The End

Tags

Ending Point, Last Post, The End

Now that it has been a few weeks since my yearlong holiday adventure came to an end, I have had time to reflect on those 366 days (remember, it was a leap year). Let me just start by saying that a whole lot can happen in a year! This year, blog aside, was probably one of the craziest and most stressful years of my life so far. When I began this project I was not anticipating so many changes. Getting pregnant, buying a new house, packing/moving, Rich switching jobs…..those are just the major ones. Committing to celebrating a holiday every single day and blogging about it did not seem like it would be that difficult when I initially started. The second half of the year is when things started to get hard. I’m sure my loyal readers were able to see a marked difference after the halfway point. I don’t know how I was keeping up with multiple holidays in the beginning, there was no way I could have maintained that pace throughout the whole year. While it was a crazy year of ups and downs, one thing remained constant in my life…happy holiday hayley. Am I glad it is over? Yes. That being said, I loved the experience and I am happy that I did it…and actually made it through an entire year!

My motive for starting this blog was to bring more happiness into my life. Did it work? Yes and no. Yes, because it was fun to celebrate something each day and it made life much more interesting, to say the least. I tried many new things and did a lot of weird stuff that I would have never done otherwise. It gave me an excuse to go to different places, try new foods and document an entire year of my life. Now that I am done, I truly treasure what I have been able to create. I have a whole year of my life, as well as Roman’s life, down in writing and photos and that can never be taken away. It is amazing for me to look back and remember some of the holidays and also to see how little Roman was when I started. This blog is something completely unique and I hope when Roman is older he will be able to go back and read it and see all the cool adventures we had during this time. Now for the down side. No, this did not bring more happiness into my life because it ended up causing unnecessary stress, mainly towards the end. If I knew no one was reading this thing I would have quit months ago. June was the most difficult month of all. Maybe because I knew it was finally coming to an end, maybe it was because I was already under major stress with the new house/getting rid of the old house/pregnancy, or maybe it was because I was just tired. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely enjoyed celebrating the holidays. It was the actual act of downloading pictures and writing a post for each and every day that became very cumbersome. Therein lies the conundrum…if I hadn’t done the posts then I wouldn’t have been held accountable and therefore probably not actually celebrated each holiday. The blog kept me honest and it kept me going, even as difficult as it was in the end. Since I have had some time to chill and decompress, I realize that I am extremely proud of myself for sticking with it. It is always easier to quit than it is to keep going. In the end, it has brought me much more happiness than it has brought me stress and sadness. So, yes. Overall, the project did bring me happiness. I think it brings me even more happiness now that it is over and I have such an awesome keepsake to carry with me the rest of my life.

As I mentioned above, if no one was reading this then I would have had the perfect excuse to stop. YOU readers kept me going! I want to sincerely thank all of you that read my blog, whether it was one post or the whole shebang. I loved when people came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed the blog. It reminded me that more people were getting something out of this other than me. Thank you to everyone that sent it pictures and participated in the holidays. Thank you to everyone that commented on posts and let me know they were reading my daily meanderings. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am 100% serious when I say that the only reason I was able to successfully finish this year is because of you.

A special thank you goes out to my husband for helping me through this whole project. Rich was always willing to celebrate with me and was always very positive and complimentary about my posts. Thank you for being my personal photographer too!

People have asked me many questions now that the project is over and I figured this is a good time to answer them: 

• Are you glad it is over? Yes.
• Why are you stopping? I am not stopping, per se, I committed to one year and I met that goal.
• Are you going to do another year? No.
• Are you going to start another blog or update this one from time to time? Not at this time. I need some time off to use my free time to work on about a million and one other things I have going on (i.e. – have a baby (that’s kind of a big one) and work on beautifying our new house). I would like to do another blog in the future, but it would be something different. I like the idea of putting things down in writing and really forcing myself to take more pictures. I want our second child to have something special like this too, so we will see what I come up with down the road.

