Making last month’s floral arrangement! A hobby that’s been of interest for a while now. We used the gorgeous new book ***Flowers By Design*** to help guide us.

It’s a full week into the new year, and, barring the fact that parts of my brain are still convinced it’s 2019, it’s been a pretty good week.

So far this year,

Matt turned 31
We added two kittens to our family, Rye and Barley (here’s the adoption story for you!)
We’ve only had one bottle of wine
& we’ve started a new habit of playing chess

A pretty good week to start off what will hopefully fingers-crossed-salt-thrown-behind-my-back-knocking-on-wood be a pretty good year. It doesn’t even need to be very good! Even just regular good would suffice.

We don’t typically make New Years resolutions or outline personal goals for ourselves (and this article in The Atlantic titled ‘Resolutions Are Not the Vibe for 2022’ made me feel way better about that), but we do often look back at the past year and think of all the ways we made dumb dumb mess ups and how to not do that again. For 2021, I think the biggest screw up was burning out. Eye roll. Like, yes, everyone’s burnt out, but we could’ve avoided the level of burnout we reached if we’d paced ourselves a bit better. Between wrapping up Housewarming, renovating our home, trying to get back into our pre-pandemic fitness routines and some semblance of a social life, and doing all of our brand work, somewhere along the way we got completely frazzled and lost track of priorities as every day turned into completing whatever immediate tasks needed to be completed.

Coming from a freelance / small business background, our mentality for so many years has always been to pile on now and figure out how to make it happen later, but that’s not the vibe any more. We’re planning to be more intentional (and realistic) when it comes to timelines for our home renovations, which brand partnerships we can comfortably pursue, and ensuring we have time to do all of the stuff we love to do, like gardening, and testing out new recipes, and, hell a new hobby of creating floral arrangements. Prioritizing well-being and happiness over any sort of tangible “progress” is the loose not-a-goal goal.

What about you? Are we happy with the first week of 2022? Are we setting goals or ~ intentions ~ or vibes? And if so, what are they? We used to say comment below but most people just dm us about anything we write here so feel free to do that :)

As for what we know the year has in store for us, there’s the release of our book, Housewarming (which you should 1000% preorder if you’re into that kind of thing) we’ll finish—yes finish—renovating our home, we’ll continue to be the best dog dads to Fox and learn how to be the best cat dads to the new kittens, and, maybe just maybe there will even be a long overdue wedding.

As for the rest, we’ll fill in the blanks along the way.

Thanks for joining us over the years, or if you’re new, thanks for being here. We’re looking forward to tackling 2022, whatever it may bring, together with you.

xoxo

Beau & Matt

Hello, 2022