Life In Limbo

One Second Everyday: 2025

January 3, 2026

Today is truly one of my favourite days of the year! It’s the day when I stitch together my one second everyday videos, add some music, and get to watch my year unfold in 365 sweet, fleeting little moments. It always feels so magical, and poignant, and lovely, and bittersweet.

And this year’s video really embodies what I love about this project: it’s everything everywhere all at once. It shows you just how quickly life can change, and just how much life fits into just a handful of days. For example: you see how quickly we go from a gorgeous celebration of love in sunny Jamaica to the sadness of a chilly hospital room to say goodbye to my beloved grandmother. You see (very) hard work days back to back with cute birthday celebrations, and gorgeous cookbook club dinners next to boring days spent at my desk. In a video, it all goes by fast enough to give you whiplash.

But mostly, I just love that this project helps me remember what our everyday life looked and felt like as the seasons changed. Of course it’s fun to remember the glamorous or exciting stuff, but it’s most meaningful (for me!) to see our cozy patio dinners, and ice cream dates, and trips to the dog park, and how the light changed in our living room in the afternoons. As someone with a terrible memory, these glimpses into daily life are what I cherish most.

2026 will be my tenth year (!) of doing this project, if you can believe it. A decade of daily documentation. And even though the videos are sometimes blurry and always very far from perfect, I don’t see myself stopping this project anytime soon.

Happy New Year, everyone! Sending you love & best wishes for an absolutely beautiful 2026.

xoxo,
Steph

PS. This is the app I use to create these videos! If you’re curious, you can watch my previous videos here: 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024.

25 for 2025

February 23, 2025

Much like my 2024 review, this post is very delayed in going up! But I have been working on creating the list since December, so as I write this I have already checked a few things off, which is fun. Progress made, even before I managed to get it posted! 💪🏼 😂

I’m a huge fan of making these lists, because they tend to help nudge me out of my comfort zone to try new things. These are all things that sound fun or interesting to me, or important stuff that I might otherwise procrastinate about prioritizing. What can I say? It’s nice to get an extra gold star for completing things I already want to do. 😉⭐️ I almost never finish the whole list, but that’s not really the point! It’s just fun to track throughout the year.

Donate blood quarterly (March, June, September, December)
Get a massage (at least!) quarterly (~~January~~, April, July, October)
~~Start a local Cookbook Club~~ ✅ We had our first meeting in February!
Take Bruno to Long Point Provincial Park Dog Beach!
Try Maipai Pizza
Go see the lilacs in full bloom at the RBG
~~Go to a Tiger-Cats Game at the stadium~~ We got tickets this summer & it was so fun!
Visit all of the Hamilton Conservation Areas
Learn how to use hot rollers
~~Go to Scandinave Spa~~ ✅ We went in January for our anniversary!
~~Refinish the purple bench on our front porch~~ It turned out so beautiful 💜
Plant flowers in our garden beds for the summer
Get flowers (at least!) once a month
Visit Bron & Alex in the UK
~~Use our gift card to take a flight during peak foliage~~
~~Visit “To Reflect Everything” in Washington Square Park~~
Watch all of a critically-acclaimed TV show
Be able to have a fluid conversation in Romanian with Mike & Cori
Sew another beautiful quilt
Print photobooks of our big trips
Start a coffee table photo album
Take an agility class with Bruno
Eliminate my upper back pain
Go to a cottage in the summertime for a few days
Surprise Wild Card Thing! (to be added as the year goes on)

It feels very fun to finally commit to my 25 things for the year! If you’re interested, you can learn more about the concept of creating a list for the year right here. And you can see my lists from previous years over on this page.

xoxo
Steph

2024 In Review

February 16, 2025

Last year, I wrote that 2023 was my year of rebuilding, and I think that 2024 was the year of settling, of refining, of improving. I started the year with a new home, in a new city, and a fresh new lease on life. There were still lingering effects of the previous few hard years, and I still felt a bit shaky, but the basic building blocks were so much more aligned. I was feeling so hopeful and positive that I was able to come off my anti-depressants, start prioritizing healthy habits, and get more proactive about making things even better.

