I have participated in the annual Goodreads reading challenge each year since 2016 when I gave myself a “talking to” about the state of my reading habits. I plan to keep this up from now on because it has made a real difference in my life. I’m sure I wouldn’t have read most of these books last year if I hadn’t committed to the goal of reading 24 books in 2018.

One of the things I most look forward to about a new calendar year is choosing a new word to focus on. I’ve been following Ali Edwards’ inspiration of choosing one word to guide my year since 2008.

I used to really overthink the whole keeping holiday cards thing until a few years ago. I finally got smart and just decided to hole punch the entire stack of cards we received during the year and put them together with some binder rings and finish them off with a little bit of ribbon. I love this simple approach because I can set them out during the holiday season for us to enjoy. The only ones that don’t get saved are really glittery cards because, well…glitter!

I have to admit that I don’t work on a lot of physical crafts these days. I’m usually more into memory keeping projects and the majority of those are digital for me. But when I saw this idea on Pinterest I had a lightbulb moment and thought it would be super fun to put these together with my daughter, mother, and 2 sister-in-laws during our Thanksgiving visit. I just love how they turned out!

 If you’ve been a reader of mine for the past 6 years, you will remember that I have been doing a different themed Christmas tree each year since 2013. It’s been really fun and meaningful to plan and decorate each of these different trees. Here are some links to the past themes.

I started a new tradition this year with my daughter and her husband. I’m going to give them an ornament for their tree each year. and the idea is that it will be something that represented their year. I’m going to do this on Thanksgiving weekend so they can hang it up on their tree and enjoy it during the holiday season. This year I did something pretty fancy because it was their wedding year. I had a talented artist from ETSY make an ornament of their wedding cake.