Twenty-sixteen has been a great year, especially for the blog! I feel like this is the year where I finally started to find a blogging schedule that worked for me. Looking back, there were a few little breaks towards the end of the year when I was starting out at my new job, but I’m not upset about those. I think little breaks are necessary sometimes and are good to come back motivated and energized.

I also feel like my content has really improved this year. While most of my posts are usually personal, I’ve tried out some variations of how I write these. Some are more poetic, some are more of a narrative, some are just like I was talking to a friend. I’ve had fun playing around with my writing and I think that it’s made my content more interesting for my readers as well.

This year I’ve also really enjoyed all of the new bloggers I’ve met and friends I’ve made. While I do a little dance at the end of the year for my achievements, I also do a little dance for all my fellow blogger friends and all that they have done this year. While not all my readers blog, I love catching up with you guys and your lives. So keep staying awesome.

Looking Back

My Favorite Posts this Year

• These Hands – an overview of Andrew and I’s relationship through our hands. This is one of the more “poetic” posts I mentioned earlier, but it’s my favorite one from this year. I hope I’m never too mushy on the blog, but I feel like this one hits my feelings on the head.
• define: Home – written right before we moved from Kansas City to St. Louis. What I had traditionally considered my home before was changing and evolving, and I explored what home means to me now.
• Rock Mountain National Park, Colorado | Day One – this was the first day on our spring break trip to Colorado. We visited parts of Rocky Mountain National Park and my car broke down.
• Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado | Day Two – our second day in RMNP, we took my poor car to a mechanic, but still managed to have a lot of fun at a mini golf course and squeezed in some more views.
• A Letter to me at 18 – written right before I graduated college in May, this is a letter to myself right before I would have started college. I gave myself advice and encouragement, and told myself a lot of the things I wish I would have known beforehand.
• Daytona Beach, Florida – our summer vacation to Daytona Beach.
• When It’s Time to Go – one of the hardest posts I had to write this year. I narrated the day that I had to put my nine-year-old dog down and I every time I read it I cry.
• #Goals – I talk about my goals in life and how hard it is for me to come up with measurable, attainable goals.

Most Popular Posts

• Decorating my Cubicle at Work – I share how I turned my former overwhelmingly white desk at work into a space with more color and that felt like me. This one was really fun to write and put together!
  
• These Hands – I’m glad this one made the top-viewed list because I loved this post, so I’m glad that you guys did too
• The Job Hunt Begins – a post about when I started looking and applying for full-time positions. I’m kind of surprised this one is on the top but that could also be because I consider this one of the harder parts of the year for me.
• Chilly so Chili (A Recipe) – I share a recipe for spicy chili perfect for the cold weather (and how much I hate cold weather).

Looking Forward

Around the end of the year I also always get the urge to clean stuff up on the blog – I call it winter cleaning. As I’m looking back at the previous year, it motivates me for the next year. I always want to start the new year with a fresh and updated blog, ready to go!

Most of these things you might not notice just passing by, but if you want to check it out, here’s what I’ve updated:

About page – I’ve updated little pieces throughout the year, but it really needed an overhaul. I added more pictures and tried to be more descriptive about myself since this is where people go to learn about me I took some stuff off and just overall cleaned it up. I think it looks quite a bit better now!

Links – updated some links for those of you who have moved domains and took some inactive bloggers off.

Sidebar – I haven’t been a college student for six months so whoops! I updated my description.

Broken Links – cleaned up and down to 0 broken links (for now at least!). Broken links I swear are the bane of my existence.

There is always still room for improvement, but I am satisfied with the improvements I’ve made thus far. I’m also excited for some new topics that I’m going to introduce in the new year and hopefully I can keep up with all of my ambitious ideas!