Something I want to do in this brand new year: keep an ongoing list of my “favorites.” I think it does me good to notice what is good and what truly lights up my days and weeks.
My 2024 list - not kept in real-time, surely lacking some key things, and not in any particular order - looks like this:
tanking down a river with Brian, the kids, our sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, and nephew. I know this was not a “favorite” for all involved, but it totally hit all of my key goodness factors - outdoors, sunshine, relaxing, family, and laughing.
along the same vein was our one and only camping night of the year. I had such high hopes of several smaller camping trips in 2024 and then we somehow got to the end of the year with only one overnight trip. Still, it was a highlight for me and makes me want to try for more again in the new year.
Friday afternoons and evenings. We almost always have a “Friday Afternoon Club” followed by homemade pizza and a movie. I genuinely look forward to this every week we are home.
my summer uniform. I found a black tank top (from the boys’ section at Walmart!) that fit me just right. I bought five or six and wore one plus a pair of shorts 90-95% of the days this past spring and summer. I loved that I didn’t have to think about what to wear, but still felt good in what I was wearing.
strawberries and lettuce! I am still a much better flower gardener than a food gardener - but it was a true joy to step out the front door and grab things that could be added to our meals. Bonus - the strawberries are perennial and require essentially no work.
our second stay at an airbnb in Kansas. We hit the airbnb jackpot with a house that has lovely modern-ish aesthetics, sunlight, a hot tub, sauna, and weight room. We stayed in the same house in 2022 and loved it - so we went back for round two and it was just as good as we remembered.
A new (to me) chocolate chip cookie recipe that is just so good. Here’s the link. You should make it too!
hiking at two nearby state parks. I took the kids by myself a couple of times and we went as a family a few more times.
rereading The Book Thief and Cutting for Stone. I have a list of about ten books that are my favorite, favorites. These two are among them and rereading was a delight.
hours upon hours spent playing Ticket to Ride. This game arrived at our house as a Christmas gift at the end of 2023 and was played countless times.
our air fryer. This was also a 2023 Christmas gift. We bought the biggest one we could that would still allow room for the coffee pot to sit beside it on the pantry shelf. I don’t know how we ate before it arrived. It has truly been a game-changer. (This is the one we have.)
finally rearranging and decorating the basement. We had our basement finished almost 13 years ago. In all those years, it was very “brown.” As Brian says: it has now been brooke-ified with color and art. And I finally like to be down there.
road-tripping to the beach in Alabama. We had never taken the kids on such a long road trip and I was a little nervous about how it would go. But it was so much fun. And the beach + family + wedding joy just added to the goodness.
summer mornings. Almost every morning found Brian and I up around 5am, rucking our way around the neighborhood, and then returning to the back deck to do Bible study and work for an hour or so until the kids were up.
going on “screentime dates” with Brian. The kids aren’t quite ready to be left alone for more than twenty to thirty minutes. But we’ve discovered we can leave them for a couple of hours on weekend (or summer) afternoons if we leave right when they start their screen time. It feels like a whole new era of life!
our new church small group. We started meeting weekly in October and it’s been wonderful. We love these extra people we get to make a part of our “family,” and the weekly rhythm has been really good, too.
Wow! That list ended up much longer than I anticipated when I started writing.
I love that it has already informed many of our plans for this new year. And if you noticed an outdoor theme - so did I . I am definitely returning to the “1000 hours outside” project again in 2025!