Your Yearly Reminder to Stop & Savor.

I write some version of this post every year, and just like always, it's just as much for me as for anyone who may read it. 
Here we are, less than two weeks out from Christmas. Things tend to start to get a little hectic around this time, so I wanted to drop in with my yearly reminder for you to slow down and savor.
'Tis the season for gifts and parties and lots of plans, yes. It's also the season for joy and gratitude and wonder. Don't lose those last three because you're so caught up in the first three. 
Joy and gratitude and wonder are all free, but you have to look for them. And, in my personal experience, it's a lot harder to find them if you're running around at light speed trying to do all the things. 
So this week, slow the heck down for a minute or two and just savor the good things around you. Listen to your favorite Christmas music. Actually look at the Christmas lights in your neighborhood instead of just rushing to get home so you can rush to the next thing. Don't run yourself so ragged that you arrive at Christmas day exhausted and stressed over how much money you've spent. That's no way to start the new year. 
This time of year is beautiful and special for so many reasons other than what you can buy or what you have to do. So don't miss that! 
Have the best day today. Do yourself a favor and savor the week, okay? Love you, mean it. 

Here's Your Reminder to Stop and Savor.

Hi, you. 
You, thriving in the holiday hustle and bustle. Or you, overwhelmed by the chaos. You, so excited that Christmas is in two weeks. You, feeling behind and like you haven't even started the season yet.  Wherever you are, here's your reminder to slow down, stop, and savor. 
Whether this season is everything you hoped it would be or looks nothing like you wanted it to, it's still your holiday season. And it's worth savoring, even just for a minute. 
While you're buying gifts (cheerfully, or frantically), savor the fact that you have relationships in your life that are Christmas present-worthy. When you're driving home from a night full of errands (always chaotic this time of year), savor the coziness of pulling into your neighborhood to see houses lit up with lights. 
Savor the feeling of plugging in the Christmas tree before you turn any other lights on. Savor how your favorite Christmas song makes you feel. Savor the feeling of laughing at Elf, or Home Alone, or The Grinch. Curl up with a blanket and some hot chocolate and take a second to just be happy that it's Christmas. 
Every moment won't be perfect. You'll still have moments of being tired, or overwhelmed, or disappointed, or fill-in-the-blank. But this season, this cozy, beautiful, bright, wonderful season, will be over before you know it. So before that happens, take a second to slow down. Look around and savor it while it's still here. 

Savor the Season, However it May Be.

October, November, December. Ninety-two days of pure magic. And, as magical days tend to do, they fly by. 
Last year around this time, Christopher was gone, and it sucked. Plain and simple. But I told myself that I really wanted to savor my favorite season, even if elements of it did suck. Even if I was by myself, the season was still worth savoring. 
So that's what I did! I lit pumpkin candles in the morning while I read. I baked apple treats, even though it was just me who would eat them. I listened to the Autumn in New York station and wrote a lot of blog posts. When I look back on that time, even though it was one of the hardest times of my life, I'm so proud of myself. I know myself, so I knew that being 6 months pregnant and being alone would likely mean watching Netflix in bed and eating cereal for dinner for two months, and I decided..nope. It's still my favorite season. I'm still going to savor it. 
That taught me so much about myself, and now that Chris is in residency, I see how valuable of a lesson it was. It taught me to savor the season, however it may be. 

Savor the season, however lonely it may be. 
Savor the season, however rushed it may be. 
Savor the season, however different than you imagined it may be. I think money plays a huge part in this one. Throughout the year, when we think about fall and winter and all of the holidays, we imagine our ideal circumstances. Pretty decorations and fancy parties and perfect gifts. Then the holidays roll around and, would you look at that, there was no surprise giant influx of cash out of nowhere. You may not have money for new decorations for fall, or new dishes for a Thanksgiving meal, or lavish presents for Christmas, but you still have the season. So savor it. 
Savor the season, however hard it may be. 
Savor the season, however stressful it may be. 
Savor the season, however boring it may be. 
However imperfect it may be. 
However short it may be, however long it may be. 
However tiring, however overwhelming. 
However, however, however. Savor, savor, savor. 
And then, on the days that are close to perfect..the days when your vision of your season comes briefly to life, the days when the get-together turns out perfectly, where your pumpkin cupcakes actually taste like they're supposed to, when you have enough money to swing by Starbucks, when you plan an outing to the pumpkin patch and it actually happens...turn on some Frank Sinatra, pour yourself a pumpkin coffee, and savor those, too. Because they will surely fly by.  

Look Around, It's All For You.

When I was younger, the winter Olympics were my favorite thing for one reason and one reason only: The iceskating. I loved watching the girls (and guys too, I guess) spin around in their sparkly outfits, dancing and gliding on ice effortlessly to popular songs. I can remember twirling around in my room after watching them, falling asleep promising myself that I would take up iceskating one day. Spoiler alert: I have gone iceskating a handful of times, and none of them have been particularly successful. It just wasn't meant to be.