So, that is it. No more posts. I hope you all enjoyed celebrating with me, I know I had a lot of fun. It is a bittersweet ending, but aren’t all great endings bittersweet? I leave you all with one final thought – find happiness wherever you can. Be happy, be positive, live life.

The end.

The Final Wrap-Up

THE FINAL WRAP-UP

I had to take a little break there before I tackled this final portion of the happy holiday hayley blog experience. Compiling all of this information was a bit more time consuming than I thought it would be. I am finally done though, yippee! Here is the final wrap-up from my entire year of celebrations:

Total Holidays Celebrated: 480 – The first half of this adventure I was quite ambitious and took on multiple holidays each day….this did not last.

Total Cost Celebrating: $1,727.69 – Wow. I added this up several times because I could not believe the number was that high. My most expensive month was August ($420.89) and my least expensive month was March ($27.45). I realized after the first few months that I needed to minimize the expenditures for this project. When you actually break it down and average everything out I technically only spent $4.72 per day and $3.60 per holiday. Okay, those numbers are not as scary. I suppose if I was a smoker and I smoked a pack a day this is comparable. See? I can rationalize anything.

Most Expensive Individual Holiday: National Night Out (August 2^nd) – $121. If you recall, I did not even celebrate this holiday correctly. Oh, the irony.

Total Amount of Cash Given to Charity: $135 – hmmm….this number looks pretty weak when you look at how much I spent overall. In the end though, this was the best money spent throughout the past year.

Total Hits: As of today, there have been over 23,300 views on happy holiday hayley. I know for larger blogs this is basically a daily (or hourly for that matter) hit tally, but I am happy to know that I wasn’t just writing all this stuff for myself and other people are getting something out of it too.

Most Visited Posts: The top 3:

               One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish – Dr. Seuss Day, March 2^nd

               Scout’s Honor – Boy Scout Anniversary Day, February 8^th

               Nurse? I Need a Shot of Morphine – Nurses Day, May 6^th

I know why the Dr. Seuss post is so popular, but I am not too sure on how the Boy Scout and Nurse posts climbed the ranks so quickly. WordPress allows you to see what search terms led visitors to your blog, but only to a certain extent. I see that many Google Image searches have pointed people here, but it does not give specifics on what images or exactly what term was being searched. I also know that I started getting a lot more hits after the Winnie the Pooh post because if you search ‘Winnie the Pooh quotes’ in Google Images, the second one that pops up is from my blog. Crazy how this stuff works, isn’t it? As you can see, I am no internet genius.

Favorite Holidays: Looking through all these posts again has brought back a lot of memories. That sounds funny to say because it’s not like all of this happened years ago, but I truly had forgotten about some of the holidays already. My top 3 favorite holidays are as follows:

               Girlfriend’s Day – August 1^st

               National Museum Day – September 25^th

               Scooby-Doo Day – September 13^th

I like Girlfriend’s Day the best because I really think this is a holiday that I will celebrate every year. The girlfriends that I have in my life are very important to me and this day is a perfect excuse to celebrate our friendship. National Museum Day holds a special place in my heart because I have always loved going to museums of all kinds. I think it is very important to support local museums. That being said, the Detroit Science Center (the museum we visited for this holiday) is still closed. I feel lucky that we were able to go there during the last week they were opened, but it makes me very sad to know that we cannot go back anytime soon. Scooby-Doo Day was just funny to me. I was very happy with how our costumes and pictures turned out and that is still one of my favorite blog posts.

Least Favorite Holidays: I never included this category on my monthly wrap-up because it essentially is not a positive thing. I decided I would put it in the final wrap-up though just because it was semi-interesting. While I found some holidays to be rather dull, especially the ones about history or politics (not my bag, baby), I had 2 particular holidays that I was especially not fond of:

               Bikini Day – July 5^th

               Hagfish Day – October 19^th

Bikini Day. I am not a chick that really likes to strut her stuff in a bikini. This post was the bane of my existence for awhile since it was the most searched one for a good majority of this project. Just knowing that there were people out there searching ‘girl in bikini’ and finding my picture creeped me out. Hagfish Day was one that just plain old grossed me out. I know it is about the fact that not everything is beautiful and all that, but the hagfish is just icky. I can still see that image…it is burned into my brain and it makes me want to gag. Ew.

