Goodbye 2024, Hello 2025.

Yes, SALLY ♡ THINGS blog is still up and running for 2025! The end of the year and start of the new year blog is finally here. I told you that I was playing blog catch up. Since I’m a little behind, we get this cute 2-in-1 post ♡


In the beginning of 2024, I was parked on the top level of my college’s parking ramp just sitting in my car. Not having a good day at all. I was super emotional about a million different things, both positive and negative. I think I skipped my classes that day because I could not stop crying. I remember it was raining. That day I decided to try to calm my emotions down by journaling and instead of writing about my emotions, I tried to put my focus on what my goals and intentions were going to be for 2024. Writing about something that would bring more positivity forward was the mood that I wanted to try to set. That day I journaled two entries ‘2024 Goals and Intentions‘ and ‘2024 Blog Idea List‘. I think I ended up journaling in my car for three or four hours.


For 2024 Goals and Intentions, I wanted to come up with goals that were deeper than things like exercise more, get up early, drink more water, etc. I wanted the goals to be things that would help me become a better me and help with personal growth. Then when I came up with the goals, I wrote the intentions behind them or how I wanted to go about it. That way it wasn’t just a silly little self care goal, it now held a deeper meaning. I suggest everyone to do the same because it holds more value, is more meaningful and personable to yourself. It gives you a greater feeling when you complete it as well. Out of 16, I was able to cross off 10 goals that I completed in 2024. I call that a win and look, a win is a win!

A few completed goals with their intentions:

୨୧ Take more photos and videos. Print them out, save them, make montage videos, post them or whatever! I want to capture more memories and save/store them so they can be accessible in the future when I’m older.
୨୧ Live life/Be more present. Especially family, they are so important. Be more present in life. Live! Take in moments. Love life again. Don’t over work anymore and don’t over school. Live your best life Sally!
୨୧ Love and happiness ♡ I want to be more loving in everything and I want to remember 2024 as happy. The last few years have not been remembered quite well as happy, so this year will change. Let go of things that don’t belong and be okay with that.


For 2024 Blog Idea List, this was a list of topics that I wanted to blog about and write for the year. It was a list that I could come back to look at for ideas. I came up with 33 different topics and I wrote about 14 of those, but some topics have multiple blogs written about like travel blogs or food adventures. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my food and travel blogs, but some new content is on the way. A little less than half is not too bad, but it’s time to do better this year and I can’t wait to get back into blogging a little more often. I still have this blog “project” or series that I started last year, but I’m still working on writing it. It might not be finished this first half of the year, but my goal is to finish it this year or at least be able to post the first two parts.


Welcome 2025! My start of the new years was spent at The Armory with Kaskade and Sullivan King in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I spent my New Years in the most “Feral Festival Sally” way, so you can take that however you want, but I had a really good time. Maybe a little too much fun cause I woke up with gum in my hair the next morning. I have the funniest theory on how the gum got there too. Let’s just say this: I’m a headbanger girly with super long hair and there were a lot of gum chewers around. My hair is known to SNATCH PEOPLE! I also attempted to eat grapes for the New Years, but we did it sooo wrong. Yes, we were able to sneak in grapes at the venue somehow. I ended up being rave mom and passing them out to make sure my friends ate something during the rave. I think I ate 2-4 only, but this was all after the count down. So we all ate grapes to survive the rest of the night basically. It’s so funny to look back at the videos from that night. Thank you Minneapolis for a New Years that I’ll never forget!


For 2025, I want to do the same method with my goals and writing their intentions. I’m planning to repeat the same list and add new ones. I’m hoping to can accomplish more goals this year than I did in 2024. My vision for 2025 is to always live my best life, to be happy, love always and to be better. It’s another year to build the life that I want and deserve. I went in to 2025 as the same me, but a more experienced me. Still the same person, but I have something different about me. I’m still learning if it’s a good or bad thing or if it’s just a phase. This year I am digging deeper into myself and I’m protecting myself more than ever before. I’m also going into things with a different perspective. I posted this before and I’ll say it again here:

If you saw me, you absolutely did see me. If you heard me say something, I absolutely said it and said it with my chest. I’m done with playing the high road. We are not hiding in 2025. Respectfully ♡

I promise that I will be out here living my life for myself. Take it as my ‘villain era’, me setting up more boundaries, or me seeking my full potential, whatever. I said it here.


