January Favourites

Vitruvi's Pacific essential oil blend - Sunshine has been so rare during this Canadian winter. It's been mostly cold but the worst part is how little sunshine we get. A couple months, Toronto broke records for the fewest hours of sunshine in decades. Vitruvi's Pacific oil blend takes you away from all of this. It smells like the beach and feels like warm sunshine on the skin. Like salt water and sand between your toes. Until our city comes alive again, I'll be diffusing this.

Bullet Journal - I have expressed so much love for bullet journalling and my bullet journalling process. You can find my love for bullet journalling here, here, here and here. I've preached it to so many of my friends. (Actually, I saw a good friend over the holidays and she laughed saying that I had given her my bullet journal spiel last year.) I like how simple the essence of bullet journalling is. I like that I get to design it to my liking and needs. I like that I don't waste space or pages because I get to decide how every page is used. I like that it is a contained space for all of my lists, ideas, notes, doodles, etc. Every year with the start of a new bullet journal, I rediscover my love and appreciation. This year is no exception.

Tombow Dual Brush Pastel Market Set - So with getting back into my bullet journal craze, I watched a lot of bullet journalling videos on Youtube. I noticed a lot of people using Tombow markers. I have a few illustration markers that I use to help with colour coding certain key pages (monthly logs mostly), but my markers bled through the page. Tombow markers do not! I've been using them a bit obsessively. I love how adding a bit of colour to the page can help highlight key information.

Yoga - My relationship with my practice has been rocky. It's not where it used to be, and I miss that. I resent that it isn't where it used to be. I used to have more time. I used to be more committed. This past month, I've been really trying to get back into it, especially with all the extra time I have right now. (Unemployment is good for some things, I guess.) I enjoy using and moving my body. I enjoy the process of forgetting everything for an hour. I like being able to unplug.

Los Angeles - At the end of the month, I went to Los Angeles. It's been five years since I visited. I wanted to get away from the dreariness of Toronto. I wanted sunshine. I desperately needed a vacation. It was what I needed.

January always feels like one of those months where everything is up in the air. Where I'm not quite sure of what's happening around me. I know rationally that a new year symbolizes very little. It can often be a false sense of new beginnings or new starts. Nothing has changed, and nothing will change without continued effort. This is why a lot of New Years Resolution practitioners bother me. Change can start at any point of the year. It doesn't begin with January first. And yet, with the new year, the pressure and desire to reevaluate my life choices are prevalent and loud. I am trying to come back to blank, to zero, to fresh earth. I've been trying to find practices and habits that ground me. Some days have been more successful than others. The process is slow but hopefully steady.