Notes 03.

A California Christmas with my family and easing into 2025

Welcome to Notes, my biweekly round-up of the books on my nightstand, the outfits I’m styling, musings from my journal, and snippets of my adventures around the city.

Happy New Year! I hope you’ve been enjoying a restful last few days. I personally am excited to ring in 2025, but I plan on easing into it (more on that later).

And that’s a wrap on my 2024 reading! I finished my last book of the year, THE MOST WONDERFUL CRIME OF THE YEAR, in the airport as I was heading back to NYC after the holidays. I am planning to share my December reading recap and my top 10 books of 2024, so stay tuned for those posts!

Now it’s time to decide what I want my first read of 2025 to be. I try not to put too much stock into it, but I do like to start the year with a good read to set the tone for the rest of the year. There are a few buzzy 2024 books that I didn’t have a chance to get to, including JAMES, so maybe I’ll start with one of those. I’ve also been craving a bit of fantasy recently, so I might finally pick up IMMORTAL DARK, which has been sitting on my TBR shelf for a couple months.

me and my beautiful mother

I pretty much only packed red clothing for my trip home to CA. Can you blame me? I was in full-on festive mode!

I felt very ladylike in this Old Navy fair isle cardigan and Target bow dress. Also, please clap for me because I only packed two pairs of shoes for my trip- the ones above and my favorite chunky Amazon loafers. Yes I did overpack regardless (there were a few items of clothing that I didn’t wear), but I’m still counting that as a win.

I took my journal with me to California and worked on some very cute holiday spreads while I was home. I’m still behind though and I’m actually planning to spend today catching up on some spreads. It’s been a while since I’ve had time to dedicate a whole day to journaling, so I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m hoping to catch on all of my December spreads today so that then I can focus on setting up my 2025 journal. Which… I haven’t picked out yet. I’m still torn about the sizing, so I want to go to McNally Jackson later this week to check out some journals in person.

One journal that I already know I’ll be using in 2025 is A Prompt a Day which was created by my friend

Kayla Kleinman

. It’s got a prompt for every day of the year and I’m excited to do more reflective journaling in this one.

For my fellow journal people, have you figured out which journal(s) you’ll be using in 2025? Asking for a friend (aka me) as I feel like maybe I need some inspo!

How were the holidays for you? I had a pretty amazing Christmas! My sister surprised my parents by showing up on Christmas day and it was the first Christmas we’d all been together since 2018 🥹 Such a special moment and I love that I have it on video to remember forever!

I love going home for Christmas and this was our first Christmas on the farm. My parents moved during the summer of 2024, so we saw their new home for the first time on this trip. I call it the farm because they’ve got so much more land now and my dad also has goats and chickens!

It was a little bittersweet saying goodbye to the old home (we moved around a bunch when I was a kid, but that was the home we lived in longest). Funny enough though, the new home shares some similarities with the old home, which is nice and made the transition less jarring.

This year I'm taking a slower approach to the new year. Normally I'd be running around prepping and feeling like everything had to be done and ready to go before January 1st. Instead I've decided that January is going to be my reset month. I want to slow down and take my time to plan out my 2025 goals and dreams.

It’s ok that I haven’t picked out my 2025 journal yet. It’s ok that I’m still wrapping up December things. It’s ok that I haven’t written down my 2025 goals yet. There’s still time ✨

Tell me, have you already completed all of your 2025 planning, or are you still working on it like me?