The theme of the year (looking back now in all my infinite wisdom from January 2025 😉) was “slow and steady”. Nothing changed overnight, but I ended the year with so much more peace and hope than how I started it. I slowly but steadily rebuilt my confidence in myself. We slowly but steadily improved our communication habits and strengthened our relationship. I slowly (and then very rapidly!) started a creative new business that is really lighting me up and growing in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

Of course, there are still (always) areas of my life that I want to improve (my back pain! growing a community! paying off debt!), but it’s really rewarding and cool to see how this year brought my back to myself and my path. I feel more grounded, more centred, and more capable of facing the challenges life may bring. I still have bad days (it’s January in southern Ontario, ffs) but I am so excited for 2025 and beyond, and it feels so good to feel that way. 💖

January

Despite being cold and dreary, as Januaries usually are, this month was really full of love & joy. We really started the year with a bang! First there was Nurture Nurture, hosted at my place in Hamilton for the first time (!), which was so much fun. There is always such magic and synchronicity when the three of us are together, and it was such a nice way to kick things off. Then, Mike & I took a fun little winter getaway to Niagara Falls to see a magic show and marvel at the falls and go antiquing and eat at a kitschy alien-themed diner. Along the way, there were also some nice visits to the greenhouse for some warmth, lots of chilly trips to the dog park, and lots of candlelit dinners. Basically I just tried to get through the greyest month of the year while adding a bit of sparkle.

February

The best part of February was a little girls trip that my friends and I took to Creemore. It was so cold, but we got so cozy by popping around beautiful little shops, curling up by the fire, reading, and taking baths. Mike & I celebrated Valentine’s Day with doughnuts, my mom & I started doing “cooking dates” where we’d meal prep together at her place, and I started lifting weights more regularly. I also was lucky enough to attend a MUCH needed “Thereoke” session at a karaoke room hosted by my friend Julia which was fun and delightful. Last but certainly not least, we ended the month with a very lovely visit from Katie, P and sweet Ro who came to see our new place and eat good food and hang out for the weekend.

March

The biggest event this month was doing The Slowpreneur Retreat, my business retreat for intentional entrepreneurs. We had such a great group, and Sonja made the most delicious and cozy food imaginable. In March I also sewed the Juniper Tank with a bow at the back, which was so fun and rewarding. I started running again (a little) and sat outside as much as humanly possible when the weather allowed. There were tulips, and hikes, and soaking up as much sunshine as possible after some cold, dark months. Then I ended the month with another fun trip, this time to meet up with Katie again in Ithaca to celebrate a full decade of friendship!! It was a very quick visit but we had enough time to go to a Korean diner and gorge ourselves, listen to Cowboy Carter, go to see waterfalls, and talk nonstop. Such a nice way to celebrate.

April

I always have fun in April because it’s my birthday month!! And this year was particularly fun. For my birthday weekend we had a delightful visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens with my mom & Grandma, and spent the day doing some of my favourite things, like going to the beach and getting Hutch’s, even though Bruno was being crazy and the food took forever and it was slightly too cold to sit outside. 😂 Still a great birthday. The day after that we got to see the eclipse in all its glory because we were right on the path of totality, which was such an incredible and amazing experience. Then we launched into yet another fun weekend – a combination of a birthday trip for me and attending the wedding of one of Mike’s good friends. We got to stay at a great hotel (we got a winter special deal) for a fabulous dinner and breakfast in bed, then headed to NOTL to go to the spa and have an amazing time at their lovely wedding. We were pampered indeed! The rest of the month was quiet, but we had a very fun murder mystery-themed FamJam and I made a point of seeking out cherry blossoms anywhere & everywhere I could find them.

