Simple joys are more than enough

The Thank You For Being Here playlist has a few additions. Not on Spotify? Listen here:

• Addiction by Doja Cat (Live Performance)

• Orange Blossoms by GoldFord

• Little Life by Cordelia

🎧 My favorite podcasts to listen to in 2023

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich with Ramit Sethi

• The Lone Lobos with Jacob Bertrand and Xolo Maridueña

• Balanced Black Girl with Les Alfred

• How to Build a Happy Life by The Atlantic (Each season has a new title based on a theme)

• The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos by Pushkin

A friend mentioned that January 1 usually gives her anxiety because of the expectation to hit the ground running. I used to feel the same. But now, I approach the end and beginning of the year more gently. The beginning is a warm-up walk, and the rest of the year is a marathon for me to jog comfortably with breaks at certain checkpoints.

And if I don’t accomplish every single goal I write down, I don’t feel as much shame. It rolls off my shoulders because there is still much to be proud of and grateful for. Whether there’s some forward movement or I stayed safe and experienced happy moments, I’m satisfied.

I enjoy my end-of-year traditions in the spirit of practicing being proactive about forward movement and life satisfaction.

The traditions:

• Decluttering digital and physical spaces.

• Reflecting on the past year to remember what felt good, what didn’t, and why.

• Planning for a “rich life” involves a family meeting or a money date. It’s something Vadym and I do monthly to chat about our finances and upcoming plans, such as savings goals, investments, fun activities, and other commitments.

• Writing down goals and supporting actions for the new year using the Design Your Year Notion template pack designed by my friend Jules.

These activities prevent life from dogpiling me, especially if I do them throughout the year instead of limiting them to the last month.

🗞️ Recently published work: How Your Chronotypes Rule Your Sleep (Avocado Magazine) “No matter how many hours of sleep you achieve, if you regularly feel tired, sluggish, or unfocused, it could be a sign your lifestyle doesn’t match your body’s internal clock.”

Freelance win: Never not learning
My self-assigned homework is starting to pay off. To elevate the experience for my website copy clients, a few months ago, I set out to learn how to create wireframes to present my copy and user journey strategy with a low-fidelity visual. I've had so much fun with it and recently delivered my first wireframe to a non-profit client. By the end of our project, they’ll be able to copy and paste from a simple Word doc and visualize how to use the words I wrote for them.

🔔 I'm eager to help more social good organizations, service providers, and brands warm up the language of their websites for better awareness and conversions in 2024. I also want to partner with more website designers!

My calendar has a few spots open for projects from mid-January through March. If you or someone you know needs writing support for a springtime launch (or want to lock in my current rates for a later date), message me!

I met my 2023 reading goal of 50 books in November! I’m thankful that I’ve spent a lot of time doing something I love this year. Here are the books I had my nose in last month.

1. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas (4 ⭐): My binge of the ACOTAR series continued with this holiday novella, which acts as a transition to bridge the stories from the first three books to the next ones. It was a sweet reprieve from the intensity of the others.

2. A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas (4.75 ⭐): In keeping with my promise not to spoil the series for you, I won’t share what each book is about. But I will say that although the first half of ACOSF is slow, there’s a reason for it. It’s a phoenix rising from the ashes type of story, and I devoured all 750+ pages within a week. I’m excited for SJM to finish writing the next one. Maybe we’ll get it in 2024 or 2025?

3. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (4 ⭐): Even though I liked Fourth Wing more (the pacing and writing were better), I ate up this sequel. My main issue with Iron Flame is that too much was crammed into one book with minimal room for the plot, magic systems, and character development to breathe. Still, reading it was a good time for me. I do wish Yarros would stop afflicting us with intense cliffhangers.

4. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi (5 ⭐): I’ve been singing praises for Ramit Sethi since I watched his Netflix show and binged his podcast. If When you buy a personal finance book, buy this one. Sethi’s writing is engaging, and it doesn’t feel like he’s bullshitting, often debunking common finance myths and toxic money beliefs. His advice is simple to implement immediately and includes some sweet automation tips to make managing money almost effortless.
   

📚🛒 Visit your local library or browse my Bookshop or Amazon Bookshelf to get copies of my recommendations. I'll earn a tiny commission if you buy a book from these affiliate links. Thanks for supporting authors, bookshops, and me!

My Reading List for December

I requested a bunch of holiday romances from the library, but it was a little too late. I’m at the end of some long waitlists, so this month will be a mixed bag of library books I can get my hands on.

🔖 My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine
🔖 The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon
🔖 Better than Fiction by Alexa Martin
🔖 Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley
🔖 The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine

Extra, Extra

• The Art of Friendship: How to Seek Out Specificity (Shondaland) “People can benefit and deepen their relationships by putting their friends in specific categories rather than including them in a hierarchy.”

• How to Stop Regressing When You Go Home for the Holidays (Wondermind)
  “Basically, when regression happens, you’re not giving your friends or family the opportunity to interact with this new version of you. It’s possible you’ll get along better than before, but you won’t know unless you try.”

• High-quality questions for high-quality answers (Sarita Walsh) “The real magic lies in the questions themselves because they hold the key to a world of infinite solutions, tailored to my uniqueness.”

• Is it shameful to not want to scale? (Will & Way) “I used to feel like I wasn’t doing a good job unless I was run ragged. Then I realized that the people who do that are actually miserable, and I don’t want to be like that.”

Movies

✏️🏀 Comedy-dramas: I wasn’t super interested in watching The Holdovers, but I went with Vadym to see it in theaters and liked it! It’s about a curmudgeonly history teacher who finds an unexpected connection with a troubled student and a grieving cook during Christmas break at a New England boarding school. We also liked Champions, which follows a disgraced basketball coach who finds redemption by coaching a team of players with intellectual disabilities.

🐦🐍 Dystopian: I haven’t read The Hunger Games books and wasn’t obsessed with the movies, but when the new prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, came out, it piqued my interest. So, we watched it in a packed theater a couple of weeks after its release, and both enjoyed it so much that I convinced Vadym to marathon the original movies with me. We’ve watched two of the first four, and admittedly, I remember why they didn’t blow me away. But, y’all know I love to commit to a binge.

Series

📺 90s classics: I’m still binging Buffy, occasionally watching Seinfeld, and recently introduced Vadym to the cult classic Freaks and Geeks. There’s one goofy season set in the 80s about a high school mathlete navigating the social landscape alongside her younger brother and his geeky friends while exploring the world of rebellious burnouts.

🌈✨ Otherworldly imaginations: I’ve fallen in love with the animated series Adventure Time (I’m super late, I know!) and enjoyed watching Face Off, a special effects makeup artist competition. It was initially aired on the SYFY channel, and Netflix now streams several seasons. If you’re a fan of Glow Up, you’ll enjoy it.

🦸🏽‍♂️ Dark superhero stories: The first half of Invincible’s second season is finally out and continues to be a fun and shocking animation. We also watched Gen V, a spin-off from The Boys universe that takes place at a university. I didn’t love it, but it’s still a decent addition to this genre of superhero satire — if you can stomach how graphic it is.

The most immense joy often emerges from simple moments.

🍿 enjoying a movie more than you thought you would
🍽️ sitting down at a restaurant right away
🧘🏽‍♀️ participating in a 30-day morning yoga challenge
😌 wearing cozy WFH outfits
🎶 the applause during musicals
📚️ browsing new bookstores
🍂 watching leaves fall during a nature walk
🎄 attending local holiday festivals

Thank you, Sandra D., for your generous contribution in November!

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