Archives for December 2012

2012 in Review

December 31, 2012

Wanna know something dorky about me? This was possibly my favorite post to write all year. I just love looking through old posts and pictures and reminiscing about what happened this year. I hope you enjoy it too!

January started off with an impromptu makeover for Stripes and Polka Dots. I completed my New Year’s Resolution to eat salad for lunch everyday for a month, and took advantage of the mild weather by going on a lot of walks.

I started Tips for Better Blogging AND Share Your Sketchbook in February! We got our only snow day of the year and I visited my college roommate in Delaware. I also wrote a post about my family, which is one of my favorite posts ever.

In March we went home for spring break (and I had some great guest bloggers while we were away!) I spent a weekend doing touristy things in DC and blogged about our DIY wedding invitations.

April took us home for good for the summer. We spent Easter by ourselves in Lexington. I also visited my brother in Richmond, and had you guys introduce yourselves.

In May I went to Business with Intention. I got to spend some time working in the yard with my mom, and we celebrated Mother’s Day.

I went to Blogger Blitz DC and we attended Brian’s cousin’s wedding in June. I published my first in this place post and went through a little outfit post phase, and shared my thoughts on ad swapping.

In July I wrapped up Summer in the Arts and we celebrated Brian’s birthday. We had a laid back Fourth of July, and I shared my summer desk situation.

We started off August in the Outer Banks (and I had another great group of bloggers hold down the fort while I was away!) We later headed to New York for our one year anniversary, where I got to attend AltNYC. After that, it was back to school! You guys gave me some feedback, and then I relaunched my blog!

In September we got settled back into Lexington, my parents came to visit, and I started the Channeling series.

I turned 24 in October. Brian’s parents came to visit, I went to homecoming at my alma mater, and Brian went on his first flight. I also revisited our old Halloween costumes, since we didn’t dress up this year. (And can you tell that I got my iPhone at the end of the month? Here’s where the Instagram pictures start.)

I had lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. I also decided to start an email newsletter in November, and reformatted Starred this Week to accommodate my massive collection of Instagram pictures.

December was crazy, but puppies and Christmas were the highlights.

Fun Facts:

Most read post: 12 Great Google Web Fonts

Biggest traffic month: December

Top referral site: Pinterest (these last few are all related- this pin went viral in December!)

Twitter: 710 followers (I had 80 last year!)

Pinterest: 3957 pins (that means 1901 this year!) and 35 boards (6 more than last year!)

Facebook: 310 likes

Instagram: 91 photos, 193 followers

Whew! If you made it through to the end, you are amazing! I can’t thank you all enough for your support this year. I can’t wait to see what 2013 brings for us! Happy New Year!

Did you write a post like this? Leave the link in the comments- I love reading them! If you want to keep going, check out 2011 in Review.

Starred this… Month

December 28, 2012

I feel like having Christmas fall on a Tuesday makes it hard for my brain to comprehend how much time we have “off.” Since it’s Friday, it feels like the week of vacation is over, but then I remember that things don’t really resume as usual until Wednesday. Anyone else having this problem? Maybe it’s just me and my weird brain.

Even though I’ve been doing more work this week than I had hoped, I did get to take off Wednesday entirely. I literally did nothing. It was amazing. Yesterday I got to see one of my friends from college who is in the Peace Corps and came home to visit from MACEDONIA. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen her, and it was wonderful to catch up.

Today I’m doing a little work and I’m about to go heat up this strata that Brian and I made for Christmas breakfast. Who wants to take bets on whether it will heat up well or not? Then this afternoon we’re doing a little post-Christmas family get together with Brian’s family.

Since I was lax on my links this month, I decided to just go for it and cleaned out my Google Reader this morning so that I didn’t miss anything. What was your favorite blog post from the holiday season?

starred this month

As this hectic season wraps up, I’m convinced that we need this more than ever. Who’s with me?

What will you stop doing in 2013?

If you need a laugh- because I think Santa photos are hilarious, too.

This discussion on contracts is super helpful and couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me!

I absolutely love these quotes about gratitude.

Whoa. Talk about fairytale wedding.

Love these ideas about blogging.

Sometimes not doing is an achievement in itself.

in case you missed it

Branding for Tickled Peach Studio.

Making some big changes in 2013.

Design breakdown for Holly Mathis Interiors.

My 10 favorite things about Christmas.

Some of our holiday season this year.

Pictures from Christmas.

Christmas 2012

December 27, 2012

This year we celebrated Christmas Eve at Brian’s parents’ house, and then Christmas at my parents’ house. Brian’s dad’s birthday is on the 24th, so it was nice to get to spend the day over there. My mom hosted a big dinner for about 25 people on Christmas day, like she did last year on Christmas Eve.

I documented the heck out of Christmas last year, and it actually came in handy because this year my mom spent a lot of time looking at the photos to remember how she decorated. This year she asked me to do the same thing, and I obliged by taking photos before people arrived, but once they got here… well, you’ll notice that my photos are rather devoid of people. But here’s what the decorations looked like.

And because I didn’t take any pictures of food, we had the same turkey dinner as 2011, plus ham and white cheddar mac and cheese. It was nuts! But it did make for some nice leftovers. For dessert we had pumpkin pie, a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, brownies, sugar cookies, and scotcharoos. Again, craziness.

How was your Christmas, friends? How does your family split up the holiday? I’m always curious to see what other families do!

It was the week before Christmas…

December 26, 2012

I hope you guys had a very Merry Christmas yesterday! Ours was nice, but kinda crazy and it feels so good to have nothing to do today. While it’s still fresh, I thought it would be fun to spend some time documenting our Christmas season on here this week.

This Christmas season was the busiest that I can remember. And I don’t mean that in a “we were so happy to have fun things to do every second” kind of way- I mean that it was a race to the finish between work and finishing up all that had to be done. I didn’t mail my Christmas cards until Christmas Eve! (more on those later) But amongst the craziness, we were able to fit in a lot of fun things.

On the 18th Brian and I went to see The Killers with my dad and my brothers. It was my third time seeing them an they were awesome. They seem to get better and better. Even if there were some crazy people on the floor with us, we still had a really good time.

Brian and I have this tradition of going to this particular shopping center before Christmas and looking at the Christmas tree and the gingerbread village. We weren’t able to fit it in last year, but we did this year. It was really fun- we did a little shopping, went out to dinner and got dessert, too! We even got to pet a Great Pyrenees that we saw walking around (we’ve already discussed that I’m kinda obsessed.)

We still celebrate Christmas with both sides of my family, so on Saturday we did an early Christmas celebration with my dad’s side of the family. Dinner was delicious, and for dessert my mom made individual chocolate souffles and my aunt made some amazing cupcakes. I got the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook AND What Katie Ate– I love them! I’ve been drooling over the pictures, but I’m excited to actually make some of the recipes- maybe that will jumpstart my cooking a little in 2013!

That’s all for now- I’m hoping to document more this week. Tell me friends: what are you up to today? Brian is working, but I’m taking this week off to regroup. I’m hoping to make some goal lists and maybe start a new book today!