Here are a few goals and the intentions behind it, that I would like to see myself accomplish in 2025. It’s from both the 2024 and 2025 list.

୨୧ Healing. I want to heal all the parts of me that have been through the ringer over and over again. I want to heal the parts of me that easily get triggered. I accept that if the healing means I end up feeling hateful, then that’s how it ends up. I can’t end everything on love all the time, no matter how much I want that. Let it go and let things play out the way that it does. I was able to do it once, I know that I definitely can do it again. Be at peace and be comfortable and fine with that peace.
୨୧ More journaling and blogging. I know that journaling and blogging helps me with all my emotions, so why deprive that outlet from myself? I’m a person who feels a lot and holds all those feelings. Release it, stop holding on to them for so long. Let them go. I also love to journal and blog, it’s good for me. I have made connections with others through it. I’m no savior, but I’m a person and being a person speaks loud volumes.
୨୧ Love and happiness ♡ This is the 2025 revised version. I want to still be more loving in everything and I want to remember 2025 as happy. The love this year is more me orientated. I choose that love for me, I choose that happiness for my life, for my future. Whatever that looks like, but it’s self focused vs. what I did before. I worked on myself to reach an ‘us’, but this year I’m working on myself to reach a me. If an ‘us’ happens to appears this year, then that is something that fits around me and not the other way around. (No tea here, sorry. ‘Us’ is not a specific person, it’s general use.)


2024, you were wrong, but you were right to be wrong. Goodbye 2024.
2025, your new life is going to cost you your old one. What is meant for you, you simply cannot lose. Hello 2025.

Stepping Into Unknown Territory — The Truth.

What a time to be me. In a positive way, what a time to be me. I get to step into this unknown territory, this unknown area, an unknown place with these unknown feelings. I get to choose, feel, think, and speak for myself and only myself. I get to choose for myself without having to worry about putting someone else’s responsibilities first. I can finally put myself first.

It’s very new to me. I can’t think of a time where I was able to put myself first — like ever. That’s crazy right? I’ve put others before me — what feels like my entire life. Not anymore. So how does that make me feel? Honestly, it doesn’t feel right, it feels very off. I feel very selfish and somewhat empty. I felt fulfilled by being needed by others even if it drained me or held me back from what I could actually achieve. But hey, at least they still needed me, I am that much. I’m learning to understand that I am much more than that, but I also can be that person for others still. I’m learning to understand that I can put myself first and still take care of others, I just had my priorities backwards. It’s whats making this such a new territory for me. I had it wrong all along and I’m okay with admitting to that.

Who was I to be working three jobs to support not only myself, but three other people who were very much capable of taking care of themselves? Who was I to feel like such a disappointment when I couldn’t help pay bills for someone that made more than me with their one job verses my three? Who was I to feel like a failure for dropping out of school because people were throwing their responsibilities on me and I had no choice, but to take it all on? I can’t help but to feel rage and anger because it felt like I had no other choice. I also don’t want to hold onto those feelings because it’s so heavy and it’s so tiring to hold that hurt in your heart. I want to forgive.

Truth be told, I can finally think of goals for myself and actually work towards them. Before, I would come up with a goal, but I would always fail because I wasn’t my own first priority. I constantly failed at things because I put others before me and I let that eat me up. Eat me up to a point where I gave up on dreams and goals and adjusted living my life around everyone else’s schedules. I’m not entirely mad about it because I learned the lessons that came with, but it makes me sad to look back on sometimes. I poured my heart out and into everyone around me and left nothing for myself. Truth be told, even though I’m happy that I get to move forward and it’s exciting to see myself take these little steps, I have no idea what I’m doing. When you are so focused on others around you, you forget about yourself. I always knew how I wanted to end up in life, but I was never able to think about the details of how I would get there. It was like okay I’m at point A, I need to get to point C, but never thought of point B.

I know I have a lot of work to put forward and to put in. I know before I can fully enjoy what’s ahead of me, I have to learn to let this all stay behind me. Even though I felt a sense of fulfillment before, I have to unlearn it and go through this confusing emptiness. I have to be very cautious in what I do until I actually know what to do. Last thing I want is seeing myself fall into old ways again. This is the truth, this is my truth, this is me.