Weirdest Holiday: I have to give this one to Barbie in a Blender Day, July 27^th. While there were a lot of strange holidays, I think this one takes the cake.

I could make up a dozen more categories, but I think I am going to stop here. I have one final post after this one that will finish this blog once and for all.

June Wrap-Up

JUNE WRAP-UP

Most visited post – June 1st – Oh No, Please Don’t Tell Me You Are Choking…Heimlich Maneuver Day. This makes me happy to know that people are learning the correct way to save someone from choking by visiting my blog!

June 6th – Yo-Yo Day Contest – I challenged you all to guess how many complete yo-yo revolutions I was able to perform. The answer is…..ONE! That is me being quite liberal too. Thank you for all of your overly confident guesses (especially you, Kendall!). I blame my lack of awesomeness at yo-yoing on purchasing a super cheap yo-yo. Karri had the closest guess at 3 so she will earn a prize of sorts. I know I said closest without going over, but no one guessed zero or one!

June 27^th – Sunglasses Day – Miss Melissa was the first to correctly post that the title of this blog (I’m Putting On My Shades To Cover Up My Eyes) is a line from Ridin’ Solo by Jason Derulo. Congrats and look out for a totally rad prize coming your way soon!

Total amount spent celebrating the month: $122.60

Most expensive holiday this month: Sushi Day - $42

My personal favorite holiday celebration this month: Beautician Day

What If…

Tags

bucket list, Holiday, Meteor Day, R.E.M.

June 30^th Holiday

METEOR DAY

I will admit, when I saw that Meteor Day was my only option for holidays today I was a little distraught. What a boring holiday to have as my very last holiday to celebrate. After giving it some thought I figured out a way to make it into a good post. Here is the scenario: you, and you alone, due to some fantastical knowledge (let’s not think too much about how or where this knowledge came from, shall we?) know that a meteor is going to hit Earth in exactly one year and everything is going to be obliterated. What would you do? This is a similar scenario to people who have terminal illnesses or things like that, but today is Meteor Day so it fits a lot better. Basically, what would be on your Bucket List? Well, first I would immediately quit my job…this is obvious. The main thing I would want to do is travel and see the world. Travelling is always something that has been of great interest to me, as I’m sure it is to most humans, but I am basically waiting until retirement to really dedicate some time to it. This is where the ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ factor comes into effect later in life. Because I’m waiting so long to do a lot of things, who knows if they ever will come to fruition or not. That is why I like this little fantasy I have here. I KNOW how much time there is and I can finally get off my butt and do all the cool stuff I dream about. So, travel is number one. I would like to go pretty much everywhere. I have always wanted to go to London and of course I would want to hit up Italy and Paris and Alaska and Hawaii and Australia and Japan……you get the gist. Next, I would go skydiving. I have always been interested in this, but the older I get the scarier it sounds. I would save this for the end of the year in case something went wrong. I would eat at all the fanciest restaurants all over the world. I would buy whatever clothes and shoes I wanted and not give a second thought about the price. I would let my kids do whatever they wanted – space camp, Disney World, you name it. I guess I would just do whatever I wanted that sounded fun at the moment. I wouldn’t stress about money or making sure everything was perfect, I would just live in the now. I wish this was something I could really do, but I do not have a money tree in my backyard and I have many ‘normal life’ responsibilities. This doesn’t mean that I can’t have my moments. That is what this blog was all about, finding happiness in the simple things. Celebrating a holiday for no particular reason, just because! It was my way of living in the moment for a small portion of every single day for an entire year. So, if and when that meteor does decide to come plummeting towards Earth, I will be prepared to let go of my worries and just have fun. Isn’t that what life is all about when it really comes down to it?

