January Love List

Hi All,

My life has swept me off my feet. I’m absolutely in love! There’s been so many changes that have happened recently, and it’s made me hit the ground running with passion and excitement (literally and figuratively). So this month’s love list is dedicated to these changes:

1) Hiking in Missouri aka my new home!

I finally got to relish my passion for journalism and turn it into bread and butter in late October. I’m working for a digital first company and have already learned so much. And the views around me are pretty spectacular too, for my down time.

2) Remember how I took that trip to India last year? If you know me I still haven’t really stopped talking about it, but hey it rocked my world in the best way possible. This is still on my list because a) It’s officially been a year since I left. b) more importantly, I finally managed the task of going through all my photos and narrowing it down to ~145.

Here’s another one I haven’t shown the world yet:

Beautiful, huh? See, you’re happy I’m still gloating about India.

3) New Year’s resolutions.

Arch nemesis to some, people who skip over this are likely the same people who skip over Valentine’s day. Which, yes is my favorite holiday. I think this fresh new start to the year is an ample time to examine ourselves and create goals. I’m a goal oriented person, but I’m also idealistic. So the two can result in my head in the clouds much of the time. But, balance is worth striving for. Improvement is worth striving for.

My New Year’s resolutions:

-Love more. Be a better, more patient person. I can be stubborn, and largely impatient. I usually have this on my list every year. Even though I’ve likely gotten better at hiding these things, that’s not really improving them.

-Expand my foreign language knowledge. Hindi, I’m looking at you. (I still love you Arabic)

-Read more books. Now that I’m out of college, I’ve picked up a familiar past time: reading books that I want to. Currently reading a Mindy Kaling book which is hilarious. I need to finish up that Hillary Clinton Book (Hard Choices) that I started last year. Trust me, it grosses me out I haven’t finished it yet.

4) Running. There’s been so many new trails I’ve been able to explore in my new home and I feel so blessed! Currently training and seeing how amping up my mileage will go. If all goes as planned I might be signing up for a marathon in the near future. I’ll keep you posted.

New running shoes! First time trying Nike's since they finally made a pair narrow enough for my feet. pic.twitter.com/p44Vgt8vdp

— Melissa Prax (@melprax) December 22, 2015

New running shoes are awesome. So beyond happy.

5) If you’ve made it thus far you deserve to hear the most exciting part. I BOOKED MY TICKET FOR GREECE TODAY! I can’t believe I’m already going on another international trip. Yes, I’ve been wanderlusting hard, but because I finance my own trips it’s such a blessing to be able to already consider another international one.

Hope your new year is off to a great start. And hey, it’s okay to kick the new year off right NOW (I won’t tell anyone you are ;))

XOXO with shanti,

Mel