From 2021 Year-end to 2022 Beginning

Happy New Year! I think I’m okay to say that as long as we’re still in January, haha!!!

A Look Back at 2021

At the top of the year, I was unemployed, and even though that lasted for eight more months, it was the first time I honestly, really relaxed into trusting that God would see me though. I’d been here twice before in my life, and with my lips I said, “I trust you God”, but my mind was like, “Oh Lord, I don’t know about this time.” I was diligent, steadfast in my faith and trusted that just like He saw me through the other times, He would see me through this one too, and He did, hallelujah!!! Despite my day job situation, I went on to launch Ingrid Bohannon Interiors.

I was blessed with clients that kept me busy right out the gate. Thinking back on it now, had I been employed, there would’ve been no way I could’ve delivered the way I did. You can read up on and see a couple of those jobs in these posts, “A Boho Chic Guest Bedroom Makeover”, and “An AZ Bachelor Pad”. In addition to full-on staging gigs, I had some simple consultations and was even able to do some work on my own home, like painting the entire main areas sporadically, switching out the lighting in the master closet, and even making over the two guest rooms. You can see all of the Queen’s Quarter Updates HERE.

A Happy 60th!

I celebrated my milestone birthday the same time I landed full-time permanent employment. So, it was truly a “Happy Birthday to me”! The Broski flew in for my big day, and along with the Momster, we enjoyed a wonderful night of fine dining. Turning 60 inspired detailed reflection, self-introspection and conclusions which I shared in my “What I Know for Sure at 60” birthday post. Then it was on to what was by far, one of the highlights of my year.

Pageant Judging

This year I was asked to serve as a Pageant Judge for the National American Miss I AM Pageant Powerhouse Pageants. It was 10 days of going, going, going, and going some more! But I loved every minute of it. I’m a big fan of pageants for reasons I outlined in my ode to the Beauty Pageant post from last year, “Let’s Talk About Beauty Pageants!” It was full-on, back-to-back glam every day. I met and bonded with some incredible women who I call “sister judges”, because that’s what we became. And we’ve formed a pack to keep in touch and so far we have, yay! Here are some snapshots from my time in Orlando, Florida, serving as a judge at The I AM Pageant Powerhouse this past November.”

Like the song says... Back to Life, Back to Reality

Regular life came crashing back with a nightmare of a return trip, but still, all so worth it. I was even slightly depressed that first week back, coming down off my pageant-judge high, missing these extraordinary women. We had a terrific time judging as well as spending a few nights up til the wee hours of the morning, laughing until our face hurt! But it was time to move on and prepare for the holidays.

It's a Bohannon Christmas 2021

Every year I think I’m going to talk myself out of decorating, and every year I cave. This year the décor was simple and minimal and that was just fine with me. I like looking at those beautiful Instagram photos of fantastically decked out trees, but geesh, that would never be me… ok, I won’t say never, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. This is all I went with for this year’s decor….

I hope your holidays were filled with lots of love and laughs. I know mine were. Here are a few pics!

For the last few years, I’ve de-Christmas’ed the house on or after the 1^st. But this season all remnants of Christmas were taken down by the 30^th, earlier than ever before. I was over it by the 28th. And Christmas is my ABSOLUTE favorite holiday of the year! But I was already in the mindset of getting on to 2022. For those of you who’ve been a part of this community for a while, you know I usually do a “Year-end Review” on New Year’s Eve, or at least a post. Ok, I may have skipped a few years, but that was always my intention. And while doing more videos this year was a goal, this video, I chose not to do, because honestly, as I become more time-conscious and oriented, I felt it was better to be still and soak in the last moments of 2021, spending the days reflecting on the past and imagining the future. Whenever I do those NYE videos, it’s literally an all-day thing, to shoot it, edit it, curate the post, prepare the video for publishing, uploading it, preparing the email announcement, and setting up the social media posts/alerts. I literally would hit the sofa by 10pm. Doing it earlier wasn’t an option with so much going on at the time. So instead, here I am, sharing in this “from/to” post mid-January. It started with some revelations I had year before last, to “simplify to amplify”, (phrase compliments of Marie Forleo), Towards the end of 2021 that point was driven home and became all too clear, that I needed to simplify all my processes to get back to the joy.

heading into 2022

As I take the month of January to re-order my world and set new routines, I’m stripping everything back to the bare minimum, to assess what actually brings me joy, and then only do those things, and do them in the most time-centric way. Unless it’s something I know with all certainty that God has led me to do, whatever I’m presented outside of my “must-do” daily routine, is going to have to pass the joy test. Since starting this semi-entrepreneurial stint, starting with the blog back in 2015, then adding video, and later moving on to further my passion for all things décor and organization, starting a full-fledged business, I’ve been adding goals and mini goals, and my plate became overloaded. Especially when you throw in regular life-things that follow no schedule. I thought it was necessary to work, work, work, in order to realize my goals, but I found myself simply checking off boxes and dreading the process of doing things I was sure I’d love and enjoy. Heading into December, I realized I didn’t want to get off at 5, and then come home to spend the next 4 hours in front of another computer, or run personal business errands all evening. I’m not lazy, just focused more on balance. So I’ll be scaling this portion of my life way back. I want more time to sit and read a book, or listen to music. I want to stop driving so much. I’ve taken an Uber more times than ever recently, and guess what… I like not driving, ha! And a vaccination and a booster later, perhaps it’s the prevalence of yet a third COVID variant that has me genuinely attracted to just being at home. But I really like just being at home. And then there’s my blog. I’m very proud of, and love what I’ve created here, however, in the spirit of what I’m attempting this year, I’ve decided to reduce the frequency of my posts to one per month, which is pretty much what I averaged the latter part of 2021. But in 2022, I’ll do so minus the self-inflicted guilt. I hope you’ll continue to ride along with me.

Referencing a popular quote, “just because it’s on your plate, doesn’t mean you have to eat it”, I’ve completely cleared the plate, haha! I’ve dialed everything back, to fine-tune and amplify in simplicity, a well-intentioned life, of things I love to do; making the absolute most of things I have to do. So, God willing, I’ll emerge in the next new year, fulfilled and completely living and loving life on my own terms. Here’s to achieving whatever your heart desires in 2022 .