I received the Happy Planner below for Christmas from my mom and I have made a first week of 2020 spread as you will see below to motivate me to start the year off strong.

 I have since written in things I would like to accomplish on different days of the week. I feel more motivated now to start the year off right. I love the bright and uplifting stickers and motivational stickers to inspire me.

I love the quote sticker for the week it is so inspiring for the whole year

3. Do miracle morning routine New Year's Eve morning
Doing Miracle morning SAVERS is something I want to take into the New Year and what better way to start something than to do it the morning before to gain some momentum? I have been doing the meditations mostly daily since my last morning routine post, but haven't been keeping up with the other steps and would like to do them all in the morning before the new year. I am excited to read Hal Elrod's new book The Miracle Equation in January to get that extra boost to kick off the new year with more motivation. I loved the first book, so I feel like I can't wait to see what the second one has in store for me. I also received the book good morning good life by Amy Schmittauer Landino from my sister for Christmas and can't wait to see what morning rituals and night rituals they have as well.

Books that will inspire me to have the best mornings

4. Create a vision board for 2020
I have created a vision board in the past, but never for the entire vision of the year ahead. I can see the benefits of this practice. I really think doing this would help me keep focused on my goals and to have a clearer idea of what I want to achieve in the new year. I have shared my vision board below and I am excited to look at it during my morning routines. I really believe that having vision boards are so good to keep you on track and to know what you really want. I have photos below for my wedding, getting that first AdSense cheque from Google, making healthy vegetarian and vegan meals, writing in my planner, reading lots of books, getting in shape, becoming pregnant, getting to be debt free, trying out new knitting stitches, and buying a townhouse. These are a lot of big goals as well as some health and wellness goals. I am so excited for 2020 just looking at this vision board and if you make one, I hope yours excites you too! I will print this out and paste it into my planner to look at each morning.

5. Finish reading my book and writing in Q&A book
I am reading Better Than Before by Gretchen Ruben and would really like to finish my last book of the year. I am enjoying it and really think it is beneficial to understanding how habits can help us to create the life we want. I have a Q&A a day book and I still have some pages to fill in for 2019. I know you are supposed to fill it in daily, but I get behind and then fill it in later on so I can compare the answers I wrote in the year. In 2020, I would like to make it more part of my morning routine like I did at the beginning of the year and it will help me to remember to fill in my answers.

These are the five things I will be focusing on completing during the remainder of 2019. Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope that you all have a wonderful New Year and feel your best!

Happy New Year!

My Christmas and Books I Received

Hello Friends,

I hope that you are doing well. I had a wonderful Christmas Day and hope you did too! My Fiancé, Liam and I woke up pretty early, just before 8 am and started opening the gifts we got for each other. We were pretty sleepy because I stayed up past midnight watching It's a Wonderful Life on CTV and Liam stayed up as well.  Once we were done opening gifts, we got ready and visited Liam's mom, and his sister and her boyfriend and we exchanged gifts and had a lovely brunch with waffles and fruit. Then we left to visit my family for dinner and also exchanged gifts which was a lot of fun. It was a pretty busy day and so nice seeing everyone. I really enjoyed our gift giving and found that we even took it down a notch because it wasn't too many gifts this time. I enjoyed seeing my sister's in laws as well who also joined us that evening.

after opening our gifts

Sleepy but happy on Christmas morning

 On Boxing day, we were at my parent's house and I gave Moo and Roo their Christmas gifts. I got them each a springy tube toy, catnip filled plush mouse, and some treats from Pet Value. They seemed to really like one of the toy mice which commonly happens, I think there is more catnip in one.

 Then they played in the tunnel which was their other Christmas gift from my parents they got them a week ago. Moo pictured below thinks it is his and pounced and growled at poor Roo who was sitting inside chewing on a mouse pictured below.

Seconds after I took this photo, Moo pounced on Roo making him run out of the tunnel and Moo sat happily inside for awhile after. They are so funny to watch.

