Believe It.
There is no “or not”.
Sweet, sweet New Year! 2021 has finally arrived and I am looking to the future with a glimmer of hope and excitement for how the year is going to turn out! In general, 2020 was not the worst year for me. I was blessed with a job that allowed me to transition to work-from-home and Marc and I stayed healthy. The biggest challenge for me was having to navigate the new, more reclusive, lifestyle I was living. With practically no outings, events, vacations, ability to see coworkers, etc. it made for a pretty lonely year. I’m pretty sure my cats bore the burden of that the most as they now get cuddled constantly throughout the day. I like to think they like me enough though and they tolerate it well! They have also become my personal muses as I’m pretty positive that 99% of the photos on my phone from 2020 are of them. They are just so darn cute and I am a MASSIVE sucker for toe beans.
Now that the New Year is upon us, I am so glad to be back and writing for ATF! Honestly it feels like it has been forever since I have written anything so I need to get those creative juices flowing again! I hope all of you wonderful readers had an amazing holiday, and let me give a quick shout out to my girls Aimée and Shelby for coming out of engagement season victorious! For the most part, my short break was not anywhere near as exciting, but it was a nice little break to reset. Marc and I kept our tradition going strong and we spent Christmas Eve and day alone at our house. This is the third year we have done this and honestly I cannot think of a better way to spend the day. I made us a huge breakfast of gingerbread pancakes, bacon, and eggs and then we opened gifts and watched Christmas movies. For dinner I went a little crazy and decided to try my hand at cooking Cornish hens which actually turned out delicious! Don’t be intimidated by the name. With the Cornish hens we had a plethora of sides like mashed potatoes, carrots, broccoli, stuffing, salad, and rolls…. Yes, I know, I may have gone a little overboard, but I just love a good reason to make an amazing meal and Christmas is a great occasion!
As the new year approached, I couldn’t help but think what my new “word of the year” would be. As I have mentioned before, I do not make New Year’s resolutions because I am the absolute worst at keeping them. Like the fail-in-10-minutes-because-giving-up-french-fries-is-harder-than-you-think worst. So, instead of making a resolution, I try to come up with a word that will be my theme for the year. In 2020 that word was “self-care”. To be fair, I definitely did not do my absolute best at focusing on self-care, but I did take a lot of steps in the right direction! I bought a Peloton to focus on my health, I started a new job that has been so wonderful thus far, I started taking some days for me to go hiking/walking to clear my head and reset my thoughts, and I tried to focus more on my own mental wellbeing. While I know I was far from perfect, I am not going to beat myself up about it because I did move in the right direction and I am honestly pretty proud of that. Going into 2021 was a different story though. I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to focus on for this year. I was completely ready for the new year, but with all of the unknowns, I was unable to focus on a path that I wanted to go down. Actually, the truth is that I didn’t hone in on a word until January 2nd, but now that it is settled, I know how I want to focus in 2021.
The New Year’s holiday in 2020 was a little different than most years because celebrating at a big party wasn’t really an option this year. It also just happened to be the weekend that Marc’s friends decided to have a bachelor party so I knew he would be leaving me for the entire weekend. While we were lucky enough to spend New Year’s Eve together, he did have to leave me all along the next day while he went down to Austin for a weekend at a ranch…Yes, it is such a “Texan” bachelor party. Normally when Marc is gone for a few days, I make a huge to-do list for things that I want to get done while he is away. Sometimes it is really nice just to have the house to myself so I can get all of the little things done that I want. Not that I don’t like him home, but I have a way that I like to do things such as cleaning and he just doesn’t abide by my rules. That weekend was no exception and I created a giant list of things that I wanted to get done. I was definitely over-ambitious with my list but I like to stay busy when I am alone! One of the items I wanted to accomplish was cleaning/decorating our upstairs game room. We have recently been renovating our upstairs and over the last few months we have painted & laid new flooring in two rooms of our house. I like to think we are “DIYS”ers. A.k.a, do-it-yourself-sometimes. We will hire people to help out if the job is completely out of our wheelhouse, but for the most part we like to do everything ourselves.
For the game room I had found some shelves online that I absolutely loved and was super excited about buying them to start the decorating process in the newly painted room….unfortunately fate had other plans when I found out they were sold out. It was heart-breaking. I desperately searched for the same shelves elsewhere only to find out they were incredibly expensive. Like $100 for one shelf expensive. After throwing myself a mini-pity-party and sulking that I couldn’t have the shelves I wanted (entitled bitch problems), I started looking closer at them and I realized that they didn’t look super complicated to make. That’s when I decided I would try to make them myself!
So, I drove my ass down to the closest Home Depot and bought a 2X12”X12’ board, wood stain, shelving brackets, drywall anchors, sandpaper, and a laser level and set out on my own personal Joanna Gaines self-discovery. Fun fact, I was also over-ambitious with the size of wood that would fit in my car and I had to drive all the way home with about 3–4’ of wood sticking out of my front passenger side window. Don’t worry, I kept my hazards on though! When I got home, I immediately got out every power tool I could find because I am a child and I LOVE using power tools. Luckily Marc wasn’t home for the weekend so I got to use everything my little heart desired: circular saw, electric sander, dill. To say I was like a kid in a candy store is an understatement.
In one short afternoon I was able to measure, cut, sand, stain, and hang my two new shelves! Going into the project I was definitely nervous and discouraged though. Would I be able to finish the project without Marc home? What if I couldn’t figure out how to work a tool? What if the shelves sucked? Well with a little help from YouTube and my dad (shout out to Chris for the drywall anchor tips!) I was able to complete what I set out to do for a fraction of the cost of the shelves I found online! It just took a little time, determination, and confidence from myself to actually do it! It was during this entire project that I decided on what my word for the year would be…. Believe.
In 2021 I want to focus more on believing in myself because it is something that I tend to struggle with. Self-confidence is something that I do not ever focus enough on and that can be a huge setback in different settings. I know I am capable of doing many things. I consider myself to be very independent, smart, and charismatic, but on the inside I never give myself enough credit. Just like with these shelves, I provided something to myself and that is I should always believe in my own abilities. Sometimes all it takes a little spackle and a drill to boost your self confidence. So believe it 2021 (there is no “or not”), because I’m coming for ya!
Originally published on January 6, 2021.
