January felt like the biggest breath of fresh air. At the end of the year I slowly went through and deleted social media off my phone & I started the year with just a facebook account that I purely use for the buy nothing group & book club communication. It felt so good to step back, not post anything and frankly not mindlessly consume so much. This is the first time in a decade that I haven’t posted consistently. As much as I loved the community I had on my insta I really want to focus on investing on the community right at my feet! In the past I’ve used this blog as an extension of my social media and I thought I’d keep it up but in a less frequent manner than my instagram. I thought I’d share what I’ve been up to this month, books I read, recipes I loved, and just other things I found myself getting into after taking a serious step back from social media.
Things I did instead of scroll:
- I finished my 2023 photo album – which is a big undertaking, I still need to order it to get it printed. But it is completed which feels so good! Next up 2024!
- I finished phase 2 of my 12 week workout program! This is a heavy lifting program and the workouts are long. But I’m proud I’ve stuck to it and I have loved tracking my weights and seeing my strength build!
- We spent 71 hours outside in the month of January! I’m trying to do 1000 hours outside this year and for January that felt like I solid dent in the goal! I credit this to our new outdoor furniture / fire pit set up. It made it easy to curl up on our patio, listen to the rain fall and read or watch the boys play!
- I hosted my BFF’s baby shower and we did such a fun craft of making candle holders with pressed flowers and modge podge! They turned out beautiful, I put a photo of them lit up at the beginning of this post. This would make a fun Valentine’s Day craft or gift. I’ll link the pressed flowers I used here and then we just got jars from the thrift store and modge podge from any craft store.
- In the same vein as my photo album project, this month I started creating “home movies” with all the little videos I’ve accumulated in my google photos. I started when Will was born and have slowly been going through them and making larger movies. Google limits you to 50 clips but each movie ends up being about 15 minutes. I remember loving watching home videos as a child and it’s funny to think how this day and age we have SO many more photos and videos of everyday life than our parents ever did but we don’t watch or see them as much. So I’ve made it a goal to try to catch up on some home videos.
- We survived an unspeakable Adenovirus stomach bug and a bad case of strep throat. Is it even winter if your kids aren’t on the carousel of endless viruses??? Solidarity to all the parents surviving sick season.
- I did my first watercolor workbook exercise. For Christmas Chris got me two watercolor workbooks, not sure why I thought starting with the harder one was the right idea. But I started with the landscape workbook and completed my first one (see photo above). It was so challenging but I’m excited to keep working on it and see how I progress.
- I kept track of my decluttering challenge (to purge 2025 items from my home this year). And the nerd in me is not only interested in keeping track but breaking down the categories of things I purge. So i keep a color coded chart and every 100 items I update the graph to see how the categories are working out! This month I purged about 200 items! And here’s how it broke down – with cosmetics / medicine cabinet and clothing being the top categories!
Books I read:
- Parable of the Sower – This was a book club book and it was kinda wild. It was a dystopian book about the future, written in the 80’s about the year 2025. yikes. The setting is southern California, which happens to be on fire and in a severe drought… ummmmm it was a little to on the nose for the start of year. I won’t lie it was a super depressing book. but overall I think I’d give it 3.5 / 5
- Electric Idol – This is the second book of the Dark Olympus series. I did not enjoy it nearly as much as Neon Gods which I read in December. I’ll probably still read the 3rd book in the series but this one gets a 2.5 / 5 for me.
- One True Love – I read this book in two days. It was a super easy read. I’m giving this a 4/5. I liked the characters, I liked the story. It’s the idea of love and the different versions we experience in our lives.
- War & Peace – I posted in my 25 in 2025 list that this year I’m doing a slow read of War & Peace which consists of reading a chapter a day. So I spent this month getting through the first 120 pages of this behemoth of a classic. So far I’m not disliking it! I’m also following along with the substack footnotes and tangents which puts out a short weekly summary podcast that helps you keep characters straight so that has made it a lot more enjoyable!
- The Familiar – This one I did not finish. I stopped about 40% of the way through. It was a book my bookclub read of the summer and it was available right away on Libby so I just downloaded it. But it really wasn’t for me. I like the setting of old Spain, but I felt like the story just moved too slowly and wasn’t compelling enough to keep me interested. Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy!
- I’m also working really hard with Will to boost his reading and we’ve been doing a 100 day reading challenge where he reads to me for 15 minutes at a time (we’ll hopefully work goal up but we gotta meet people where they’re at!) So I’ve been reading lots of stories with him & it is really fun to watch him improve and build his confidence.
East Bay Mama 