2016 ended my freshman year of college successfully and kickstarted my sophomore year. Here’s a recap of my favorite moments from each month, with my 2016 year in review!

January

-I started the second semester of my freshman year and felt more at home than ever at the University of Kansas

-I got to witness one of the best games in college basketball (in Allen Fieldhouse!) with KU beating Oklahoma 109-106 in triple overtime

-I got to meet Jay Bilas at College Gameday (thanks Dayton!) and made a video and blog post recapping the experience

February

-I went to Snow Creek for a sisterhood event with my sorority

-I had the official launch party for Spoon University, a food blog that I was the editorial director of until July

-I attended several basketball games

March

-I got accepted to KU’s graphic design program (even after making the application literally a day before the due date)

– My roommate Jordan and I took our friend Kelsey to her first Sporting KC game

-I made a video about my relationship with my mom in ADPi

-I celebrated Easter with my family

April

-I went to my first sorority formal

-I posted about my freshman year dorm room

-I ran my first 5K

May

-I rebranded my blog (and spoiler, it’ll be happening again next year)

-I survived my first year of college!

-I went to Dallas on family vacation

-I attended my first USMNT soccer game

June

-I got to return to one of my favorite places on earth (summer camp) as a counselor for the first time!

-I wrote a blog series about sorority recruitment 

July

-I celebrated the 4th of July, my favorite holiday

-I started making my monthly recap videos 

-I did my first ‘adventure hunt’ with my parents and got hooked…I’ve done three total this year!

-Second adventure hunt with my parents and roommate Jordan

-I went to my first USWNT soccer game (and it was way more entertaining than the men’s game…)

-I celebrated my 19th birthday!

August

-I photographed my second wedding

-I returned to KU for sorority recruitment, on the other side this time…

-…and I made it to bid day!

-I started my second year at the University of Kansas

September

-the KU football season started again

-I made my September recap video

-I got my awesome little, Emily (see any resemblance?)

October

-I went to Mallard ball, an ADPi date party

-I collaborated with one of my favorite photo printing companies

-Brad Paisley came to KU and gave a free concert

-My sorority won homecoming!

-I went to my first Ben Rector concert

-I made my October recap video

November

-I got to witness KU beat Texas in football and it was glorious

-I had Thanksgiving with my family

-I made my November recap video

December

-I moved one room down, from 3 to 5 in ADPi

-I finished my first semester of sophomore year

-I visited Boulder, CO with Jordan and my friend Jayden (who lives there)!

-I celebrated Christmas with my family (excuse the look on my black dog’s face haha)

Overall, I had a great 2016 and can’t wait for more!

xo, Hannah

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adjective grate·ful ˈgrāt-fəl

feeling or showing thanks : feeling or showing thanks to someone for some helpful act

As I’m a little over 2 weeks into the new year, I’ve thought of several different resolutions that I could take up, or ways I could make 2016 the “best year yet.” I’ve decided that labeling 2016 as the year of grateful is a good way to do that. In 2015, and several previous years, I’ve always just gone through life not really acknowledging all that I have and all that I’m blessed with. I haven’t recognized how great the opportunities are that I’ve had and will have, and now’s the time to be grateful, to say thank you.

I found this comic below through Facebook originally and instantly related to it. I know I’m definitely the ‘sorry’ type of person and I tend to apologize for things that don’t need a real apology, just a thank you instead.

While it could also be seen as a resolution, I plan on trying to journal my thoughts each night and evaluate my gratefulness. Even if I feel like I have an awful day, there’s probably a friend in there that simply took the time to say hi to me, or a great meal at ADPi, or a good grade that can let me go to sleep a happier person.

xo Hannah

If you haven’t read last week’s post yet here, read on!

WEEK ONE RECAP:

 Meditate for ten minutes: this one was tricky. I’m always struggling with the whole ‘let go and relax’ concept, because I’m naturally used to always thinking. I think I lasted eight out of these ten minutes but it was definitely peaceful with the right music on! I put on Spotify’s Piano Moods playlist and the first song that came up was “The Twins (Prague)” by Max Richter. I used what’s called the ‘tensing method’ to meditate, starting by tensing the muscles in my toes and working muscle by muscle all the way up to my head. Not sure if this helped me fall asleep faster though, like it was supposed to.