May

We started off the month with one of my favourite parts of the year: Nurture Spring. It was a weekend of beauty, blossoms, and delicious food, and I was so grateful to be part of it. We went swimming in the (cold!) Lake Simcoe and got to play with flowers during one of our workshops, which was a delight. May was also the month when we started being outside so much more! We hung up ferns and string lights, planted flowers, got a new outdoor table & chairs, and had our first of many dinners out on the back patio. We went to visit the HMCS Haida for the first time, and had a date night at our fave, Princess Point. Both were so much fun. We celebrated my grandmother’s 95th birthday and spent lots of time at The Hideaway, and generally just enjoyed the good weather by checking out new patios, soaking up all the sunshine, and admiring all the gardens and flowers in our neighbourhood for the first time.

June

This was a cool month because it was a bit of a turning point for me. I realized that my long-held desire to take photos professionally (which I’ve had at least since graduating university) was not going away. Business was slow and was my work was not feeling very good to me, so I thought: why not try? That month, I offered to take pictures for free at an event I was helping out at, and offered to do a free engagement shoot with one of my sisters, and a brand shoot with the other. Looking back, it’s amazing how quickly I launched into action after deciding! Also in June, Mike and I headed to our fave little tiny cabin campground to spend a weekend…though sadly, it was pouring rain incessantly almost the entire time. Still, June is one of my favourite months and we spent the rest of it going out for ice cream, taking Bru to go swimming (including at a dog-friendly pool!), walking in the creek, eating cherries on our patio, celebrating my sister’s engagement, and reading lots of delightfully summery books.

July

If I like June, I like July even better! And this July was particularly fun because in addition to all the other fun summery stuff we did (going to the beach, watching the fireworks, swimming at the local pool, going to the drive-in movies) we also went to NYC! Mike had been before but only on a whistlestop tour, so this time we made sure to see more of the city, including walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, frolicking along the High Line, and most importantly spending several hours in the mecca, B&H Photo. We had so much fun and ate so much good pizza. Once back, I also had an absolutely fabulous “birthday day” planned by Sonja where we explored the cutest darn parts of Guelph and culminated the day at the RBG to see Donovan Woods at one the most beautiful concert venues I’ve ever been to, on an absolutely picture-perfect night. Core memory.

August

August was full of so many fun things! One of my favourite memories is going to Art Crawl with Mike for the first time. It’s a fun & vibrant street festival here in Hamilton that happens on Friday nights, and it’s a party. We got to wander and explore and just had the best time doing it. We also went rock climbing for the first time at our local gym! I took Mike as a surprise for his birthday and we’ve gone a few times since because it’s so much fun and a great team-building activity. We did a bunch of tweaks around the house, including rearranging Mike’s office into a much better layout, building shelves for our armoire, and organizing a bunch of nooks & crannies. And last but most certainly not least, we capped off the month by helping out at and attending Sonja & Josh’s wedding on her parents’ family property! It was an intense weekend (we were filming all day in addition to all the other food prep/flower prep/decor prep work!) but so much fun and culminated with our favourite event of the year, Sip & Sip. This year we were all so tired that we barely said two words the entire float, but the whole weekend is such a good memory. To cap off the month, I did Lin & Peter’s engagement shoot, which I think singlehandedly launched my photography career.

September

So many things happened in September, it’s hard to keep track. We attended Dylan & Matt’s incredibly fun wedding and had an absolute blast. I did a fun, colourful photoshoot for Bron’s cake business. Katie came to visit the same weekend that Mike’s aunt & uncle arrived from Romania, and the same weekend as Super Crawl, the more intense, weekend-long version of Art Crawl that is even bigger & better. That was such a fun weekend and we also tried Cowabunga for the first time (yum). We spent a lot of time in September hanging out with Dana & Fane and taking them to see interesting places, the most interesting of which being our trip to Calgary, Drumheller & Banff! This was a pretty last-minute trip and it had its logistical challenges, but in the end was absolutely incredible. I had never been to the Rockies before and was absolutely, positively, completely and totally in awe the entire time. It was magic.

