Wednesday, February 25, 2015

2014 Bucket List, Recapped

2014 got a little crazy. I didn't get the chance to do everything that I wanted to because I was slammed with work and school. Still, it was a good year. I'm moving a lot of these goals forward for 2015 because I think they are important and don't want to say goodbye to them without finishing them.

Personal:
Spend at least 208 hours at the piano (that's just four hours a week)
Run/walk 312 miles (an average of 6 miles a week)
Take a photography class
Choose a new lens
Go back to school
Practice yoga at least twice a week, for a total of 104 practices
Do an in-depth study of one composer each month
   Brahms
   Schumann
Hike Lake Blanche
Hike Mount Olympus
Try at least three other new hikes
     1. Bell Canyon Waterfall
     2. The Living Room
     3. Salt Lake Overlook
Learn to live with less (this includes clothing, shoes, and lipstick)
Write more
Do yoga every day for 30 days
Start teaching piano lessons again
Go 100 days without junk food (candy, chips, cookies, fried foods, etc.)
Try 5 new things
     1. ice fishing, 1.4.13
     2. shed hunting with Colt
     3. gardening with Whit
Write everyday for 30 days

Read/Re-read:
Quiet
The Signature of All Things
Crime and Punishment
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Life of Our Lord (with Harper)
Mere Christianity
War and Peace
The Old Man and the Sea
Into the Wild
The Four Loves
Frankenstein
Ender's Game
One Thousand Gifts
The Barefoot Executive
These is My Words
My Name is Asher Lev
A Farewell to Arms

Family:
Take Harper to swimming lessons
Take Harper to five live performances
    1. Disney on Ice, March 5, 2014
    2. Miss Utah final night, June 21, 2014
    3. Wicked, November 8, 2014
Take Harper to see the baby animals at This is the Place
Do ABCMouse with Harper at least three times a week
Take Harper to The Princess Festival at Thanksgiving Point
Go to Yellowstone
Take Harper to Discovery Gateway
Take Harper to Airborne
Take Harper to the beach


Favorite Things Party + Giveaway

My friend Dani and I hosted a Favorite Things party last month. It was a lot of fun, both to plan and to participate in. Can you guess what my favorite thing was (our budget was $10 per gift)? I'll tell you at the end of this post, I promise, but do feel like most people that know me well will be able to figure it out. Hint: it's from a beauty aisle, the one where you get stuff for your hair.

Dani and I wanted to go with neutral colors and some metalics for the decorations and supplies. I threw some cute tags together and copied a cute gift bag that we saw at Target by sticking gold labels onto plain burlap bags from Michael's (the bags at Target were $3 each, which is fine if you're purchasing one bag, but definitely not when you need ten. The bags I made were under $1 each and were, if you ask me, pretty darn cute). We also put together some small gifts for our guests (CD's of our favorite jams, lip balms wrapped like candy, chocolates, and pen/notecard sets). Everything turned out really well.

For food, we did a soup and salad sort of thing. We had white chili, spinach salad, some appetizers, and a few yummy treats (chocolate chip cookies and salted caramel brownies, anyone?).

Each guest brought four of one of her favorite things to give out and in return received favorites from four other ladies. I loved everything that I received, which is probably because it was all beauty-aisle related. I received nail polishes, hair products, a brush, lip gloss, lotions, and face wipes. I had fun seeing what everyone else opened, too. There was a lot of good stuff up for grabs at our party and the selfish part of me was a little disappointed that I didn't get one of everything. The good news is that I kept a mental note of the things that were interesting to me so that when I go shopping, I can pick them up for myself. Our guests definitely brought, and went home with, some cool favorite things.

My only regret is that I didn't take any photos of people. I only had my camera out before the party. Once it started, I forgot to pick it back up again, which is pretty typical of me when I'm in party mode. I guess I will just have to host another favorites party so that I can take photos of the women that I love.













I gave two of my can't-live-without hair products as my favorite thing:
Batiste Dry Shampoo and Garnier Beach Chic are two things that I don't want to live without. I love them both because they help me keep my hair routine simple (and because they aren't $30 a bottle). 

Have you ever tried either of them? Would you like to? If so, go ahead and keep reading...

I am excited to announce that I am doing a giveaway. One winner will receive both of my favorite things, along with a copy of the CD we gave out at the party and some of the other little prizes that we included in our guests' gift bags. I'm so excited!

To enter, comment on this post. Tell me what your favorite thing would be if you were invited to a Favorite Things party (it doesn't have to be a beauty product- food, drinks, accessories, kitchen items, and pretty much anything that you love is fair game). For an extra entry, share a link to this post on Facebook (leave a second comment if you do). I'll announce the winner one week from today! Good luck and much love!