I got so many books for Christmas which makes me so happy. Probably because I asked for a lot of books for Christmas this year as gifts. I got the book 750 Knitting Stitches: The Ultimate Knit Stitch Bible by Erika Knight from my mom. I am so excited to learn more stitches and share some in some upcoming blog posts.

 I got Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert from Liam and Every Thing is F*cked: A Book about Hope by Mark Manson from my mom.

Liam also got me The Miracle Equation by Hal Elrod and my sister got me another morning routine book that looks really interesting called Good Morning Good Life by Amy Schmittauer Landing. I am looking forward to reading these and developing my morning and evening routines even more to create a more positive and productive routine.

I also got my planner that says Your Year to Shine on the cover, the fitness insert, and a pack of stickers. I am excited to use this fitness insert, because in the next four months I want to lose more weight and get in shape before the wedding. I was doing really well losing weight and was on track before the holidays, I would like to get back there again.

My mom got me this cute notebook below with sloths on the cover from Indigo. The sloths are so cute, and it will be fun writing my goals down in here.

I loved blogging everyday about what I was up to for Christmas prep for Blogmas. I love this time of the year and it was bittersweet this boxing day because I knew the celebrating and preparations were over. But I was happy it all went so well and I really enjoyed it all and will have these memories. I am looking forward to starting a new year soon and will be getting ready for that. I love New Year's Eve and it feels like a fresh beginning when it is a new year. Time to focus on my goals and be the best me!


I hope that you enjoyed the holidays! Thank you for visiting my blog today and talk to you soon.

Merry Christmas - Blogmas Day 25

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I know many of you will be busy today and I will be too. I am visiting Liam's family and my family today. This Blogmas has been wonderful, because I really enjoyed working on my blog and thinking of developing content that will be engaging and interesting. I always think about what I would like to read about when I am posting these Blogmas posts. I loved posting every day and some days I found it a bit tiring to be honest, but that is the good thing about it, that you have to come up with something and it can be a challenge sometimes. We only grow from challenges in our lives, and some you bring on yourself. I try to post more regularly throughout the year, but life gets busy and I let a week go by without blogging here and there. So I enjoy when I can do Blogmas and be more present here.

What Blogmas does for me, is it really gets me to be more organized in my plans for the posts and motivates me to plan ahead. When I don't have a plan I feel more anxious and when I do have a plan, I feel calm and focused. That goes for a lot of things in life, when we have a goal or idea of what we want to achieve, it is so much easier to get things done because we have a direction. I want to keep on doing Blogmas every year and I hope that you have enjoyed my posts this holiday season.

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I will not be posting for a bit now that Blogmas is done and will be celebrating with family the next while. I will be back to share some posts about my Christmas and the gifts I got as well and how it all went. It feels good that now the shopping, wrapping, and baking are all done and we can just enjoy Christmas finally. I love December and all the build up and excitement, but it does sometimes feel like I am focused on a million things at once. I do look forward to Christmas day surrounded by loved ones and having everything done. I hope that today you feel the same and thank you so much for joining me today or whenever you can get a moment to read this post, I really appreciate you visiting. 

Merry Christmas! x

Christmas Eve & Finished Merry Fair Isle Ornament- Blogmas Day 24

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Today I worked from home until around 2 pm. I was so excited to get started on celebrations for Christmas Eve once we got the okay to sign out. I started wrapping gifts after I was done. First, I would like to share the finished ornament I knitted over the holidays. I used the Merry Fair Isle Ornament pattern from Yarnspirations Design Studio. It was a fun and challenging pattern and there are three other designs that I would like to knit. I used size US 3,3.25 mm double pointed needles to knit and used Joy DK yarn by Loops & Treads in the colorways of white and red.

 My parents gave me a few more pieces for my village. I got some cars as you can see below the red vehicle and the taxi cab are new. I also got the lamp post in the center of the town.

 I was also given the train seen below. This train used to go all the way around my parent's village.

 My parents also gave me this reindeer that we used to have at home. I really love this reindeer so they gave me one. It is now holding some Rudolph stuffed animals beside my couch in the living room.

