challenges

December 29, 2016

My Top Books of (the first half of) 2016

2016_Book_Challenge_Halfway

I started writing this post in July, when we were halfway through the year – but never quite ended up finishing/posting it. But here we are in December, when all of us are trying to wrap up all those loose ends before the new year… and so the draft has resurfaced! This year, my goal was to read 100 books over the course of the year. Well, on December 29th, I’m squarely on track – about 25 pages to go in the non-fiction book I’m reading (Mindset by Carol Dweck), and I’m also halfway through a novel that is a fabulous …

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December 20, 2016

December Goal Progress: Week 2

disaster_zone_home_office

This has been a busy week! My mom flies in tonight for an eight day visit, so I’ve been trying to get as much work as possible done now so I don’t have to work when she’s here. I think I’m in pretty good shape, though – will likely only have a few hours of work tomorrow, and then maybe an hour or so each day between now and the new year to check email and fire off a few quick responses. I’m really excited about the break! But how about my goal to clean out / organize my house? I’m chugging …

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December 14, 2016

Transforming My Oak Banisters with Cherry Gel Stain

cherry_banister_living_room_closeup

First up in my December challenge to transform my house? The banister. Part of what sold me on this house was how the staircase is so open; it makes the front entryway so light and airy to be able to see up to the second floor loft. But I wasn’t in love with the banister itself. The first DIY project I took on was replacing all the brass doorknobs/fixtures that dated the house back to the 90s. But once that was done, I still felt like the orange-y oak banister was a 90s throwback, and it felt a lot more casual …

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December 12, 2016

December Goal: Make a Home for the Holidays

This is shaping up to be an odd month for me. When I’m staffed on a client, I’m used to traveling for my job four days a week, every week. In November, I had a break from client service after wrapping up a big project and then focusing on teaching our senior associate Discover program. Afterward, it was Thanksgiving, and new projects are generally slow to start in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, I got staffed on a fantastic new client and have been traveling for the last two weeks. Today, though, an unexpected surprise came along: we only had …

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November 11, 2016

November Goal: Books > Facebook

I haven’t been blogging much this month, because I’ve had a lot of personal stuff going on that I don’t really want to air publicly. Unfortunately, all of that was further exacerbated this Wednesday, when I started to see the full backlash of the election results. It feels like the whole country is up in arms, and it doesn’t seem like the instability will go away any time soon. Over the past few days, I’ve realized that when I’ve been getting the most stressed is when I read the vitriol that fills up my Facebook newsfeed. I’ve never been much …

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