October

The sightseeing continued this month, as did the photography! We took the relatives on a boat cruise on the tall ship Kajama, to our old stomping grounds in High Park, to see the leaves changing at the Kortright Centre, and of course to the CN Tower for dinner & views of the city. We also took them to my family’s annual Pumpkin Carving competition, where Mike and I took home third and first place, respectively! 😉 Throughout the month I was also doing photoshoots! I did my first-ever paid photoshoot with Kim (😭) and a beautiful engagement session with Julia & Shain (😭 😭 😭). I gotta tell you: the learning curve was steep, and I quickly realized how much I did not/do not know, but I also have to say that actually getting to take pictures and share them and make people happy was such a joy. Then perhaps most delightfully, we had our third-annual Romance Book Group Reading Retreat in October at an absolutely stunning Airbnb complete with patio hot tub. We went kayaking, ate good food (and junk food), and did a perfect amount of co-reading on the sunniest, warmest, most perfect fall weekend. It remains one of my favourite traditions of the year!

November

The highlight of November is always Nurture: Fall, and this year was no exception. We had beautiful weather and some really fun workshops, including natural dyeing and hand-building ceramics. I had a wonderful time, as I always do. Also in November was lots of great family time, including a French-inspired feast at my dad’s, and a birthday celebration at my mom’s, complete with the most delicious carrot cake you ever did see c/o my sister’s bakery business. We also had fun making winter planters, which I’d never done before and really enjoyed. Those were the highlights, but I also had a few great coffee dates with pals, a fun time at FUNTO with Julia, and capped off the month with my most fun brand photo session so far.

December

Last but not least, December was a delight. So much good family time, including playing hooky with my mom and sister to see Wicked, going to see Come From Away with Bron and getting drinks with Linnie afterwards, decorating the tree at my mom’s, going to see Winter Wonders at the RBG, and having a sisters dinner to ring in the holiday season. I also took Sonja on a delightful birthday treat day to St. Catherine’s, Niagara Falls & Niagara on the Lake and we had such a great day together (minus the chocolate factory tour, lol). And of course we had some lovely holidays all together, complete with our third-annual Christmas Trivia game that I love to design & host. We also got to go to a fun wedding shower for Julia & Shain, and then rang in the new year at home with Bad Santa and a lovely snacky spread. It was a really nice holiday season overall, even though I was feeling less festive than usual. I still enjoyed spending time with loved ones & honouring our traditions.

Firsts of 2024

First time seeing the Rocky Mountains
First time being paid to take photos
First time eating at Hutch’s
First time seeing a total solar eclipse, absolutely incredible
First time riding those city scooters
First time learning to arrange flowers and work with leather
First time getting hanging baskets and planting flowers
First time exploring the HCMS Haida
First time learning flash photography
First time shadowing a wedding photographer
First time going to a dog swimming pool
First time visiting Letchworth State Park
First time at B&H Photo
First time on the Brooklyn Bridge Carousel
First time seeing a concert at the RBG
First time at Art Crawl & Super Crawl
First time learning how to belay at rock climbing
First engagement shoot + first brand photoshoot
First time hosting Mike’s family in Canada
First time seeing (very faintly, but still!) the Northern Lights
First time making a winter planter basket
First time having dinner at the CN Tower

2024 By the Numbers

Meditated 256 days of the year for ~39 hours and 17 minutes (since March 1, 2024)
Walked an average of 7511 steps per day (or 2,741,515 in the year)
Read 65 books over the year
Did some kind of movement 233 days of the year
Wrote roughly 34421 words in my book Slowpreneur (currently on pause)

My Word of the Year: Strength

Honestly, compared to most recent years, I’d say this word stuck with me quite a bit in 2024! My goal was to increase my mental & physical strength after a period of feeling a bit wobbly, and I think I did so. I did a lot of strength-building workouts, literally, thanks to my newfound fave Nourish Move Love, and I found that being strong physically helped me feel better about things mentally too. I felt a LOT more settled in our home and neighbourhood, which went a long way to stabilizing my mood, building better habits, and taking better care of myself. I also think that Mike and I strengthened our relationship and communication habits quite a bit, learning better ways to deal with conflict and in general just be more supportive of one another.