Reindeer passed down to me from my parents

Me around 5 years old with the reindeer

After I was done work I got to wrapping many gifts for Liam and my family. It was a long task but always enjoyable when I have the Christmas music on.

All wrapped and ready to go

 I was gifted this cute yarn ball and needles from Liam's Dad and Step mom. I really love it. They also got me some other knitting related items like small scissors, a pin for my knitting bag, and stitch markers. They always get me nice pins and knitting related gifts I really appreciate it.

 After I was done wrapping, I made some sugar cookies. I went for the recipe that said "easy sugar cookies". The recipe was pretty simple and so I made them and they were pretty crumbly. Eventually I added more butter and then they became easier to roll into balls and then I make cookie shapes. I had bought some whipped frosting and some green food coloring and mixed it up in a Ziploc and cut a hole at the bottom to make the trees. They taste pretty good!

My plan for the rest of the evening is to watch the classic movie It's a Wonderful Life as I do every Christmas Eve. I will eat some cookies and drink some wine. I am so excited for tomorrow and I hope that you have a wonderful day too. I hope you are finding some peace before the busy Christmas events tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

Traditions at Christmas - Blogmas Day 23

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I love traditions. I think looking forward to traditions makes Christmas so fun and all the more special. Today I am sharing some of my favourite Christmas traditions that I take part in each year from events to what I eat and drink. There are so many traditions involved in Christmas and each family has their own special traditions that are unique to them.


Christmas crackers on Christmas Eve or Christmas day
Growing up, my parents would always have Christmas crackers for all of us to open on Christmas Eve. It was part of the fun we opened the crackers, then read out our jokes and got our small gifts and we'd put on our crowns.

My dad and I after opening our crackers a couple of years ago

Baileys in my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day coffee
On Christmas day, we like to put some baileys alcoholic beverage into our coffee to give our coffee that extra kick. It is so delicious. Liam bought some tonight and I was so happy because we were missing it for our tradition.

Hot drinks and warm knits

Opening and wearing new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve night
Every year we have to get those new comfy Christmas pajamas to wear to bed on Christmas Eve and then wear Christmas morning. It makes it feel so much more special having new pyjamas to wear. I bought Liam some this year and my mom gave me some to open Christmas eve as our tradition.

Liam and my pyjamas wrapped up last year Christmas 2018

Eating After Eight chocolates Christmas Eve
When I was young, we used to go to my grandparent's house on Christmas Eve and I have fond memories of eating After Eight chocolates whenever we went there. I like that I have this memory of my grandparents that I think of each year.

Cards first, then stockings, then gifts
Whenever I got to my parents for Christmas day, we each give out cards, then we can open our stockings, then we go to gifts last and we open the gifts one by one and watch each other open the gift.

Stockings hung and filled last year Christmas 2018

Santa Claus parade to kick off our Christmas celebrations
Every year my family and I like to go to the Christmas parade as a family and this is usually such a fun time watching the floats go by and dancing to the high school marching bands music. We always get our Starbucks festive drinks as well to keep us warm.

Santa passing through

Decorating my parent's Christmas tree
Every year my sister and I go over to my parent's house and we help to decorate our parent's Christmas tree. This is on the same day as the Santa Claus parade in the middle of the month of November. We have fun listening to music, drinking eggnog, and eating treats.

Moo checking out the tree

Going to the One of a Kind show in Toronto
At the end of November there is a One of a Kind craft show in Toronto and my mom, my sister, and I like to go and browse the stalls. Once and awhile we will find something to take home. It is so fun spending the time together and getting ideas for gifts.

One of a kind show 2018

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What are your favourite Christmas traditions? I can't believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow! I worked today and work half the day tomorrow, so I think I will get more into the Christmas spirit once I am done work for the holidays. Blogmas has been so fun, I am kind of sad it will be over Christmas day. I will continue posting blog entries more often after Christmas though. I also enjoy talking about New Year's resolutions and plans, so that will be fun. I hope to see you again tomorrow for my Christmas Eve plans Blogmas post!

