I Created ‘New Season’ Resolutions – Here’s Why

I am a Capricorn, born the 11th of January, just a week or so after the turn of the new year. It is in my DNA to love resolutions and goal setting. However, I’ve never adhered to the idea that setting up new habits has to default to January 1. One of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin, has a life truth that goes something along the lines of “a life change is a great time to adopt new habits”. Change could be a new job or a new haircut. It can certainly be a new year, but it might be a new baby, a new season of life, or … in my case, a new husband.

Cam and I have been married just a blink over two weeks, and even though we are about to celebrate 9 years together, marriage is new. It’s fresh, it’s novel, and it’s exciting. We had the most amazing wedding surrounded by our family and loved ones and then the most dreamy honeymoon. (I can’t wait to share more about that in an upcoming post.) And it does feel different to be married. To have a husband. To be a wife. What’s mine is yours, whats yours is mine. New name, new e-mail address, a wedding band on our fingers.

And it must have been sometime during our trek back across the pond to Austin – maybe as we flew somewhere over the Atlantic – that I thought, “What do I want this new season of life to bring?”

I decided to keep it simple. At the top of my priority list, is to enjoy life with my husband and our little family. To appreciate every day. We’ve been enjoying the beautiful fall weather, taking walks for coffee and moped rides by the lake. We’re thinking about getting classic training for our dog and framing some prints above our couch.

As for me – I thought of 3 resolutions for married life, and I’d love to share them with you today! A heads up that this post is in collaboration with Basic Invite, yet all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Number 1 // Get dressed every day

Currently I work from home, and even though I know this golden rule to my core, I hadn’t been following it for the past couple of months. Getting “ready” makes me feel so much better: happier, energized, more productive. So instead of loungewear and glorified athleisure all day, I am going to get up and get dressed. Often times I will work out in the morning, but after a shower and my skin care routine, I’m going to don my trusty boyfriend jeans and a cute, trendy sweater! Earrings and a little mascara go a long way, too. I’ve been doing this for just over a week, and I’m feeling great!

Number 2 // Get back into yoga

If you’ve followed along for any sort of time, you know my yoga practice is very special to me. In Houston, I belonged to a lovely studio and had the best instructor. The stars aligned and it just really suited my schedule and my well being to go at least twice a week to practice. I’ve definitely fallen out of the habit here, but I do have a gym membership at the Y and the yoga instructors there are very compassionate and fun. I’d like to try to go at least once a week! I’ve been utilizing the weight room for that matter, too, and I like getting stronger.

sample of one of the holiday cards you could design with Basic Invite!

Number 3 // Keep in touch better with my family

One of the most magical aspects of our wedding was having everyone we loved in one room and dancing the night away. Since moving to Austin, I don’t get to see my family (or Cam’s for that matter) every week anymore. I also adore my sisters and I miss them – especially the little things like eating meals with them and knowing what’s going on in their lives.

To remedy this, I’m starting up a few practices. First, I’d like for Cam and I to Facetime both of our families once per week, each! I talk to my mom a lot because we both work from home some parts of the week at least, or we talk on the phone when she’s driving between patients. My dad, stepmom, and sisters all have varying schedules, but I think I’ve found a weekly time that works to call them! My sister, Caroline, is actually coming to visit this weekend, and I was just talking to my youngest sister, Clara, about coming to visit sometime.

Secondly, I want to start sending letters and cards home and to my loved ones all over the US. Just something to say “I’m thinking of you” or “Hey great job on the promotion” or “I made this chili recipe and I think you’d really enjoy it”. Living away from home, I’ve learned the joy of receiving something in the mail from a loved one, and I’d really like to share that joy with my people.

I’m really excited that Basic Invite reached out to let me know about their collection of truly custom invitations. Here were some of my favorite discoveries when I first browsed the site:

definitely think I’d like to do holiday cards using our wedding photos like this here!

*Almost UNLIMITED colors to customize your order! Basic Invite is one of the few websites I’ve used where you can actually choose your color option once you’ve selected a design. (And there were over 180 colors to choose from, so I had a lot of options!) I’m thinking Basic Invite would be a great place to go to for custom Christmas cards and custom holiday cards because you can actually make it YOURS.

*You can order custom samples! You can get a printed sample before placing your final order. I absolutely love this feature because when thinking back to ordering and printing our wedding invitations from conventional stationary companies here in town, we weren’t able to do this! And when a place would allow us to, we were charged upwards of $15 for the print. Especially if you’re ordering something such as holiday party invites for Friendsgiving or your annual New Years bash, you’re going to want to preview and make sure everything looks like you dreamed of!

*You can also choose your envelope color! This is another thing that would be great for any brides-to-be because you can do everything in one place. When we did our wedding invitations, we had to place a separate order from a different store just to be able to get something as simple as gold envelopes. But Basic Invite has over 40 different envelope colors to choose from, so problem solved!

*And lastly, for my brides especially, Basic Invite offers an address capturing service that allows customers to share a link on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media to request their friends and family’s addresses. I CAN NOT RECOMMEND THIS ENOUGH! Gathering addresses for save the dates and invites for our wedding was the biggest nightmare. Do not make the same mistake we did, and do not try to make some complicated Excel document. You definitely don’t need to using Basic Invite! 🙂

So I created these cute, cute “Thank You” cards to send to my family who helped us out with the wedding. Right after the ceremony, we had to jet off on our honeymoon, but our family stayed back and gathered all leftover presents, food, alcohol, and my DIY decorations! It was all organized and waiting for us when we got back from Europe and we were just so thrilled. I really wanted to let everyone know I was thankful for them and I missed them now that the wedding festivities were over.

It took me maybe 5 minutes to design this invite online with Basic Invite. I added a picture of Cam and I (no extra charge on that) and edited it to say “Love, The Threlkelds” (Ahhh – because I love saying that now!!)

I can’t wait to send this off to my family and then check in with them during our weekly phone calls. We have our wedding photos coming in in a couple weeks, and I am definitely going to be looking into custom holiday cards with Basic Invite using our wedding photos!

And just a heads up – Basic Invite is offering 15% off all orders through the rest of the month (November 2019) with code 15FF51.

Are you doing holiday cards this year? Would love to know! And would also love any advice on staying close with your family when you live away from them? I’m all ears!

X,

Cristina