Total Cost to Celebrate: $0

Song of the Day:

One of the few R.E.M. songs that I actually like:

 

P.S. – Yes, this is the last and final holiday of my yearlong blog spectacular. Don’t worry though, I will be doing a full wrap-up as well as a final post on just how this experience has been for me.

Just Shoot Me

Tags

baby bump, Filter, Girl Posse, Holiday, National Camera Day, pictures, Take a Picture, Toledo Zoo

June 29th Holiday

NATIONAL CAMERA DAY

Since I am late in posting this entry, I am taking a little bit of liberty and including some pictures I took over the past couple days. That’s the nice thing about being master of this domain, I can play by whatever rules I want! Also, this is my second to last holiday so I figured I would include a bunch of pictures as a sort of last hurrah. Here is a pictorial review of the past few days of my life, luckily I had a lot of fun stuff going on so they aren’t too boring!

Me having fun starting today’s holiday at work:

Okay, I know this next one is a really crappy picture, but let me explain. My coworker won tickets to see Magic Mike with a local morning radio show. This is a pic of Jay Towers from 100.3 and the rest of the morning crew introducing the movie. Although we got there quite early, we were at the VERY top because all the crazy 60 year olds (yes, there were a lot of them in there…) got there even earlier and snatched up all the good seats. Side note – I loved the movie! Not just because of the hot guys taking their clothes off, it had a good plot that was actually much better than I expected. But yeah, the male stripping wasn’t all that bad either

Michigan/Maryland Girl Posse hangout night:

Ava and Roman – The Betrothed:

Roman and Nataleigh having fun at the Toledo Zoo:

Mommies and babies:

Daddies and babies:

The Nagle Family:

This one has been weeks in the making, literally! My pal, Karri, has taken it upon herself to document my growing baby bump. She has been diligent about tracking my progress every week. She sent me this nifty montage and I thought today was a perfect day to share it with everyone. We like to joke about how my bump seems to get bigger or smaller looking depending on what shirt I am wearing, so some weeks I look smaller than the previous pic. She swears they are all in order though! Thanks, Karri!

I love having pictures to look back on fun times. I am thankful for this blog because it allowed me to basically record an entire year of my life as well as the life of Mr. Roman. That is something that I can always have now and he can look back at this when he grows up and see how crazy his mom really was!

Total Cost to Celebrate: $0 

Song of the Day:

Take a Picture by Filter:

P.S. – I really won’t remember if I don’t take a picture.

The Hand Hug

Tags

handshake day, Holiday, secret handshake

June 28th Holiday

HANDSHAKE DAY

The handshake is almost an art of sorts.

In different countries it is done differently and each variation means something specific. Here in the U.S., I read that a firm handshake is preferred. Have you ever shook someone’s hand and you felt like they were trying to crush yours in the process? Yes, that is what we call TOO firm. In other cultures, such as Turkey and China, handshakes are preferred to be weaker and a firm handshake is often seen as rude. All these different customs and rules make for some confusion. Today’s holiday, for me, is a reminder that the ‘American’ way of doing things is not always the right way. The handshake can be dated back all the way to the 5th century BC. It is widely believed that it started as a gesture of peace and to show that you were not carrying any weapons. Today, the handshake is “commonly done upon meeting, greeting, parting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or completing an agreement. In sports or other competitive activities, it is also done as a sign of good sportsmanship. Its purpose is to convey trust, balance, and equality.” Thank you Wikipedia for informing me all about handshaking. As luck would have it, I actually did shake a person’s hand today. I began training my temp that will be doing my job while I am out on maternity. I didn’t want to scare him and tell him I needed to take a picture for my crazy blog (I’m sure that would have been a wonderful first impression…). I did have a handshake today though, take my word for it.

Total Cost to Celebrate: $0

Clip of the Day:

Anatomy of a secret handshake:

P.S. - Nerd alert.