There were certain things I had hoped to do to strengthen my community here in Hamilton that I didn’t get a chance to, like starting a Cookbook Club, but what’s fun is that I’m starting it this month instead! Which just goes to show me that I’m feeling strong enough to take on the challenge of putting myself out there, creating a fancy dinner party, doing “extra” stuff that will make life feel a little more special. It’s really nice to see it in myself.

As I write this, it’s a snowstorm and I’m getting over a really nasty cold and the start of 2025 has been fairly brutal, so I’ve had a few wobbles again these last couple months with my mood. But it’s nice to reflect and see that even with those wobbly bits, my foundation is actually stronger than ever. I’m proud of myself for how I’ve been working to take care of myself better and set up habits and routines that help me feel more grounded. All in all, I’d say that Strength was a perfect intention for me, and really paid off.

When I started this post, I did NOT intend to be finishing it mid-February, but like I said above, the beginning of this year has been pretty full-on and a bit stressful. So even though this is definitely not my usual or ideal timing for writing my end-of-year reflections (lol), I’m just glad to have done them at all. Sometimes that’s just how it goes, I suppose! Better late than never.

For me, the best part of writing a year in review is getting to zoom out and see the big picture for a while. Individual days can feel like an absolute slog, or totally boring, or (on occasion) put you in the depths of despair – it is February, after all. But looking back on the year as a whole, it sparkles. I remember all the fun patio dinners we had, all the coffees on the new-to-us front porch, exploring the beautiful nature around our new home, cuddles with Bruno, cuddles with Mike, quality time with friends & family, flowers and sunshine and good books galore. A year is a long time and has so much room for magic. Cannot wait to see what 2025 has in store for us. ❤️

xoxo
Steph

PS. If you’re curious, you can see more of my year-end reviews here:

2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011

2025: Tender

January 5, 2025

In 2025, I’d like to be more tender: with myself, especially, but also with my partner, with my loved ones, with the world.

One of the biggest, worst changes in myself that I’ve noticed over the past few years is my slow shift into negativity and harshness. I can blame this on a lot of things: the pain and fear of the pandemic, the anxiety of living above awful neighbours who woke me up every morning by screaming at each other, having a sweet but frustrating puppy who made everything harder for a long time, the deep fog of depression I fell into while living in a house and city that felt isolated and misaligned, the long painful slide into not taking care of myself on the whole. All of these things were real, and all of them took their toll.

As I write this, I am so happy to say that overall, I feel pretty far removed from all of those hard things, and feel more like myself than I have in recent memory. We have a beautiful apartment in a lovely neighbourhood, our puppy has grown up into a (mostly) well-behaved dog, I’m closer (literally and figuratively) to my family & friends, and I’m taking care of myself again in so many big and small ways. I feel mostly quite good, hopeful about my new career path of photography, and positive about the year to come.

And yet! The negativity of those hard years has lingered in sneaky ways. Somewhere along the way, I started talking to myself in a really mean way, like I never had before. Sure, I’ve historically thought less-than-ideal things about myself, my body, my life over the years. Who hasn’t? But this new tendency was different: more cruel, more insidious, more yucky. It was also pretty casual: I’d slip into saying that I was an “idiot” for something super minor, even out loud around my partner. I’d beat myself up for thinking bad thoughts or not having a great day. The comparisonitis to other people got so loud and out of control that I could spend days with an emotional hangover from comparing myself to someone I perceived to be doing better than me. None of this felt like a big deal at the time, or even like it would make a difference in how I was feeling, but I can’t deny that the impact has cumulatively been very nasty. It’s manifested in lower self-confidence, more anger & sadness, more stress and pain.

So even though it felt easy and natural (and even weirdly “right”, when I was at my lowest) to start talking to myself this way, it is proving very difficult to stop doing it. It’s become a habit, and like all bad habits, it’s very hard to break.