Biggest Challenges of 2020: Free Time.

Most blogs show you the flawless side of that person’s life, the highest highs, the happiest happy. Well as you have probably read, not mine, but that’s what I like so much about having a blog without a centralized theme. I get to have the freedom of being able to post whatever I want, whenever I want.


FREE TIME.

There was so much free time for me this year and I had no idea what to do with myself. That was the hardest because then I realize without working Sally and this busy lifestyle that I have, who really am I? Without the fancy music festivals and without being around my friends, who am I? Who is the basic, stripped down version of me? I really thought I knew already, but I really didn’t know. Some time along the way, I lost sense of who I was and with this pandemic all I had was this free time to sit in it.

When was the last time I had three months of absolutely nothing to do? Most likely, never. I’ve been working since my freshman year in high school. So to me without work was such a big change in my life. It’s good to be recognized as a hard worker, but there’s so much more that I would rather be known for. Work is not my life. With all that time I just thought about: What were my hobbies? What would I do with my 24 hour days? I tried out a lot of different things to try to figure it out. I didn’t realize that I had gotten so caught up in the work and party life that when work and bar/club/party life was shut down, I felt like I was left with nothing. I tried keeping up with artist virtual streams and perler making as a crafting hobby. I tried beading/making cool rave candies and watching different genres of movies and shows to see if there was something I’ve missed. I’ve tried being more active and taking daily walks, I even went hiking and I don’t ever hike. I even started this blog as a hobby. I’ve tried so many different things this year to try to find what I like or what will potentially stick with me and what one brings out the best of me. Many things came and go and a few stayed, but sometimes I feel like I’m still looking.

With free time, you have to keep yourself busy or you just kind of sit there in your head with your thoughts and mine are not all that pretty. Another problem that I’ve faced with having all this free time. Instead of thoughts getting swept under the rug, they are all just there and pretty loud. I had to actually face them and find a way to correctly heal those thoughts. Strange how it all is.

Anyways, I think this might be something that I’ll still have to adjust to still going into 2021. It’s a slow progress, but I’m getting the hang of it. I’m learning a lot about who I am and who I want to be.
F r e e T i m e .

SALLY ♡ T

Biggest Challenges of 2020: By Myself.

It is now December, for me the month of reflection. I usually try to do monthly reflections so I can pin point an area that I still want to work on for the next month, but with this year all of that went to trash. It was all over the place and no month was ever the same. 2020 has opened myself up to my own self about things I’ve never paid attention about or thought was a problem. 2020 has challenged me in many different ways in every aspect of my life. Really, 2020 got me f u c k e d u p. Just kidding, 2020 has brought what I needed heal about myself in plain sight and it’s a lot more than you think. You guessed it, a new series. Welcome to Biggest Challenges of 2020.


BY MYSELF.
Surprise! I do terrible being by myself or alone. I actually don’t like too much me time or doing things by myself. It’s the weirdest thing because I do consider myself as a pretty independent person. I’ll do what I need to do by myself, but I would much rather have some sort of company with me. I’ve been trying so hard this year with getting more comfortable with being alone by myself and trying to learn how to enjoy my own company. I grew up with three siblings and basically all my nieces, so yeah there was never a time where I was truly by myself. Not until a few years ago, but around then I still had Koko with me.

Living in a pandemic, where you should stay home – yeah, not ideal for someone who feels the same as me. I still find myself adjusting to not having my little Koko around me and I lost her almost two years ago. She didn’t need me as much as I needed her. (another story, another time) I get too much into my head, so having others around even if it’s just my brother’s cat napping next to me. It gets me out of my head. It’s like I’m a codependent-independent person and those two people/personalities don’t mix very well. I would like to be able to go to places by myself without having to talk myself into going. Just decide where and when, get up, get ready, and go.

I’ve been challenging myself to stay home and kind of forcing myself to being alone for two weeks now, but you know, you have your good days and your bad ones. This is probably the one of the hardest things that I’ve tried to achieve yet. Thankfully I do have the support of loved ones, friends, and my therapist. Although any other advice on how to feel more comfortable with your own company is highly and hugely appreciated. ♡ I have a feeling that this one will be something that will be a little harder to overcome.

SALLY ♡ T