Christmas is one of my very favorite times of the year, December might be taking over July as my favorite month (and July has A LOT of things going for it) because I love almost every single thing about the Christmas season (today at lunch Luke asked me what I liked best about Christmas "and you can't say everything!" because he knew that was what I was going to say). BUT, I also LOVE all the year-end and best of lists that come out this time of year. It is SO FUN to see other people's favorites be it books (I LOVE a year-end book list) or just things in general.
Also, the week between Christmas & New Years is one of my favorite weeks of the whole year. My goal is to wear real pants (yoga pants forever) as little as possible and to leave my home as little as possible (these are also my goals for all of winter but a lot harder to accomplish when school is in session). This does lend itself to a bit more introspection and reflection and goal setting, to hopefully carry the good parts of the year forward and leave what didn't work behind.
I did my first one of these lists last year, an idea I completely borrowed from The Lazy Genius. I (hopefully) have a year-end recap coming later this week but starting my year-end posts with 10 Favorite Discoveries of the year!
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1) Walking to School
Luke is half way through 3rd grade which means we've had 3¼ school years of him going to school (not including the quarter of COVID school in the spring of 2020). From the beginning and through now we have walked or ran to get him on almost every single day it wasn't raining and above 50° (and a few days where it ended up raining). However, we never even attempted to walk to school until the very end of last school year. I forget how it all happened but the boys were ready with enough time so we tried it out. And it was wonderful!! It gave us a calm start to the school day, the temperature on that May morning was much more comfortable than our mid-afternoon pick-up walk, and there was something SO productive about getting in a nice walk by 8:30am. Considering how many days Luke's almost been late for school when we DROVE...I was SHOCKED at how much we all liked to walk.
We picked our walking back up with the new school year, many of the days Sam & I would do my run immediately (after stretching) from school drop-off instead of my old plan of driving home and then procrastinating running for at least 30 minutes, now we just get it done! We did have to stop walking to school earlier than we had to stop walking home from school because of late sunrises and very cool temperatures but we really enjoyed it when it worked and we will hopefully pick it back up in the spring! It was a huge game changer for our mornings.
Like the whole of the internet, we like Ted Lasso. I had been wanting to watch it for probably a year but never looked into getting Apple TV. Then Target was offering a free couple of months and once we finished the show we were watching (an enjoyable rewatch of Community) we got that free trial, set a reminder in my phone to cancel it in March, and we devoured Ted Lasso. It's incredibly funny, heart-warming, and has A LOT of language so not for kids. I get why so many people needed that levity when it first came out in 2020 (and now, life is still weird). I highly recommend it to most adults but, again, LANGUAGE WARNING. But we loved it.
We had been to the local Farmer's Market once, about 2 years ago and it was indoors and very crowded (this was before COVID and I still didn't want to be shoulder to shoulder with dozens of strangers) and it was not very fulfilling. Then, at my cousin's urging, we tried again. This time we made it to an outdoor market, actually the day we had already ran our 10k and biked to the race and back and THEN biked to the farmers' market (you all, there was a reason I was tired that night). It was so fun! We've really been focusing on shopping small this year (although I am nowhere close to fully abandoning my faithful Target) and it was fun to meet some vendors I had been following online and find new favorites. We ended up with all sorts of goodies and then also did the indoor market (a different indoor market...I have no idea why we have TWO farmers markets) and got some Christmas shopping done (and, honestly, more shopping for ourselves). We are NOT great at buying fruits and veggies at these but maybe if we go back in the summer when those are plentiful we will be. We HAVE fully stocked up on the baked goods, as far as foods go.
The outdoor market with the beautiful weather was especially enjoyable and I hope to do it once a month-ish when it warms up!
I actually bought my first two of these in May of 2020 when I was shopping at our Cathedral Bookstore for a godson's 1st Communion gift (one of two godson 1st Communions we weren't allowed to attend for COVID reasons). I have a few sisters who had been big fans for years. Then these sat in the cupboard for almost a year because I wasn't sure how my boys would feel about them. I finally pulled them out around St. Patrick's Day this year because one of them is St. Patrick and what better time? Well and boys and I quickly got into them, placing more orders than Matt would care to know about. The boys both got a Saint for St. Nick Day and for Luke's 1st Communion in the spring and just a few other times more appeared (and then I always wanted to balance out their male Saints with female Saints which were kinda for me? I don't know, I wanted to have a nearly equal amount of male/females). We've gifted and own many of their magnets, Sam got their nativity puzzle for Christmas and we did their advent calendar. So, we are all in on these. (You can use my referral link to get 10% off your 1st order if you'd like!)