When I asked myself what I needed more of in 2025, the first thing that came to mind was better self-talk, being nicer to myself, treating myself with more kindness. And that is true. But if I’m honest, it’s not just my self-talk that has suffered. I think my temper has gotten shorter with others. Sometimes my tone isn’t as calm or kind as I’d like it to be. I’ve become more judgemental: because I’m more judgemental of myself, I’m more judgemental of others. (Ain’t that the truth?) I’ve become more gossipy, more resentful, more impatient.

It’s not just my self-talk that needs to change, it’s my entire orientation to myself and to the world.

So here’s what I’m calling in for 2025: more gentleness. More kindness. More positivity. More tenderness.

Any of those words could probably have worked for this year (gentle was a very close second!) but I’m going with tender because it feels the most evocative to me. I soften immediately upon even just thinking the word. While ‘gentle’ seems to embody a way of acting or doing (which is lovely too!), I love that one can simply feel tenderly towards something, or someone. We can hold someone in our hearts with tenderness, which implies sending them love, feeling fondly towards them, and thinking kind thoughts about them, without even having to do anything specific to show it. That tenderness can be felt, both through the ether and in person. And I think tenderness leads to gentleness: the more tenderly we hold ourselves and our people, the gentler we will be with them.

But in action, too, I want to be tender. Treat myself tenderly. Treat others tenderly, especially my little family. Try to see people with the eyes of tenderness and care, rather than judgement or impatience. To treat something tenderly is to treat it as precious, I think. So this tender orientation to the good things in my life will (I hope) remind me of the precious love, and joy, and goodness I am so lucky to have.

Tender

affectionate or loving, gentle or kind; showing gentleness and concern
delicate or soft in quality or tone
that requires careful handling
careful, considerate
acutely sensitive, as to pain, insult, etc.
something offered, especially money, as in payment

Synonyms: delicate, gentle, soft, caring, compassionate, romantic, thoughtful, sensitive, adoring, soothing, mellow, cash, money, offer, give, proffer

Intentions

Spot the Success: I really believe that healing my self-talk is going to be the most important factor in bringing more tenderness into my life. The way I talk to and treat myself will inevitably filter out into how I engage with the world around me. So this year, one of my daily habits is “Spot the Success”, an exercise I learned from a book I read towards the tail-end of last year, The Self-Talk Workout. The idea is to make a list of ten things every day that you did that were positive in some way. She talks about how, when our self-talk is overly negative, making a gratitude list doesn’t really help you feel better. You can be abstractly (or even profoundly!) grateful for the things in your life, while still thinking you suck/you lucked into them/you don’t deserve them, etc. Instead, we have to force our minds to seek out the good things that we are responsible for, even if they’re very small or indicate the absence of something (ie. “I didn’t pick that fight when I easily could have”). I’ve been doing this for just five days now and it already feels so good. It feels like I needed to give myself permission to look for the good things, almost like I wasn’t allowing myself to acknowledge the good before because it didn’t feel fully true or authentic to the awful ways I was feeling, or because the negative things just felt realer and more urgent. But by flipping this and starting with the positive, I feel so much better. The negative stuff is still there, of course, but at least the positivity has a fighting chance now to push back against it. It feels good to list my accomplishments each day and give myself some credit for them.

Tone: I know that my tone can get harsh or just blunt, especially if I’m tired or hungry (which is frankly quite a lot of the time). I want to work on keeping my tone of voice positive and light, especially with my partner and dog. Because even if I don’t actually feel as gloomy or cranky as I sound, the way I say things matters just as much as what I’m saying. Mike is very sweet and sensitive to my moods, and it affects him if I sound agitated, impatient, or (in my worst moments) rude. It’s not always easy to keep my tone positive, but I really want to work on it. This will also mean working on the things that erode my ability to keep my tone light, like sleeping & eating (see below).

