29 Faves for 2024

Time, boundaries, and seasons are all very meaningful to me. In that spirit, I don’t often begin my true reflections and mental list-making until the year has TRULY ENDED. “Top 10 Whatever” lists that come out in early December make me wonder- what gems are these writers missing out on that have yet to occur in the next 3-4 weeks?!

Now that we are finally officially in 2025, I have spent the past couple of weeks compiling the things, memories, and moments that made my 2024, and I'd love to share them with you, in all their ramble-y, non-organized glory:

1. Living in my Own Home. My family and I spent the entirety of 2023 living with my mom in a small but serviceable apartment while we did MASSIVE renovations to our 1888 house. It was supposed to be a 6-month renovation that ended up taking about 18 (complete with a GC change in the middle), and let me tell you the feeling of relief and joy that came with that first night actually sleeping in our own bed in our own home: unrivaled. Some highlights of making ourselves at home: Making tea in our coffee station each morning. Cozying up on our giant sofa in front of a fire each night. Making cocktails from our bar and putting on a record (bottles and records were in storage Purgatory for far longer than we would have liked). Opening up my wardrobe to more than the 20-or-so items I thought I would need for a 3 month stay at my mom’s. Having full reign of our own bathroom for as long as it takes to get ready each morning.  

2. This Year’s Superbloom. These past few especially rainy winters have given us the most magnificent spring blooms! Truly, starting in February last year, the yellows and oranges came in strong, then the blues and purples that followed through April or May gave me so much inspiration for my own yard and garden, which is my current home project.

   
   

   

3. Dinner at The Harbor House Inn. For our anniversary this year, we went to the Harbor House Inn for dinner and a stayover. It wasn’t our first time, but was still such a memorable experience. I love most of all meals that are a strong representation of place, and Harbor House goes so far in this regard as to serve the lichen that grows on the trees in their backyard. Since it’s just a 10 mile drive north up the coast from us, this also represents the place we actually live, reinvigorating my love of this place and reaffirming our romantic notion to move up here despite the challenges we’ve discovered. This 2-Michelin starred restaurant is pretty remote, but in such a beautiful place- come eat here, and then come visit us when you do :)

4. Rediscovering Lord Huron. I’ve always been a sort of fan, but this year I went REALLY deep on his Long Lost album and oh man, EVERY. TRACK. HITS. We had it in nonstop rotation on the record player, and got lucky that he was headlining a small one-day music festival in Healdsburg over the summer (with another fave, Andrew Bird!) We took Elias for his first real concert experience and met up with friends and just had a blast. Here’s hoping the Bloodroot Ramble comes back in 2025!

5.  La Ultima Palabra. Regaining access to our liquor cabinet came with re-experimenting with new cocktails, and especially trying to find new ways to enjoy the sizeable stores of Mezcal that we still have left over from our 2022 wedding. Enter La Ultima Palabra: Mezcal, Lime Juice, Chartreuse, and Maraschino. Bright. Tart. Smoky. Perfect.

6. Playgrounds in Copenhagen. This year we implemented a new family tradition of spending around a month in a new international destination and going DEEP- focusing more on getting to know and understand what it’s like to live in a place versus what it’s like to be a tourist there. For our first year, we chose Copenhagen. I didn’t know much about Copenhagen prior to us making the choice, but it turned out to be an AMAZING choice for a family with a small child. So family-oriented, the summertime weather is PERFECT, it's way more diverse than I expected, and overall just an easy and beautiful place to be. One of the highlights of the trip were the extraordinary playgrounds found throughout the city. As opposed to the cookie cutter ones we have here in California, all sold and installed by the same mass manufacturer, each playground in Copenhagen was actually commissioned to an architect, or designer, that gave their brief some real thought and inspiration. One was based on the Bermuda Triangle, for instance, complete with an airplane split in half and a beached ship. The playgrounds are also managed by staff during the weekdfays that have activities, storytime, Lego Stations, even free (really high-quality bikes!) for kids to use while they are there. And some even have bars and coffee shops built right in for the parents. No notes. Everyone go.

   
   

   

7. Lillie Eats & Tells. In my efforts to try to maintain the weight loss and nutrition changes that I realized in 2023, I have wholly adopted meal planning and implementation using almost exclusively recipes from Lillie Eats and Tells. She is macro focused, but doesn’t use a lot of weird or expensive ingredients or supplements, and when I’m just too busy to really accurately weigh my food and count my macros, I know that if I’m following her recipes, all of that is basically built in for me. Huge recommend especially for women and moms who are trying to keep their nutrition in check without having to make themselves an entirely separate meal from the rest of the family. Her food tastes SO GOOD.

8. My Sezane Trench Coat. While in Paris in late 2023, I semi-splurged on a new trench coat from Sezane, and it has been my constant companion for over a year now. It’s basically ALWAYS trench coat weather where we live, and in a lifestyle that means I am often defaulting to soft pants and cozy sweaters, adding the trench instantly gussies up my look, but still feels easy and loose.

