Best Of: 2014 - Living the Dream

Here we are on the last day of 2014 and that means it's time for my annual "Best Of" review. Overall, 2014 was a pretty good year for me. I made some changes I'd hoped to make and with one really big move, reinvented almost my entire life.

There were some pretty tough moments too. I began 2014 with an unpleasant health challenge that has become a semi-permanent fixture. I had some pretty serious doubts I could move to New York, that I could really do it on my own. The entire month of September was basically the worst and losing my precious kitty in that month was possibly the hardest moment of all.

But I'm lucky the good outweighed the bad. For every awful September there was a March and a December to make up for it.

Best Of: 2014 - Living the Dream

Books

• The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
• The Fun Parts by Sam Lipsyte
• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides
• We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live  by Joan Didion
• Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
• What I Saw: Reports from Berlin by Joseph Roth
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein 

Music

• Taylor Swift - 1989
• Bruno Mars - Unorthodox Jukebox
• Coldplay - Ink (single)
• Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat (single)
• Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk (single)

Movies

• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
• The Imitation Game
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• The Judge
• Lone Survivor
• 22 Jump Street
• Wish I Was Here

Food

• Brioche french toast from Bluebell Cafe
• Cheesecake with strawberry topping from Sarge's Deli
• Foie gras doughnut from Do or Dine
• Chicken and waffles from Avenues Proper
• Shake Shack
• Pepperoni Pizza from Mimi's Pizza
• Strawberry Peach preserves from SaraBeth's
• Wedge salad from Brio

Moments

• Getting the call saying I'd been accepted to Columbia University, and that they were giving me money
• Signing the lease on my apartment
• Floor seats at a Utah Basketball game with Mallory
• About once a week, looking up and thinking to myself "I live in New York City!!!"
• Meeting Jo Ann Beard 
• Utah Football becoming bowl eligible
• My parents accepting I was moving to New York
• Alton Brown Live! at the Beacon Theater, complimentary 6th row seat
• The first time I wrote out my "New York, New York" address
• 2 novices successfully cooking Thanksgiving dinner (me being one of them)
• The support from the people in the University of Utah College of Social Work at the fundraiser they held for me
• Benny Double Feature with Elysa
• Passing Profiles
• Having my whole family together for Christmas for the first time in three years

Photos

Rosie Baby

Kidney-versary

Castle Island, MA

Harvard Museum of Natural History

Accidental Cap Cookies

Basically

Central Park

Do or Dine, BK

Low Library, Columbia University

Baked TriBeCa

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

30 Rock

And the auld cliche: For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne. I'll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne.

May this new year bring such good luck for you and for me.

Love, Sarah