It's Been A Year! 2023 In Review

I cannot believe that I have not actually posted a blog post in over a year. I definitely feel like I worked on some posts that just never went live and this year I am going to be better. I am determined to stop self-sabotaging in terms of any form of content. Anywho...SO much happened in the last year that I can't wait to catch you up on and more exciting news for this year!​

     Honestly I'm not even sure where I should start haha. 2023 was an absolutely unreal year and I still can't quite believe all the things that have happened. I suppose I should just start at the beginning of the year and walk you on through!

     So last January marked my last month at my old job, which was definitely a hard decision to make but it was the closing of one door, so that a new one could open. Reason being, my husband and I bought our first house! When we got married in September 2022, we had absolutely no idea that a house would be so near in the future. We definitely thought that we were going to stay renting our townhouse for another couple of years. So when we realized that we could in fact, purchase a house, we jumped at the opportunity. It really felt like it was meant to be because we only spent 2 weekends house hunting before we put in the offer. It meant moving north of the city (and closer to the cottage!) which is why I had to leave my job. There was no way you could convince me to drive *minimum* 1.5hrs in one direction to get to work each day. 3-4 hrs in the car on top of teaching a full day...oh HELL no. I finished up the month and it gave me the chance to spend the majority of the month of February packing up our house.

     So February was an absolute whirlwind and I genuinely needed every minute of that month because we still weren't quite ready to move on moving day haha. I KNEW I had a lot of stuff, I have never denied that fact (or been able to avoid that) so I really did purge a lot of stuff, but there was still more... So much more that our move actually took us 2 full days and 2 UHaul trucks...whoops...THAT we didn't expect. We had all hands on deck with the majority of family there to help (several extended family members too) to both load and unload the truck as well as fill their cars up to drive to our place. Tensions were definitely running high and I was losing it, BUT we managed. Scott, my dad and I did the second day of moving just ourselves and Scott's bestie helped unload at the house as I drove with my car full loaded after cleaning the house. Man were we EXHAUSTED. I hate moving. It never gets easier, you just can't win haha.

     We adjusted into home ownership, handled a couple snow dumps and near the end of March/beginning of April I was beginning to worry about a job. Teaching jobs are not something that are always open to apply for, there are certain windows of time where applications are accepted and I was waiting patiently. I did contemplate going back into retail if it was taking too long because I obviously wanted to help contribute to our house lol. Lo and behold, applications for the school board opened up, I scored an interview and then proceeded to panic. Thankfully it went well but I had to wait a couple weeks for references and such to go through before the final verdict - that was the longest 2 weeks of my life. But in the end I got the congratulations email and cried. I had now achieved two things that I desperately wanted to accomplish, buying a house and landing a teaching job in the board. Completed the onboarding process and began supplying May 1 through the end of June. I was going between the same 3 schools during that period and at the end of the school year there were Long Term Occasional positions that I decided to try for with very little expectations, I had been with the board for 2 months, and didn't think that I would even be looked at. WELL I was wrong!

     End of June brought the opportunity to teach a full-time equivalent for all of Semester 1 (Sept.-Jan.) and I was nervous but thrilled. I also took a course over the summer to help me with future job opportunities so that kept me busy. Other than that, summer was summer. Celebrated turning 32, spent time at the cottage, spent lots of time at home just enjoying the space and we had a number of family and friends over for various 'housewarmings' which was lovely. I was so excited to be able to host and have the space to do so! If you've watched my Townhouse Tour you'll see that we only really had the living/dining room to host and it was pretty cramped with too many people and dark. That was probably the biggest difference for us (that we STILL comment on nearly a year later) that we have so much natural light in our house, it's crazy. As usual I feel like summer disappeared rather quickly and soon it was back to school.

     I won't go into too much about work, but I will say that I absolutely LOVE the people that I work with. They are all so awesome and helpful and really made me feel at home. One of my department heads also coached girls rugby so I spent the first 8ish weeks of work helping coach girls 7s, which I had no experience with. I played 15s when I was in grades 10/11 but haven't touched a ball or pitch since then; there was definitely a learning curve with the team consisting of half of what I was used to, so that was a fun experience. Our season didn't end quite how we'd have liked but the girls got over it. We got custom hoodies which was great, it will be a nice memory for me when I leave the school. 

     September was also Scott and I's first wedding anniversary, which was lovely. We had a great Sunday together and wrapped up the evening by watching our full length wedding video. I shared the shorter video on NYE last year that you can check out. We also decided that we were ready to start trying for a family. I thought that I was going to have to do some persuading but was pleasantly surprised when he was all for it. Well...later that month, on the 27th to be exact, I found out I was pregnant! Oh my gosh was that a whirlwind of a day. If you'd like to hear more about that you can watch this video and see how I felt that I might be pregnant. I am going to do some baby blog posts as I'm currently half way through! I hit 20 weeks on January 13th and can't get my head around that this is happening. So more stuff on that to come, but if you just can't wait then you can watch my most recent video which was Recapping my 1st Trimester. 

     Soo....2023 was full of pleasant surprises. Buying our first house, landing my dream job and starting our family! If you'd told me on my wedding day that ANY of those were going to happen in 2023, I would have laughed at you. So to have all of them come true was mindblowing. I'm building my understanding of manifesting, but I truly think this year showed me that I can get a lot done when I put my mind to it. So I'm hoping to do more justice to manifestation this year and am currently reading the book Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life by Roxie Nafousi. 

     Alright, I'm going to love you and leave you for now. I am manifesting a more consistent upload schedule to the blog, but you can catch me on YouTube every Tuesday and on Instagram the rest of the time. I hope that you're new year has started off strong and that all your dreams come true for this year. I'd love to celebrate your accomplishments from last year, so leave me a comment below on something you were proud of (even if it was just surviving the year).