Add an extra vegetable to your plate: I failed this one. It did motivate me to put lettuce on my ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, but I’m not really sure that counts.

Wake up earlier and get a head start to your day: I woke up earlier..but I fell back asleep. Failed this one too.

   Add 1,000 extra steps to your daily goal: I’ve recently lowered my step count to 8,000 with the intent of working back up to 10,000. I had written in my journal at about 3pm that I was going to fail this goal, but my competitive side came out. I walked to the golf course where I work in a vain attempt to at least get to 8,000, but that only pushed my step count up to 4,000. At 9:30 I turned on Netflix before going to bed, then realized I could be walking while watching it on my phone. I paced back and forth in my bedroom watching Netflix and reading articles appropriately titled, “I’m Addicted To My Fitbit.” Eventually I reached 9,000 steps. (Proof on the right.)

Go for a fifteen minute walk outside: I arrived at my church camp on Saturday, so this one was easy to accomplish. I walked up to Inspiration Point with my friends, a gorgeous place to worship at camp. It’s far enough away from the city that you can see all the stars and I took my camera and my tripod in an attempt to take pictures of the stars–this was the night that the Bethlehem star was supposed to be shining! While I didn’t see the Bethlehem star, I got this picture instead by opening my 50mm lens all the way up to f/1.8 and manually focusing to infinity. 

Getting this photo was a total fluke. I just used a long shutter speed of 30 seconds and kept the camera steady on my tripod so no shake would happen. Once we got back to the cabin, I was looking through my photos and found this shooting star! This photo with the trees in it was way more interesting than the ones of just the sky. I definitely want to try more of these!

Stock up on healthy snacks: This was an essential before leaving for camp, a place where everyone usually ingests junk food and candy like it’s air. My friend Madie and I (remember her?) went to Target to buy snacks for our room and our small groups before, and I found these: Simply Balanced Dried Mango. These are SO GOOD and filling! This brand is great because normally I can’t have dried pre-packaged snacks due to my allergy to peanuts and tree nuts, but these worked perfectly.

Go to bed fifteen minutes earlier: Long story short, I spent most of this day in the hospital due to an unfortunate run-in with my allergy. So while I slept in my own bed that night and did go to bed earlier, it wasn’t because of this challenge. I’ll have a post up later on how serious this is, because some kids just don’t get it (and while I don’t expect anyone without an allergy to understand, there’s no harm in education).

Thanks for reading!

I’ve never been great at the whole ‘being healthy’ thing. I usually don’t drink enough water, I don’t exercise consistently–pretty much the closest thing I am to athletic is the fact that I wear running leggings instead of normal ones because they’re thicker. But who says I have to stay like that?

Fitbit recently released a Healthy Habits challenge on their blog, focusing on four categories: stress, nutrition, sleep, and fitness. Instead of following the challenges all in order like they did, I’ve assigned myself a mix of the four for each week, starting today and ending July 21st.

WEEK ONE:

• Meditate for ten minutes
• Add an extra vegetable to your plate
• Wake up earlier and get a head start to the day
• Add 1,000 steps to your daily goal
• Go for a fifteen minute walk outside
• Stock up on healthy snacks
• Go to bed fifteen minutes earlier

WEEK TWO:

• Drink a cup of tea
• Drink a glass of water before each meal
• Avoid eating for 2 hours before bed
• Exercise for fifteen minutes
• Listen to music that makes you happy
• Put your meals on a smaller plate
• Lower the temperature before sleeping

WEEK THREE:

• Do an equal breathing exercise
• Keep half of your plate green
• Do yoga before bed
• Walk/bike two miles
• Write about your day in a journal
• Replace candy/sugar with fruit
• Drink 64 ounces of water

WEEK FOUR:

• Take the time to socialize
• Do 50 crunches in the morning
• Take note of portion sizes
• Exercise for a half hour
• Stretch at your desk
• Skip all screen time for one hour before bed
• Go for a walk on your lunch break

I’ll be sharing results after each week and telling you if I succeeded, failed, liked it, disliked it, and so on. There’s enough days in this challenge that if I stay consistent, I can do this rotation again throughout the summer and finish right before I move in for college. Wish me luck!