2017 Word of Year

Well, we made it. 2016 is over and it's time to start fresh in 2017! I'm looking forward to seeing what this year has in store for our family and like I mentioned in my looking forward video... I'm not even going to try to guess what that may be!

Check out my look forwards to 2017 in my video "More of This, Less of That":

The past few years, I've had a phrase or word that has stuck out to me at the beginning of the year. Since I don't particularly do resolutions, it has become a tradition to have a phrase or word that speaks to me become my "Word of the Year". I've previously had #YeartoSparkle and #Joy, along with #FindingJoy, which I still frequently use on Instagram. After thinking about it this year a number of words came to mind...

What would 2017 have in store for me? Fun... Fabulous... Focus... I was stuck on the letter "f" for a while, and while those were great - I couldn't seem to narrow it down to just one. While I do hope 2017 holds all of those, they just weren't quite "it". I also thought about Strength... Calm... Hope... They just still weren't quite what I felt was propelling me forwards. Then a word came to me, and it kept coming back...

Explore.

At it's core, that's what I felt like 2017 would be about for me. This year, I feel like I was meant to explore. Not only with our upcoming travels that we have planned, we plan to try some new places and after the last cruise sparked a bit of wanderlust in me, over the next few years I'd like to take on even bigger and further destinations. We recently sent in our paperwork to receive our passports, which would open up a number of travel opportunities. Even locally or here in the Midwest, I feel like I'd like to explore a bit more.

Explore wouldn't mean just travel though. I know 2017 will have some changes in store, some that I've been looking towards and wondering what they will be like for a long time. This will be the first year in 7 years that I will be back to being a Stay at Home Mom (or just adult human), without small children at home. Natalie is due to go to kindergarten in the Fall and Isabella will be in 2nd grade. I will have to explore what I means to be a stay at home mom that still has all of the "main parenting" duties of getting children ready for school, taking care of all of the school items, transporting said children back and forth to school... but it opens up possibilities during the middle of the day.

Also, I feel like I'd like to explore style this year... home style, fashion style, and just my personal sense of style and self. What will I find that is most important to me? Has my home decor taste changed over the years? (The answer is slightly yes, I am planning on doing a few room refreshes in the coming months and will plan on sharing those!) Also my fashion style has changed as well. I'm not as concerned about logos as I was in my 20s, I've settled down quite a bit with my fashion and become content with staples. That being said, I love to dress up and I'm always on the hunt for gorgeous shoes that don't kill my feet! Lots of shoe stores to explore as well!

So this year... I will explore. I will be an explorer. After the word came to me, and stuck... and I thought about all of the changes that will happen over the next year, the next thing I thought about was actually the movie Moana. (Disney nerd, yes, I know.) I thought about how I felt watching that movie and how just thrilled I was when she found out her ancestry of explorers, and she set off on adventure. While I don't see any quests like that happening to me throughout the year, I do hope that as we see more new places and experience new things - that the sense of exhilaration I felt watching her set off to explore the sea can be felt first hand. 

I'm excited about the possibilities that the year will bring and interested to see where we are at the end of the year. What about you, do you have a word of the year? What is your word?

** This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.