5) Reading in Our Room for Quiet Time
Here's some things about our house: Matt & I each have our own office space. Mine is open to our main room. Matt's is technically our 3rd bedroom downstairs so it has a door. We still attempt quiet time every day and on Sundays, that means Matt is doing stuff on his computer and shuts the door to keep out the noise of the kids. I attempt to read on the window seat in my office (when it's too cold to read on the porch) but that means I am visible by Luke either doing his own screen time or playing on the couch. So you can guess which parent gets asks all the snack questions (endless snack questions) and screen time questions and running commentary on how Lego Marvel is going. This makes my quiet time significantly less quiet than Matt's. SO. I decided to start reading on our bed, upstairs. This kinda helps Sam stay in his room better AND makes it harder for me to get the snack and other questions (I still get some but far less). This makes quiet time much more relaxing (and reading productive) and it's nice to actually use our room during the day! I've only been doing this since November-ish but it's been wonderful and I very much look forward to those Sunday afternoons!
We got HBO Max on a late night whim last summer so we could watch the Friends reunion. Then I heard about In the Heights being on there and figured I'd watch it since I like musicals and we had HBO Max at the right time anyways. You all, I LOVED IT. I bought the soundtrack almost immediately and it quickly became my running music of choice, many of the beats were just right for a good running pace. It was very much the soundtrack to my summer and it's now one of the 4 artists Luke can identify (along with the Backstreet Boys, Carrie Underwood, and Hamilton). I just got the dvd for Christmas (highly suggested to Matt, I may have ordered it myself) and look forward to rewatching it again soon!
7) Battery Organizer
Some items on this list are very fun. Some things are battery organizers. For a LONG time I've told the boys that I don't know how to change batteries (this also saved me a whole lot of noisy toys because then they often forget by the time Matt gets home), mainly because of the noise but ALSO because I never felt like I had a good handle on our battery situation. Did we have any? Did we not? Were they all dead? Enter this battery organizer and now I feel like I know where all the batteries are AND it comes with a tester attached which is very helpful. I still rarely change batteries but at least I feel like they are organized!
8) Fawnly Prints
I first came across this creator at our first Farmers Market this fall. I was drawn to her booth by one particular print (which I bought as a 5x7 card because I didn't know where I'd put an 8x10 and I still don't know where the 5x7 will go but at least that's easier to fit). Anyways, I figured out fairly quickly that she was Catholic (a lot of Saint items) even though the item that drew me had no religious meaning (it was a camping print). I bought a sticker for my water bottle (that was the day I became a sticker on water bottles person) and a magnet and then at another market I bought some stockings stuffers and then also bought a set of swaddles with a JPII quote on it for a friend (and maybe us for the second one?). She's local but also has an Etsy shop and it was just so delightful to find a Catholic creator whose work I enjoy, although there are quite a few non-religious items too!
9) Catholic podcasts
Keeping the Catholic theme going, this is the year I started regularly listening to two podcasts by two different Catholic priests. I've mentioned them both in Things I Like - Fr. Mike Schmitz Presents and Ask Fr. Josh. Both are usually pretty short (Fr. Mike is usually under 10 minutes and Fr. Josh around 25-30) and I listen to them on Fridays which is a great way to carry into the weekend. I've learned a lot about my faith and different elements of it. I still have questions (it's always good to have questions) but they've really showed me new aspects and parts of a faith I have been a part of my whole life. Highly recommend if the Catholic faith interests you.
This was life changing. We bought the boys an alarm clock for their room shortly before the end of last school year. I didn't know how it would go but the first day Luke enthusiastically got up with the alarm. And the next day and the next day. Mornings used to be a HUGE pain point in our day, I was always waking the boys up later than I should have had and they were very reluctant to get up. As soon as I made it Luke's responsibility it was INFINITELY better (I still have to wake up Sam many morning, he sleeps right through that alarm and then tell me "Mom! I'm trying to sleep here!" when I go up and start turning on lights and off fans.) The alarm clock DEFINITELY contributed to us being able to start walking to school, as weather allowed.
Their alarm clock ALSO has a "green to wake" feature where we set the time the clock turns green and that's when they are allowed to come out of their room/wake us up. On school days this is 5 minutes before the alarm and it is rare they are up that early. During the summer it was 8am and that's around when they would wake up. On weekends during the school year it's later than the school day alarm but earlier than 8am. This has helped us SO MUCH. Sam, particularly, follows the green light VERY WELL. He'll be yelling at Luke if Luke dares to violate it, even if it's just to go to the bathroom and then back to bed to read. And now we are almost guaranteed to not be awaken too early on the weekends, we've never had super early risers but anything before 7am on Saturday or Sunday is way. too. early.
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That's it! Ten of my favorite things that we found this year or excited me or just brought us some joy (or much needed help around the house). I always appreciate a good year-end reflection, even if it's over some fairly mundane things. Why not think about the things that brought you joy??
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