9. The Forager School. This time last year, Josh and I were having serious reservations about our future here in rural, coastal Northen California, and one of the main concerns we had was the potential lack of organized enrichment and top-quality education we were starting to understand might be the way here. Then, in February, we made the choice to move Elias from the perfectly adequate daycare that was just a 5-minute walk from our house to a new pre-school that had just opened in Gualala, about a 20-minute drive south. It’s been amazing, our son is enriched, exploring the fantastical natural landscape we live in, making friends, and we feel as if we have instantly gained real community. Makes such a difference.

10. Ladies Who Strategize. At the beginning of last year, I was starting to feel a bit isolated in my freelance life, and went seeking community with other strategists. I found a few networking groups, mainly using Slack, but the Ladies Who Strategize community has been the most consistent, fruitful, and enjoyable for me. I met other Comms Strategists! I reconnected with more than one former colleague that I haven’t worked with in over a decade! I got work, I found others that could take work that came my way and wasn’t right for me. I commiserated, I learned, and I am very grateful for the outlet. Other Lady Strategists- you should apply.

11. Creating a Bespoke Work Space. I’ve been working remotely for 5 years now, and I have JUST finally actually created an office for myself that is JUST for me. I bought a new desk. I put up my artwork that is just mine. I have a space for work and a space for creating. My books are here. I light a scented candle every day and listen to my own music, and there’s no more nomadic floating from surface to surface depending on what me or my husband need to do that day. It is fabulous.

12. The Broken Earth Series by N.K. Jemison. This series has really stuck with me, especially as a mother, and I can’t recommend it enough, however, I will warn that the content is tough and not happy (one of my friends that started it on my recommend abandoned it almost immediately, so I feel obligated to make that caveat).

13. Waffle Sundays. Finally back in our own home together as a family, my theme for 2024 was Re-establishing Traditions. And one of those traditions is Waffle Sundays. Every Sunday, unless we are traveling, we whip out the waffle maker. We use Melissa Clark’s recipe from the NY Times and I basically know it by heart now. Kiddos and Grown-Ups alike love Waffle Sunday.

14. Embracing ChatGPT. I’m 40-ish so constantly learning new things and new ways of doing things is tiring, but in 2023 I put my head down and started to figure out this AI thing, and so far, I am a huge fan. Outside of the huge improvements to my workflow that it has provided, it has also helped me plan out trips, plan workouts, and even identify which color Season I am (A Soft Summer, if you’re interested.) In 2025, I will take it even farther. 

15. Elias’s Birthday and Cake. I love a good theme, and this year we went with Vintage Circus. Red and White striped everything with turquoise accents, and we held the party at a playground in The Sea Ranch by the coast. I dusted off my balloon-animal-making skills and everyone had a blast, but the real star of the show was this cake by our local Baker, Franny’s Cup and Saucer (also our wedding baker!)

    
    

    

    
    

16. Playlist Pals. My friend and former neighbor Aly invited me in the spring to join a text group she had founded called Playlist Pals, and it’s been so fun! Once a quarter or so, someone will assign a new brief, and we each develop a playlist, complete with Curator notes, to fulfill the brief. Since I joined, our briefs have included: Covers, Secular Hymns (based on an excellent prompt from Anne Helen Peterson), Summer Soirees, and Rainy Days. It’s so fun to see how others interpret a theme and to spend time being thoughtful about how music can weave together to tell a story. I love it. (Linked in the themes above are the lists I developed for each brief.)

    
    

17. Initiating my 3yo into the Movie Club. I think every parent has a list of “Things I can’t wait until they are old enough for” when they become pregnant or have a baby, and for me, one of those things has always been “I can’t wait to take my kid to the movies and start sharing my love of film with him.” This year, we saw Inside Out 2 over the summer, which was semi-successful, and then twice to see Moana 2, which was WAY more successful. We just went to see Flow in our local one-screen theater (walking distance from our house!) and I think he is officially a movie nut like his Mama. He even has a way better relationship with movie theater popcorn than I do, so, here’s to generations improving on the ones before them.

    
    

18. Fireworks and Real Summer in Oregon. One slight downside of living where we do is that the temperature is pretty much always somewhere between 55-65 degrees. That’s great on a January day like today. Not so great in the heart of summer when you just crave SUMMER. This year for the Fourth, with childcare options non-existent, we decided to spend the week in Oregon to visit some friends and get some real summer. We spent a few days in Portland, and a few days in Hood River. It was fabulous. We ate ice cream. We saw fireworks. We wore shorts. We swam in a river! I know these things all sound really basic, but seriously, these are not things we can normally do where we live, and the kiddo especially loved it all.

