Photo by Michael Fousert

Every time I open my phone, I see a new post, article or meme encouraging me to start planning for the new year. And although I LOVE planning, I am feeling some resistance every time I sit down to reflect and set new goals. I know it's crucial for me to do so in order to keep building the life that I want. But if I'm being completely honest, there's a little voice that has been popping up in the back of my head, telling me that I'm not capable of achieving my dreams. I don't like that voice. I have to let those thoughts pass by me instead of indulging in them. But that little nagging sense of self-doubt has made it hard to actually sit down and plan for the next decade or figure out the distractions in my life that are making me miserable.

So I did what any socially savvy millennial would do. I turned to my favorite motivational IG accounts to help me transcend this anxiety and remind myself that I'm a queen who will have everything I want in due time. Goodness, I just need to take a deep breath and stop freaking myself out. I've included some of my favorite finds below; I hope these quotes help you feel more motivated and confident as we walk into this new decade. As long as we manage our anxiety and keep cultivating confidence, it's only a matter of time before we make our own dreams come true. Sending you all the love and joy this season. Your support means the world to me, and I never want you to forget that.

Quotes from: bossbabeinc, mindfulheart_, Life of a Single Girl

Getting dressed up makes any day extra special. Although I will always love lounging around in my grey joggers/sweatpants, the holiday season usually provides multiple opportunities to get dressed up and celebrate. Between charity galas, work festivities, friendly gatherings and NYE, the chances to dress to the nines are abundant! And even if you don't feel like getting dressed up and being in a large crowd, it is just as much fun to dress up for an intimate date night at home or invite a few friends over for a dressy dinner party. No one can really judge you for going all out during this time of year. The holidays are meant to be celebrated, and we can do so in a financially responsible way. I rounded up a few holiday accessories and dresses that I have my eye on this holiday season, but tbh, I'll be wearing most of these pieces all winter long for any special occasion that comes my way. Cheers to celebrating the end of the year in style. And thanks for spending a little part of your day with me. Sending you all the love and in the world.


Glitz and Glam Accessories






Glitz and Glam Dresses





Happy Holidays

Photo by Rodolfo Marques

We are one week closer to Christmas, and I am so excited for a much needed break from work. Although we just had Thanksgiving off, because I work in Fashion PR/Influencer Relations, I need to work a little bit every day (including weekends and holidays). To be honest, all of my team members work around the clock. Kind of the nature of the beast for the time being. So I am excited just to be out of the office for a little bit longer. I certainly feel like I'm on the verge of a big burn out, but it's nothing some much needed TLC can't solve.  In the meantime, I'm very blessed to have a happily balanced holiday social calendar with the right amount of holiday activities with friends but also enough solo time for me to work on my blog, set goals for the next decade (because fuck planning for just one year - that rarely works in my favor), reflect on the past year and come up with action plans to make major changes in my life! The system I have going now is not what I want to bring into 2020. Oy, there is a lot to do in the next following weeks. A lot of changes are happening rapidly, but life guarantees change. Nothing we can do but role with it and use it to make us more durable. I hope you can use these next few weeks to reflect as well. I think it's soooo important to make time to reflect, reset and realign with our priorities and values so we can cut out the stuff that doesn't work and add more of what we actually want in our lives. I'm excited to reflect and plan! Maybe it's my type A personality, but whatever. I am who I am. Anywho, below are a few things that stuck out to me on the world wide web this week. I hope you enjoy! 

• Tis The Season: I really want to bake some holiday cookies! And drink wine and watch holiday movies :) 
• Better Safe Than Sorry: This is an INSANE story of a girl who escaped a psycho who tried to hold her captive! This woman is so lucky to be alive but it's also a really important wake up call for why we should all put a little more thought into our actions, especially when it comes to a party or substance abuse culture. It might seem like fun and games all at first, but you never know how quickly something can escalate. This story confirmed my fear of why I have never done drugs and why I never plan to! 
• Little Acts of Kindness: This is the cutest reaction ever! I totally want to do this for my local delivery people! 
• Love Birds: This is for all my friends in relationships. I highly recommend listening to this episode about want matches. It's so fascinating and eye opening! I personally think this is something everyone should listen to if they want to take their relationship to the next level. 
• Self-Love: The Art of Being Single - I really enjoyed this article. Being single during the holidays can induce more feelings of loneliness. Especially if most of your friends are in relationships, because being the 5th wheel is never fun. But I love how uplifting this article is. I like that the universe is essentially forcing me to focus on building a fulfilling life because I have so much time to focus on dance, pole, my blog and mapping out my career/side hustle path so I can make more money. I feel like that has been the biggest blessing of all this year... I just didn't realize it until now. 
• And to piggy back off this topic, I also liked this article about refusing to be sad because we are single during the holidays. I have been pretty sad this holiday season, and at first I thought it was because I don't have an intimate relationships with anyone special... but then I had a really upsetting daydream where I completely relived visiting my dad in him coma every day during Christmas break back in 2014... and I was like "oh, I'm sad because I'm still grieving" and grief is something that never truly goes away. We just get better at learning to deal with it and channeling that pain into compassion for others. Which leads me to why I am LOVING Meghan Donovan's #SpreadKindnessSpreadJoy campaign. I get so happy reading what other people are doing to spread kindness this year. Please, please, please try to participate. If you can. I promise you, doing something nice for someone else is the fastest way to turn your day around! 
• Clean Living: OH MY GOD!!! Please listen to this podcast about sustainable eating and the broken red meat industry!!! I love that they discuss the broken poultry industry as well. Luckily, I've never really been able to digest red meat, but I eat chicken and turkey every single damn day! I know it will be a costly expense, but I only want to eat sustainably raised chicken, turkey and (on the rare occasion) beef going forward. I have also been to the sustainable restaurant discussed in the podcast episode, and I can admit that I didn't feel sick after eating beef like I usually do! It was certainly more expensive... but all burgers in nyc are expensive, so I'm use to it. *chuckles and cries while looking at bank account
• Shopping Addition Is NO Joke! This podcast episode is perfect for this holiday season. Obviously, I have struggled with this… a lot. I have turned to shopping to get a huge rush of adrenaline. But for this holiday season I've only purchased a few things that I truly, truly love. I did drop about 45 things in my shopping cart during the black friday sales... but I only ended up purchasing 2 dresses and 2 headbands! Can I get a round of applause for my restraint! I finally have a much better understanding and more self control, but I could have saved sooooo much money on dumb asss purchases if I had said no to frivolous things and yes to financial freedom (aka savings, investing, travel, etc). I have a long journey to clea
• Get out of debt: I have an intense journey to clean up my mess from over spending, but it's one of my top 3 priorities for the next 36 months. I hope you make financial freedom one of yours too if you're in credit card debt or have student loans! We in this together fam! And ThisArticle Will Help Us Get There! 
• Pop up holiday bars in NYC I want to check out! Thanks Meghan Donovan for sharing this link!