2019 Year in Review + 2020 Goals
With the start of a new year, I think it’s important to look back and reflect. Before I took the time to do this, I was being hard on myself, feeling like I didn’t do much or accomplish much. But when I actually looked back and wrote down everything, it made me realize how much I did do as a creative, blogger, and stay at home mom.
Today I’m taking a moment to reflect back on what I considered to be milestones, highlights, and the lessons learned in 2019, along with sharing some of my 2020 goals.
HIGHLIGHTS OF 2019
We traveled to Japan in April. This was Addie’s 2nd time going to Japan. I’ve started a Japan guide section on my blog so I can document our travels and tips for traveling with your family to Japan. I plan to keep on adding to this section, in case you ever travel to Japan yourself!
Celebrated 4 years of marriage and 10 years of being together with my husband, Jeff.
My partnership with Aerie as their #AerieReal ambassador. It feels so good to be spreading their brand mission of being true to yourself and having more body confidence, while sharing comfortable, easy, and cute clothes for the everyday mom!
Addie turned 2! We celebrated Addie’s birthday with our family at none other than the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland.
Created more content that I’m proud of. To be specific, I’m happy I:
Dove into more video content in 2019, and plan to create more in 2020 on family adventures, makeup & styling.
Created more high quality content, put more effort into photoshoots and made it a priority to get them done.
I shot a Hershey’s commercial! I was asked to be on-camera talent for the next Hershey’s commercial, set to come out in 2020. This was something I’ve never done before so it was definitely out of my comfort zone, but fun, and a great experience. I have to admit, it wasn’t an easy task and there’s soooo much that goes into shooting just a 15-30 sec commercial . Much respect to those in the TV industry! .
More body confidence. This year, I worked on loving and accepting my “mom bod”. To not hurry my body back into shape, or even worry about that. Embracing my body after birth has been a long journey but it’s been so much better for my mental health. I’m still learning to stop nit picking at my body or poking at my stomach, and comparing myself to others. But I can say that I’ve come a long way and doing much better and have so much more appreciation for my body than I did a year ago.
LESSONS LEARNED for 2019
As a full time stay at home, I still struggled with wanting to do and be more, but felt held back by my responsibilities and priorities as a stay at home mom. Without getting into too much detail on our personal situation, we simply didn’t have the means for outside help. While I would never take back my time with my daughter nor take back the fact that I’m a stay at home mom, it’s the honest truth that I still found myself longing for more time for me and the pursuit for my own dreams.
WHAT I LEARNED: But what I kept reminding myself is that life happens in seasons. With each seasons, there’s new lessons to be learned. So when I was caught between my own desires and responsibilities as a mom, I dealt with this in 3 ways.
CHANGE MY MINDSET.
I tried to appreciate the time I have with her and realized this won’t last. She’ll go to school this year in 2020, and I’m pretty sure when she does, I’ll miss this more than I think I will.
PURSUE WITH WHAT I HAD.
I did what I could for this blog and my social media channels during nap times, after my husband got off of work, in the car (of course when I wasn’t driving), here and there…whenever I had the time. While this isn’t the way I wanted to work, it’s what I had to do pursue what I wanted and use the creative energy inside of me.
MAKE MOTHERHOOD MORE FUN.
Since everyday motherhood can become repetitive, I would find ways to make motherhood more fun for me. Whether it was to travel with Addie, cook and bake with Addie, put on makeup with Addie, do mommy and me photoshoots, go to disneyland, go explore…all with Addie, I was determined to create fun memories.
2019 was a year of lots of internal growth.
There’s truly nothing like motherhood that kicks that personal growth’s ass haha!
2020 is here and I’m excited to see what’s in store for us.
That said, here are some of my goals in no particular order!
2020 GOALS
Visit at least 2 new locations a month in the LA and Orange County area with my family.
Start my Disney guide for families on the blog.
Create more videos for makeup tutorials, product reviews, and beauty tips over on IGTV + on the blog
Travel to Japan at least twice to cover more Japan topics for the blog
Pitch myself to brands
Cook more Japanese dishes
Put away my clothes right away (Haha!)
Get a babysitter for Addie or put her into school
Potty training for Addie
Move into our own place