    
    

19. Hilton Curio Experiences. Since we live 3 hours away from the nearest city, and Josh still has to drive into SF several times a month for work, we end up doing a lot of random hotel stays. In 2024, we decided to start compiling those stays with one provider in order to get points. I was resistant. I like boutique, unique hotels that don’t feel corporate or so standard. But, with the understanding that we wouldn’t let it start dictating our actual vacation decisions, I went along with it. We chose Hilton, and it’s mostly been fine, but the real gem that we have stumbled upon has been their Curio Collection. These are more boutique-type hotels that they’ve acquired, not built, that you wouldmn’t even know are Hiltons until you get into your room and start seeing the logo. We stayed in a few in 2024, and they were all really fabulous. The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego and the La Quinta Resort near Palm Springs were probably our standouts for the year.

    
    

20. Past Lives. Every year I try to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as I can prior to the awards. In 2024, the one that really stuck with me the most was Past Lives, a beautiful portrait of a life that could have been, the choices we make, the sliding-doors parallel lives that no longer exist. Lovely.

    
    

21. Arts & Crafts Time. One of the other things on the list of “Can’t wait until he’s old enough…”, Arts and Crafts Time with the kiddo isn’t quite the intensive output session that I hope they might be one day, but I’m glad and inspired by the fact that he can start managing real materials and he’s starting to actually enjoy the process with me. This year, our big project was to make a Gnome House (hopefully the first in a series that will create a Christmas-village style Gnome Village over time). It was mostly me making the house, but he was there with me doing his thing the whole time, and that’s a sign of even better things to come :)

    
    

22. Copenhagen Bageris. Back to Copenhagen, one of our almost daily routines while we were there was to walk to the local Bageri for breakfast. Always a Pain du Chocolate for kiddo, and these amazing bread, butter, ham, and cheese sammies for me and Josh. Was not great for my waistline in sturdy jeans by the end of the trip, but very good for my soul and our collective memories. What kind of cheese was it?! I still don’t know. 

    
    

23. The Louisiana Museum. While in Copenhagen, we traveled north to Helsingor, and on our way back, stopped in at The Louisiana Museum, which I can honestly say was the most beautiful museum I have ever visited. The art was great, yes, but the location, alongside the sea, set into a glade of trees with beautiful gardens and outdoor spaces, was just MAGICAL. The children's wing allowed us to take turns as exploring as Adults while Elias was fully captivated by room dedicated to Legos, dress up, arts and crafts, and more. A highlight of the trip for sure.

    
    

    

24. Josef Frank Designs. Eating lunch on my own one day in Copenhagen I was struck by the beautiful wallpaper in the restaurant. I commented on it to the host and learned it was designed by Josef Frank. From there, he kept showing up everywhere throughout the rest of our trip, and I’m still mesmerized by his designs when I revisit the photos. 

    
    

    

25. Improvised Shakespeare. In September, Josh and I went to LA for a weekend to ourselves, and lucked into a chance to see one of our favorite comedy shows, Improvised Shakespeare. This is now the third time we’ve been together, and before each show, I always think, there’s no way this is going to live up to my memory of how funny it is, and YET AGAIN THEY DELIVERED. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an improv group of 5 guys (still the same group of guys that I saw the first time in 2018!) They take a suggestion from the crowd at the beginning of the show, and they literally create an improvised comedic Shakespearian play out of it, in the style of Shakespeare. It is incredible. Please go see it if you ever get a chance.

    
    

26. My first show at the Hollywood Bowl. While in LA, and actually the reason we went there, we went to see Mitski and Sharon Van Etten at the Hollywood Bowl. Neither of us had ever been, and what an incredible venue and experience! It’s inspired me to start thinking of how we can fit more trips to amazing music venues into our plans each year- which other ones MUST we do? (Have already done Red Rocks a few times, and I think that’s the one to beat for me.) 

    
    

27. Dune 2. It was just so good. I saw it by myself in our little community theater and I just had a goofy grin on my face for half the movie. So glad they have done this franchise justice.

    
    

28. Christmas Eve Prime Rib. Every year for the past 15 years or so, I have made a prime rib on Christmas. This year, in an attempt to not be stuck in the kitchen all day for the holiday, I moved Christmas Dinner to Christmas Eve, and we had friends join us. The prime rib turned out maybe the best ever, everyone was impressed, and really, it’s very easy to do if you have a good roast, a good method, and a good meat thermometer. Use the J. Kenji Alt-Lopez method here, and you will not go wrong. It’s all about the reverse sear!

    
    

    

29. Being my own Boss. 2024 was my third year being my own boss, and it was maybe the best one yet. Each year I feel more confident, better educated, and more eager to tackle new and exciting projects. I’ve created some amazing relationships with great shops that I consistently work with. I’ve had intensive residencies within brands and agencies for shorter stints that have been fruitful and enlightening. I can’t wait for more! Bring it on 2025.