2019 was quite a year! As far as business goes, it’s been my best year yet – I nearly doubled my business year over year from 2018! I spent way less time traveling this year than I did in 2018, which has allowed me to make improvements to my everyday content and add new verticals. Take a look at some of my favorite moments and highlights from this past year, and a few hopes for 2020!
HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2019
MAKING A MONTHLY SERIES OUT OF TWO READER FAVORITES
At the start of 2019 I shared my desire to improve the quality of my everyday, evergreen blog content. In addition to doing bigger posts like DRESSING FOR YOUR BODY TYPE and this popular WARDROBE REFRESH // CLOSET ESSENTIALS post, I brought back two reader favorites as a monthly series! At Any Age is a collage series featuring a trend or clothing item styled for every age group, while One Piece, Four Ways features a versatile piece and suggestions on how to style it for different ways! I hope you guys have enjoyed seeing these regularly!
VISITING CHARLESTON FOR THE FIRST TIME
Back in April I visited Charleston for the very first time with my friend Dana! It is such a charming, beautiful city… and THE FOOD! Definitely going back, because one weekend trip is not enough time to try all those awesome restaurants. That trip also included another first for me: running in a race! I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run 10K – so proud of myself! It was also the fastest I’d ever run that distance, which is honestly all thanks to Dana. She’s an avid runner/racer and kept me going and cheered me on the whole way! Check out all of my blog posts from that trip here!
MAKING IMPROVEMENTS TO MY WEBSITE DESIGN
I don’t change my website design very often, but last April I decided to make some tweaks. These improvements included a new static Travel Guides page (for quick access to my favorite restaurants and recs in each city!), a more organized navigation menu, the addition of the “Most Wanted” section on the homepage (so I can highlight popular posts!), and cosmetic updates to the whole thing! I hope you guys have been enjoying it!!
EXPLORING THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
I’ve gone to Paris a bunch and also visited Normandy, but Provence is one area of France I haven’t done that I was DYING to do! Luckily, my friend Meghan (a major Francophile), was game. We did a week in the French countryside and on the Riviera, drinking all the wine and eating all the bread and cheese we came across! The South of France is absolutely breathtaking… needless to say, I will be back! You can see all of my posts from that trip here!
HIRING LIZA
I’ve had paid interns for the last several years, but this summer I finally decided to invest in my business and hire someone out of college. My assistant, Liza, started in July and has basically become my right hand! In addition to taking behind-the-scenes tasks off my plate (like updating THE SHOP, scheduling tweets and pins, and finding articles for my newsletters), she’s also creating content for Sussex Style Watch, the LiketoKnow.it app and my newsletter! Having her on board has allowed me to focus on creating the best content possible vs focusing on the more tedious-but-necessary tasks for both of my websites. I never would have had time to create any of the capsule wardrobes I launched this fall without her! So THANK YOU, Liza!!!
VISITING CHICAGO IN AUGUST
I hadn’t been to Chicago since 7th grade with my grandparents, so for the last few years it’s been on my list of places I need to go. I finally booked a trip in August! What originally was just a fun visit quickly became a possible move. I LOVE THAT CITY! You can see my initial guide and posts from Chicago here, but stay tuned… I’m going for nearly two weeks at the end of this month! I’ll be getting a feel for Chicago in winter, chatting with friends who live there and looking at apartments. No decision will be made until after that trip, but I’m feeling keen to move!
LAUNCHING CAPSULE WARDROBES
Over the years I’ve received requests for capsule wardrobe content, but since I don’t shop that way myself I decided to hold off on doing it. I also just didn’t have any extra time to dedicate to it! In July I hired Liza, my first real employee – this allowed me to delegate, which freed up some of my time for a bigger project. So in August I launched my very first capsule wardrobe, and have done two others since! I’d seen other bloggers do capsules before, usually sharing real outfit photos or videos, but I loved the idea of doing them as collages in a PDF format. I’ve done collages on this blog since day one, so it makes sense that would be the proper format for my version! What I love about the PDF format is it’s something you can easily print out or pull up on your phone and have it on hand while you’re picking out your outfits. I also love that you can picture yourself wearing the clothes vs seeing me wear them! This new content addition was a huge success and I received amazing feedback, so you better believe I’ll be continuing these into 2020! You can check out all of my capsule wardrobes I’ve done so far here. Stay tuned in early February for the next one!
ENJOYING LONDON DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON AND THE CHRISTMAS MARKETS IN GERMANY
You guys know how much I love London, don’t you? It’s my favorite city in the world! I’ve spent time in London in nearly every season, but somehow always have missed it during the holidays. When Briony and I decided to book a trip to Germany for the Christmas Markets in December, I added on a few days at the start of my trip to enjoy all the holiday festivities London has to offer! It was so festive and charming, even more so than usual… if you can believe it! I had the best time wandering the city and snapping photos of all the holiday decor. See all of those photos here! My Christmas Market photos are coming soon…
HOPES FOR 2020
To be honest, I don’t really have any big plans or resolutions heading into the new year! With that said, I’ve been hoping for change. Over the last few years I have felt pretty restless in Dallas (I’ve been here since 2005, after all), which is what spurred my extended stay in London in 2015 and my recent interest in moving to Chicago. I don’t have a clear picture of where I need to be! I’m so happy with my life right now, but I do feel like I’ve “done” Dallas and just need to mix things up. Most of my friends are married and settling down here in Dallas, but I’ve just never seen myself ending up here. If I do end up moving, that will obviously change a lot around here… I’ll have a better idea of whether I’m moving or not after this trip at the end of January, so stay tuned! Until then, below are some other things I’d like to do going into the new year…
CREATE MORE VIDEO CONTENT
I sort of slowed down on the video content (especially on InstaStories!) this fall, so I’m really hoping to make more time for it in 2020. InstaStories has been one of my favorite ways to connect with you guys, so I’m eager to get back into the habit of chatting with you daily and doing things like video try-ons more often.
CONTINUE GROWING SUSSEX STYLE WATCH
My other blog, Sussex Style Watch, launched in October 2018 and has seen insane growth in the last year! With that said, with her maternity leave and holiday break, we actually didn’t see all that much of Meghan in 2019. While this absence forced me to introduce new content like my Inspired by Meghan series, it’s hard to create interesting, new content when she isn’t making regular appearances! And without that, it’s hard to continue growing. I hope this holiday break was everything Prince Harry, Meghan and Archie needed and that they return to regular royal duties soon. Excited to see them out and about again in 2020!
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER
While I made improvements in this area (hiring someone definitely helped!!), I still have more work to do to improve my work/life balance. As a self-employed workaholic, I tend to work around the clock and feel like I have to do everything, all the time. When I delegate to my employee, I find myself adding new, even more time-consuming projects to my plate! I’m always trying to do more and can’t ever just be. What I’d really like to do this year is analyze my content and cut back on things that don’t bring me joy or that tend to stress me out – maybe that’s doing one less blog post a week? I don’t know yet, I’ll report back.
{ photography by Michaela Tornaritis }