P.P.S. – My home laptop has contracted a lovely virus that prevents me from doing anything internet related. I think it knew I was at the very end of my blog experience so it decided to prolong it just a little bit longer. I will have the remaining two June posts, as well as my month wrap-up and OVERALL WRAP-UP (yes, it really has been an entire year already!) posted within the next few days hopefully. Thanks for sticking with me!

I’m Putting On My Shades To Cover Up My Eyes

Tags

Holiday, sunglasses, sunglasses at night

June 27^th Holiday

SUNGLASSES DAY

This entire day all that kept going through my head was the Corey Hart song, “Sunglasses At Night”. Even as I am writing this I hear that totally rad synthesizer beat repeating over and over again and it makes me just want to bust out some sweet dance moves! I thought it would be cool to reenact the lyrics of the song, but then I actually read them. They don’t really tell as awesome of a story as I was hoping. So, here are some pictures of the Dege posse rocking our super sunglasses instead:

I was very surprised that I got Roman to wear his for a little while. I haven’t tried to put them on him in a long time and it seems like he actually likes them now. He must know how he looks extra cool with his shades. Well, I know this post isn’t that spectacular so to spice it up just a teeny bit I will have a mini contest. The first person to post in the comment section what song the title of this blog post is from will get a special prize! Yay! A prize! Be quick and be victorious!

Total Cost to Celebrate: $0

 

Song of the Day:

Rock this bad boy out and get your 80’s big hair dance groove on!

 

P.S. – I love the 80’s, did you get that?

I’m a Beautician, Not a Magician

Tags

Beautician's Day, beauty, Holiday, pedicure

June 26^th Holiday

BEAUTICIAN’S DAY

I need more beauticians in my life. I am hopeless when it comes to hair, makeup or even maintaining my toenail polish. While I like the idea of tending to all of these things in theory, I do not have the time, patience or skill to successfully make myself look fabulous. I have always been okay at keeping my toes painted, but lately that has even began to fall by the wayside. In fact, my feetsies were looking so rough this past week or so that I began just wearing my sneakers rather than flip flops since I didn’t have the gumption to take care of it. When I saw this holiday coming up, it gave me the excuse I desperately needed to treat myself to a pedicure. I don’t regularly go and get my nails done, but when I do I love it. It is 100% worth the money to have someone just pamper you for a little while. I booked an appointment at the local LUV salon and set off after work with my book in hand. I was excited to just relax and have a little me time to zone out. Here is a glimpse of my feet pre-treatment (along with the implements of torture waiting to mercilessly undo the damage I have done by paying no mind to my poor soles):

I did not tell the nail tech it was a special holiday. I didn’t feel the need to have that conversation and I knew that simply leaving a little extra tip would make her day a bit brighter. I went with a sassy red color for my toesies. The actual color name is Vodka and Caviar…..two things that I cannot have currently so I may as well take it where I can get it! The finished product:

If my toes (apart from my nails) look a little rosy that is because they were given a true workout. I had to stifle a few screams for a minute there, but that is the price one pays to be beautiful. Oh, the things girls go through that men will never understand….. Thank you to all the beauticians out there for making us not-so-frilly people look our best!

Total Cost to Celebrate: $30

Clip of the Day:

Some very interesting beauty tips using household items:

P.S. – I can attest to the apple cider vinegar, it does do wonders for your skin….but it also does smell nasty.

Please!!! Take My Kids!

