See ya, 2014!

Hello! I hope your holiday was relaxing! I've been taking a bit of a break from the computer since Christmas; working on a few projects around the house, reading books (just started Julia Child's My Life in France and I'm loving it), reorganizing my workspace, and thinking about my goals for 2015. I love this time of year because it feels like I have a chance to take a breath and regroup. This past year has been a crazy one! Thanksgiving marked the 1 year anniversary of when I quit my day job to pursue my dreams of self employment, so I pretty much started 2014 with a blank slate. My life has changed so much in the past 12 months and many of the transitions weren't easy. Things didn't always turn out as I'd hoped and I spent quite a bit of this year being hard on myself, thinking things like, "I should be further along by now." But looking back, I can see that I really have come a long way, even if I didn't end up where I thought I should be. I jumped head-first into lots of new (and sometimes scary) situations and put myself out there more than before. I've stepped out of my comfort zone too many times to count and some really good things have come of it.

I'm not writing this to give myself a public pat on the back, but more to encourage you to appreciate how far you've come this past year, too. Maybe you, like me, haven't quite reached all of the lofty goals you made for yourself this time last year, but if you've taken steps in the right direction that's something to be proud of, too.

Happy New Year, friends! I'm excited to start in on a whole new batch of challenges in 2015 and approach my small business and blog goals with new enthusiasm. I'm not going to stop setting big goals, but I will work on being a little nicer to myself in the process.

*Photo of Ann Miller via Valentino Vamp