I can remember one night of watching in particular, where a very young-looking girl did an incredible job, earning her a near-perfect score. The crowd went wild, and people began throwing roses and teddy bears onto the ice for her, chanting her name and cheering. She shrieked in excitement, got teary-eyed, waved at the crowd, and then quickly skated back over to her little dugout (or whatever the iceskating equivalent is).

Before she could step off of the ice, though, her coach stopped her and turned her back around. She gestured towards the dramatic, cheerful scene unfolding and whispered something to her. I'm not sure what all she said, but the camera got close enough to make out the words, "Look around at all of this. It's all for you." 

As the girl turned to really take it in, she collapsed into her coach's arms and began sobbing. The crowd continued cheering even more, and even though I was just a little girl, I cried, too. It was such a beautiful scene, watching someone achieve what they had worked so hard for. Hearing the crowd chant her name in a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

That scene has stuck with me. Every now and then I think of it, and it gives me goosebumps. Sometimes it even makes me cry again, so many years later. Because it reminds me so much of life. How we can sometimes just rush through our days, giving everything a quick once-over before moving onto the next thing. How we sometimes let huge successes in our lives slip by unnoticed, because we still have so much else to do. How we turn our backs on incredible beauty and gifts-the sunrise and laughter and summertime and good music-the entire universe cheering us on, chanting our names, throwing roses at our feet-because we've forgotten it's all for us.

Look around. Stop and take in how breathtaking the sunrise can be. Close your eyes and soak in the way the wind feels against your skin. Throw your head back and laugh with abandonment when you feel joyful. Literally stop and smell the roses. Celebrate your successes. Appreciate the feeling of the grass under your feet. Take a day off and hang out by the pool and enjoy how good life truly is. Your life. The one full of beautiful things that you are currently living in.

Look around, it's all for you.

It's Going to Fly By.

This year will fly by. Whether you stop to take it in or not, whether you choose to be thankful for it or not, whether you live each day to the fullest or not. There are 365 days in 2016 (21 of which have already come and gone) that are going to pass, whether you cherish them or ignore them.

So cherish them.

The holidays come with a sense of urgency, with the desire to take it all in, to cherish it all, to live in each moment and make time for what is most important to you. It is exhausting, but it is full. Then real life must begin again, and in the midst of it all-in the midst of going back to work and being forced to wear real clothes instead of pajamas and making resolutions and eating healthier and getting life back on track-the desire to savor, to stop and take it all in, quietly disappears. The second Monday of the year doesn't feel worth cherishing, the third even less so.

And before we know it, we will be nearing the end of 2016, saying things like, "I can't believe it's almost 2017! The year went by so fast!" And we will make promises for the next year of our lives-still high off of the Christmas music and kindness and twinkling lights, we will promise to cherish each day we are given.

That moment will be here before we know it, but at the same time, we still have an entire year to live in before then. So live in it. Soak it all in, even the mundane Mondays. Cherish the new experiences and the same old ones you've grown familiar with. Make time to spend on those who are closest to you. Do whatever it is that makes your soul come alive.

Because the time-the brief, long, magical, mundane time-between now and next year is going to pass whether you take the time to notice it or not. So notice it. Stop and take it all in. You'll only ever see it just this once.

Ps: Please understand I may be a bit slow in getting back to you as I'm either about to have a baby//currently having a baby//have just had a baby. I wanted to keep things going on my blog, but it may take a bit to get back into the swing of things since I'm, you know, bringing a human into the world and all. xo

Nothing Inspires Me Quite Like Fall & Winter.

If I had to choose a way to describe life right now, I think I'd say in love. Or maybe enjoyed. Or I'd choose content. Or savor. Or possibly inspired. 

I am just so in love with life right now. I'm in love with Chris being home, and I'm in love with getting to spend so much time with him.

I'm so enjoying how the weather is, how I've been able to break out the boots and sweaters. Only for like an hour in the morning, but still...I'll take what I can get.

I'm so content with where I am. There's so much up in the air right now, like: Where will we match? Will we be happy with it? When will the baby come? What will life be like once he gets here? Will we be able to make everything work? Regardless of the uncertainty, I'm still so perfectly content with this stage. It's unlike me, but even though I have zero of the answers, I have so much peace.

I'm savoring every moment. After spending so much time away from Chris, I'm soaking up even the normal moments as if they might be snatched away from me at any time. And really-isn't that how we should always live? I'm savoring the mugs of pumpkin spiced coffee, the early mornings snuggled under the covers, the nights spent watching movies and feeling the babe move all around, knowing that pretty soon, he'll be moving out in the world with the rest of us.

Being pregnant is hard-for real, it's really freaking hard work-but I'm still savoring this season so very much.

And absolutely nothing makes me feel inspired quite like fall and winter. The scents, the weather, the tastes, the colors, the coziness. The happiness of all that this fall means to me. I just wake up every day feeling so thankful, and so inspired to just live. Sure, sometimes I wake up in pain, or on the verge of throwing up, but even then-I'm still so inspired by this beautiful season.

What's inspiring you lately?