Tags

Holiday, parenting, Stay-at-home parents

June 25^th Holiday

PLEASE TAKE MY CHILDREN TO WORK DAY

Today’s holiday is for all the stay-at-home parents out there. There is a common misconception that being a stay-at-home parent is easy and that these people are not actually ‘working’. Well, let me tell you, I don’t think I could be a stay-at-home mom. I never had intentions of not working after having kids, mainly because I need some time to just be Hayley, not Mom. That is my own personal prerogative though. I may also have a different opinion, say, if I won a gazillion dollars in the lottery or something. That may change my stance on working just a wee bit. Stay-at-home parents have the hardest job out there. They are expected to constantly keep tabs on their kids, keep them entertained, feed them, make meals for the whole family, clean the house, do laundry and basically have zero down time for themselves the entire day:

Having only one child right now, I can barely keep up with him on my days off. I cannot imagine how things are going to be with two running around like crazy banshees. I highly respect and fully embrace those brave souls who choose to stay at home with their children. This post makes me sound like I don’t like being around my kid or something, but that is totally not the case. There are many other obstacles, and constant feelings of guilt, with working full-time and having kids. I always say, in an ideal world I would work part-time so that I could basically have the best of both worlds. Maybe someday…. For today’s holiday, I celebrated two of the stay-at-home mommies in my life – Michele and Melissa. I sent them special cards letting them know I was thinking about them and also letting them know they are doing a fabulous job raising their kiddos. To all the stay-at-home parents out there, may you be blessed with nice, calm children….and if not, may you be blessed with a nice, strong drink after they go to sleep!

Total Cost to Celebrate: $6

Clip of the Day:

An homage to all the stay-at-home dads:

P.S. – I fear that child may suffer some permanent damage from that crazy strobe light.

Fairies Wear Boots and You Gotta Believe Me

Tags

Black Sabbath, Fairy Godmother, Holiday, International Fairy Day, Tinkerbell, Tooth Fairy

June 24^th Holiday

INTERNATIONAL FAIRY DAY

Today I found out more about fairies than I ever thought imaginable. I was completely unaware that such a fanatical group of people have gone to great lengths to group and categorize all the different varieties of fairies. Did you know that goblins, leprechauns, gnomes, and mer-people are all classified as fairies? Oh yes. Then you have your pixies, water fairies and elves. There are many people out there that truly believe they are fairies too…..well, more power to them. If it makes them happy and they aren’t hurting anyone, then they are okay by me! I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the fairies that I wish were real for today’s holiday. So, here we go:

The Fairy Godmother

She grants your wishes and provides you with guidance and support. I don’t think you can get too much better than that! Who wouldn’t want a fairy godmother?? My favorite of all is the fairy godmother from Cinderella. Mostly because she is just a sweet, old lady and very unassuming. I like that about her, not all fairies need to be all glitter and wings.

The Tooth Fairy

Ha ha ha! I just had to use a picture of The Rock since that was what popped up when I looked for images. Although I need to start ‘believing’ in the Tooth Fairy again pretty soon here, I really wish there was a special fairy that gives you money for your lost teeth while you sleep. On the other hand, what kind of a creepy fairy is collecting teeth? What is she doing with all of those things?? As a side note, I found this cute thing on Pinterest for parents with young children. It’s all these fun ways to make the tooth fairy tradition more interesting: http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2012/02/10-tooth-fairy-traditions-and-ideas.html

Tinkerbell

I just like Tinkerbell because she is so darn cute. Plus, she has magical pixie dust that can make you fly and that is pretty rad.

Today was also a special day for my pal, Sara. It was her birthday – the BIG 3-0!!!! Since I actually got to see her on her birthday, at our monthly book club meeting, I brought her a special fairy related gift to celebrate:

Happy Birthday! Enjoy the magical fairy dust…use it wisely!

Total Cost to Celebrate: $8

Song of the Day:

I need to explain the title of today’s blog. When I was younger, whenever I would wear boots (yes, it was the late 80’s early 90’s….we’re talking white patent leather ankle boots here) my Dad would sing the line, “Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me.” I guess I thought he was just making this up out of thin air or something, but until today’s holiday I did not realize this is actually a Black Sabbath song. Who knew? Well, I suppose a lot of people knew actually. Here is a lovely clip of today’s song:

P.S. – Hmmmm…..I like my Dad’s version better, it’s a lot more upbeat…and discernable for that matter.