Judgement: Just as it’s dangerous to let myself off the hook of needing to be kind to myself, it’s dangerously easy to let myself slip into judgment and negativity about others. I love to gossip, and I think it often serves a legitimate purpose (both to share important information, and as a way into discussing and examining our own values), but it’s also far too easy to let my negativity take over. I can get judgy, saying snarky things or spending way too long diagnosing why things are going wrong or right for others. It’s a waste of time! It’s not nice! Everyone is fighting their own battles, and who am I to judge them for it? One of my favourite ever pieces is ‘This is Water” by David Foster Wallace, and I want to get back to living out its ethos: having deep compassion, understanding, and grace for the people around us, rather than harshly judging them or imagining ourselves above them in some way.

Mindfulness: I’m proud to say that I did a lot of meditation last year, and I’m eager to keep it up. I use and love Insight Timer and have been doing more of their guided meditations in recent months. Looking ahead, I want to try to stick to my daily meditation practice, folding in more loving-kindness meditations and ones that focus on self-compassion. Speaking of which, I’d also love to dive deeper into the work of Kristen Neff and read her books, as well as any other books on self-talk and self-kindness that I can find.

Bruno: This dog brings so much love & joy to my life, but I can admit that I can also get pretty frustrated with him. There are certain skills that he never fully learned (read: I never fully trained) that can lead to bad behaviour and stress for us both. Namely: walking well on a leash when excited, coming back when he’s called, and not acting like an absolute lunatic around water. Part of treating Bruno with tenderness is remembering that he’s not acting out or being naughty, he is simply doing what he has learned to do or was literally born to do. After all, there’s no such thing as a bad dog! So to improve his behaviour, I have to improve mine, and my training of him. This year, that means working on his leash training, recall, and water sensitivity more actively and consistently, so that daily life can be easier for all of us.

Tender Loving Care: I want to embody this particularly when it comes to my body. As I write this, I am nursing a minor neck injury that has caused me a lot of pain and suffering for the past couple days, so I’m currently very aware of how debilitating pain can be and how my health really is so precious. I built some good habits in 2024, like near-daily movement (including way more strength training), better sleep habits, less screen time (thanks to Opal), and a more regular eating schedule (intermittent fasting is NOT for me). I’d like to keep up with these habits this year, and bring in even more mindfulness in how I listen to my body: what it feels like eating, how it feels like moving, when it feels like sleeping.

Beyond the biological basics, I’d also like to bring more TLC in how I care for myself in subtler ways: taking the time to get dressed in a way that makes me feel good, learning to do my hair in fun ways, giving myself treats and pampering whenever I can. And of course, I also want to bring TLC to all kind of other things too, like doing sweet things for my partner, creating new traditions with my family, and bringing surprise and delight to my friends.

Money: I love picking words with multiple meanings, and you’d best believe I’m excited that ‘tender’ also means cash money, honey! Money has been a sore point the past few years (my business and bank account both suffered when I did) and I’m carrying some credit card debt that I’d like to be rid of. I’d also like to focus on manifesting and working to bring in more income overall: both to help me with my debt payoff, and also to help plan for our future goal of having a family. My new photography business has been pretty successful so far (yay!), so I’m feeling hopeful about being able to bring in more money in the year to come.

That’s a lot of words, but it felt healing to even write this and acknowledge how much I want this negativity to shift. Things are better, but if I can’t truly feel that they’re better, or appreciate that they’re better, or be kind to myself as they continue to get better, what difference does it make?

I can’t tell you how good it feels to think of this coming year as a year of tenderness. A year of softness & kindness, gentleness and care. I know it might be painful too (choosing a yearly theme always means also revealing all the ways you’re blocked, inside and out, from living that way), but the idea of tenderness feels a lot like a failsafe. So long as I’m tender, I can handle whatever hurt, sadness, or fear come my way. I can learn from my mistakes without worrying they mean I’ve irrevocably messed up. I can let things go. I can let myself grieve or suffer without adding harmful narratives. I can be gentle and sweet with myself and my inner child.

If I’m being honest, I can’t wait to start living like this. Let’s begin!

Love,

Steph

PS. If you’re curious, you can explore all my past words below: