the 14 in 2014.

As a lover of lists and resolution making and goal setting, why not make a list for 2014? I did pretty well with my 12 in 2012 and 13 in 2013, which were two lists to finish off the years with.  This year I'll try to start with something to live out the year in.

1. find adventure.  Like eating at new places.  Going to museums like I always say I will but don't.  Or like ride my bike. Did you know I have a bike?  I forget I have a bike sometimes, actually.  Every time I ride a bike, though, my heart is happy.

2. have a normal sleep schedule as often as humanly possible.  As I get older my lack of sleep and strange sleep schedule really affect my body.  When I was sleeping at sunrise and waking up at sunset, I felt like death. My body did not like that at all.  In contrast when I go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 9am, my body and my soul is happy. very happy.

3. read. It shocks me that I only just discovered a love for reading in the past ten years.  I'm not one of those kids who loved to read.  Not at all.  I'm not sure I even enjoyed being read to.  But I always get excited to read nowadays, and I hope that as life gets hectic I'll make time to read.  I was pretty disappointed to learn that I read less books in 2013 than 2012, so with 2014 I want to make up for that and get to my 52-books-in-a-year goal.

4. pursue God.  holla. While this is always my goal, I think I'm at a really good place in my life where I can really utilize my faith in all aspects of my life.  So I want to be extra aware of opportunities to glorify God.

5.  savor the end of my 20s and rock the beginning of my 30s. I had a pretty good last half of my 20s.  (It took the first half to figure out how to enjoy the last half.)  But, I'm incredibly excited to turn thirty in less than three months!

6. take more pictures. I've become pretty horrible about this.  After going on a cruise with my sisters, I realized how little pictures I took.  They, on the other hand, were a little picture crazy, and I'm so jealous of all their pictures. I wish I had snapped my camera as much as they did.  They did such a great job taking pictures of the little fun things on the cruise.  So I want to make more pictures. for sure.

7. choose "true".  Being that true is my "one little word" for 2014, I want to go about my days and find opportunities to find true and to understand what true means to me. (and yes I know that truth would have been grammatically accurate but true is my word and I'm sticking to it!)

8. stay organized.  In all aspects of my life… my room, my business, even my desk and my nightstand.  I feel so happy when I'm organized.

9. get real with myself.  I have this idea of what I'm am but am learning that that idea isn't always accurate.  For instance I claim I don't get stressed.  I actually don't get stressed very often, but I do get stressed, and while I usually pretend I'm not, this year I want to acknowledge when I'm stressed.

10. be at peace. Philipians 2:4-9  Last year was pretty hard for me.  I'm honestly still trying to adjust to life since my mom passed, and I'm certain there's still a lot of adjusting left to do.  Through it all I want to find peace.  I want find myself at peace with my regrets and decisions and be able to truly move forward.

11. allow myself to feel.  Culturally, I think Asians feel a lot of guilt.  For some reason it's engrained in my mind.  So naturally, I feel guilty about my emotions.  I feel guilty for feeling sad and happy, so that doesn't leave me with much.  I want to be okay with feeling sad and happy and joyful and confused.  To remind myself that it is even okay to feel all those emotions at once.

12. focus.  I multi-task like crazy.  But I want to focus on focusing in 2014.  I want to give certain things my full attention.  muy difficult.  I'll work on it.

13. go outside. I can spend weeks indoors (working).  It helped to have a friend who always wanted to go on adventures, but now that she's moving and many of my other friends are having babies.  So I have fewer reasons to leave the house. So I want to make sure that without these reasons, I still leave and explore and work outside of the house.

14. find inspiration. Inspiration is kind of a necessity in my line of work.  But I pretty much forget that inspiration is equally necessary in life.  I want to remember to always look for inspiration, to find happiness in small opportunities, to see God in all things, to feel alive… that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as feeling inspired goes.  Along with finding inspiration, I want to live a life and be a friend who inspires others.  Here's to 2014.

* the picture above is taken of Disney's private island, Castaway Cay, in the Bahamas with my Fuji x100s (an amazing travel camera)