Nine New Things | Edition 6

Nine New Things is a series of short and sweet posts sharing current inspiration, future plans, what I’m up to at home, and more. You can see other editions here.

Let’s dive in!

1 | I’m so excited to share that we officially booked our next big trip: Alberta, Canada! We’re going to split our time between Calgary, the town of Lake Louise, and the town of Banff. Our general idea is to choose one main activity per day – an exercise I began a few years ago to try to come at trips in a less intense way (lol) but even more important now that we have Margot – and a few things I’m really looking forward to are seeing Lake Louise and Lake Moraine, visiting Calgary’s Central Library, doing a tea house hike, and driving part of the Icefields Parkway.

2 | In my last edition of Nine New Things, I shared that I was hoping to take a December day trip to New York City to see the Christmas decorations. I ended up going with my brother and sister-in-law and we had such a festive day! I’ll share our walking route on the blog later this year.

3 | Also with my brother and sister-in-law (plus my mom) I visited Ice Castles in Lake George. The week leading up to our day trip was unseasonably warm and we were not feeling overly confident that the castles would be at their best. I didn’t love it as much as I was hoping to – if it took place nearby I’d be more inclined to go in the future, but likely wouldn’t make the big drive again – but it was still a fun day out with family.

4 | While so many aspects of being a new homeowner have been exciting and satisfying, I won’t lie – there’s a part of me that struggles with being patient and accepting that not every project can be done right away. That said, it is so nice to have a few areas feel more like home as we settle in, and I love having a gallery wall in my office again.

5 | A huge home win was repainting our entire family room – half TV area, half play room – including this fun brushstroke accent wall on the built-in bookshelves.

6 | Next up: I’m trying to puzzle my way through creating this geometric painted wallpaper and it’s currently 50/50 (60/40?) whether or not I’ll actually be able to accomplish it. Wish me luck!

7 | Dan and I enjoyed checking out this 18-panel mural by Ally Walker while picking up takeout from Pastabilities. I’m excited to check out more Syracuse street art the next time I’m there.

8 | For the past year, I’ve been working on a huge blog audit encompassing every single post I’ve written. After being notified that I was almost out of storage on my hosting plan, I realized that a) I had been uploading photos to my posts that were way too big and b) WordPress was automatically creating multiple copies of every uploaded image in multiple dimensions, resulting in hundreds of unnecessary copies just sitting in my files, unused but taking up tons of space.

I won’t go into every detail here because it would likely bore you, but if you’re a fellow blogger with questions, feel free to send me an email! Long story short, I have been going through post by post and repopulating them with properly sized images that don’t have redundant copies.

It’s been a journey and I’ve messed up along the way, making even more work for myself sometimes, but I’m finally almost done and I could not be more excited. As frustrated as I feel when something goes wrong on my site (especially when it’s a mystery), it’s brought me so much peace and joy as a creative outlet over the years, and it feels good to do some important maintenance and learn more about how it works on the back end.

9 | From the archives: Koh Yao Noi: An Island Away from the Crowds

What’s new for you these days? Let me know in the Comments!