As I sit here, writing this post on the eve of a new decade, a new year, a new month, I am exhilarated and inspired by all of the limitless potential and opportunity. Truthfully, the start of a new year is always one of my favorite times of year.

November is understandably a time when many of us make it a point to reflect on what we’re grateful for both because of Thanksgiving and because we’re nearly done with the year. With this in mind, I wanted to present my idea for a Gratitude Reflection Challenge that I wanted to participate in but also wanted to share with my readers and followers.

August 13 is National Prosecco Day! Prosecco, for the uninitiated, is a sparking wine variety from the Veneto region of Italy. While your typical champagne is produced from an assortment of grapes, Prosecco is derived from Prosecco (a.k.a. Glera) grapes.

Of course, I begin each week with the best-laid plans, but life happens and the things I intend to do each day or during the week sometimes get pushed off the priority list. When this happens, I go back to the tasks that help set me up for success, and this typically happens on Sundays.

It’s been a while since I’ve shared one of my Amazon hauls, so I’m back with a summer travel edition that I hope will turn you on to some great products. Also, Amazon Prime Day is coming up soon, so here’s to hoping some of these products go on sale that day!

So sorry for the unexpected hiatus, but as you’ll learn in this post the last several months have been consumed with a lot of work. This is a long one, so be prepared to take a few minutes to get through it. And at the end of it all, I hope you’ll share your thoughts or questions with me. Thanks for reading!

I committed myself to reading more in 2019. In the vein of simplifying, I wanted to fill my free time with more enriching activities than just watching TV or scrolling my phone. I decided 4 books per month (one per week) would be my goal for this year. This is what I’ve been able to read or listen to in 2019 so far.

I LOVE Instagram Stories, so I decided to write a post about my favorite apps for producing novel Instagram Stories and the ones I get the most DMs about!

Choosing a word of the year has been a ritual of mine for three years now. But I found myself feeling pretty burned out by the last quarter of 2018. Therefore, I decided “simplify” would be my word in 2019. With those feelings in mind, I gave serious thought to my planner system at the end of last year and whether or not it was helping me in the way I intended when I chose it.

One thing I’d like to do for my readers and followers is to regularly share content from outlets and blogs that I follow and believe in. Many of these sources receive daily or weekly visits from me and have helped me grow my knowledge in so many different areas. Here are my recommendations for required reading this week.