Have a good day!

Gingerbread Man Decorating and Secret Santa- Blogmas Day 22

Hello Friends,


I hope you are doing well. At work last week we did a few different activities such as having a team lunch, a secret Santa gift exchange, and decorating gingerbread men. I enjoyed doing these activities because I feel like it brings the team together. We did a gingerbread man decorating competition on Thursday last week and I was so happy to win the competition. I got a Tim Horton's gift card as the prize. It is so fun to participate and nice to get the extra gift and time having some laughs with coworkers and participating in the activity.

The Gingerbread man I decorated

The pile of gingerbread men waiting to be decorated

My coworkers decorating

The celebration committee in my department put these adorable festive mugs together for us. It was fun receiving it and inside was a candy cane, chocolates, cookies, and mini eggs, my favourite.

Gift received from celebration commitee

 We did a secret Santa gift exchange on Wednesday and I received this Twinings teapot with english breakfast tea. I can't wait to have some tea and relax during the holidays. I bought a mug and hot chocolate gift set and a brownie mix and pan as the gift I was giving out. Instead of picking a name this year, we did a story passing game. Someone read out the story and when she said right, we passed the gift to the right, and when she said left, we passed it to the left. Here is an example of a story you can use for the gift exchange it is a different one than we used. She read out one about Santa's reindeer.

Secret Santa gift

 

Christmas is a great time to get to know your coworkers better and participate in all these events. Sometimes it feels so busy this time of the year to take some time out, but when we receive cards and gifts from others and spend time together,  it makes it feel more special and you feel appreciated. I hope that you also had a good time at work this holiday season. Thank you for visiting my blog for Blogmas day 22 and see you again tomorrow for another Blogmas post.

Have a great day!

DIY Yarn Tree-Blogmas Day 21

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Today I went to spend time with my Fiancé's family and we exchanged gifts and had dinner. I enjoyed our time together catching up and sharing stories. It was a busy day and I finished up this DIY yarn tree this morning before we left. I found the idea from Dear Lillie Studio. It is perfect for both a winter theme DIY or a Christmas theme. I like its simplicity and there is room for creativity in adding decorations to it to dress it up, or you can leave it as is as a simple tree.

Materials:

1. Foam tree. I got one at Michaels but they are sold at many craft stores or dollar stores.
2. Craft glue. I used clear craft glue
3. Yarn: in the color and texture of your choice. I used Loops & Threads Impeccable worsted weight yarn in the colorway 'Deep forest'.
4. Scissors to cut the yarn

 I placed a napkin down to protect my table. I put glue down on the cone, then wrapped the yarn on top of the glue as I kept wrapping it around the cone. At first it got quite messy as I added the glue then placed the yarn on top, then I started putting the glue down and gently patting the yarn down and that worked better. On the Dear Lillie Studio blog, they put just a bit of glue at the bottom then wrap up and put glue at the top, then wrap down and add more glue if you would like to use less glue you can also do it that way.

 Once I got to the top of the cone, I added some glue and then wrapped the yarn in a circle until I got to the middle and it was fully covered. Then I cut the yarn and glued the end into the middle.

 I let the first part dry overnight as the glue was still wet. Then I added yarn to the bottom of the cone. You can leave the bottom of the tree and not add yarn if you would like. I added glue in circles and then just winded the yarn around in circles until I got to the middle, then added glue and cut the yarn and stuck it down in the middle.

Then you have your finished tree! You can make more trees the same size, different sizes,  different colors, and then group them together to make a bunch. I might buy more for next year to have more together and in different colors. It was a fun project and very nice to make while listening to Christmas music leading up to Christmas.

Thank you for visiting my blog for Blogmas day 21! We are 4 more days until Christmas now and I am so excited for the day to be here. Christmas is my favourite day of the year and I really try my best to savor this time. I hope that you are enjoying Christmas festivities with family and friends.

Have a great day!