What to Expect in 2024

We’re Testing New Things

Hello my beautiful friends!

I know that I have been awfully quiet since summer and only dropped a couple reviews since, but in all honesty I just lost creativity. Work got hectic and I was in pure survival mode that led to me focusing on some major self care moments to get back to me.

During the end of 2023, I did a little introspection and realized that just putting content out to put content out was not what I wanted to continue doing here. I created this blog to share my thoughts and feelings regarding things that are not the typical in the blogosphere. By that, we all know what I mean is my thoughts are I’m always going to be honest with you all because I’m not going to give something a good review just because I was sent it for free.

With all this in mind, we’re going to see some new things start happening. So let’s jump into it.

Reading Goals

My reading goals for 2023 were absolutely SMASHED into oblivion.

The original goals for 2023 were 14 books and 8,000 pages read. Clearly based on the image I’ve added here, those were surpassed greatly. For 2023, I read a total of 44 books and 18,568 pages. Which honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever read that many books even in school when I had to read because it was required.

Now 2024’s goals have been upped. Now if you missed last year’s post about reading goals, the rules go as follows:

1. If I hit my goal for the year and do not surpass it, then I get to add one additional book to the goal for the next year.
2. If I hit my goal for the year and surpass it, then I get to add two additional books to the goal for the next year. The number of books added does not adjust based on the amount of books read the previous year to keep the goal attainable.

So for 2024, my goals are to read 16 books and 10,000 pages. However, there is an additional fun twist added to the 2024 reading season. One of my friends and I are having a little bit of a competition. Due to our number books read goal is different – his goal is 100 books read -, we determined it would not be fair to say whoever reads their goal first wins. This is based on the fact that I had already hit my goal of 14 books last year by April last year and I’m already on track to have 10 done in the next three months based on my stack I currently have on my coffee table.

Instead we are competing based on pages read. Those updates will be coming on TikTok most likely so if you want to see those, click the TikTok link wherever you find it on the blog or my link tree.

Streaming

This has been a little rough with the way I’ve been feeling this year as well. I had plans to work with my hairstylist back in December to actually do a simultaneous live stream on both my Youtube and Twitch on how to care for blonde hair and the process of getting to my level of blonde. However, due to a kitty emergency with Katherine having blood in her urine – we eventually did figure out it was UTI and she is fine now -, I made the decision to cancel the stream last minute and we just did my normal appointment.

Now we will still be doing this, but it will now be coming in March with a potential change in the plans as to what we will be covering. Not sure right this second but I’m going to be getting with her over the next couple months for us to get this properly fleshed out so make sure to keep your eyes peeled on social media for the announcements.

Also, I know I haven’t been doing a lot of solo streams with gaming or anything like that. To be honest with you, I just haven’t been able to put that mask on to be me. Remember that introspection I talked about earlier? Well, this was part of it.

I realized that if I wanted to continue to create an honest and open community, I have to show up even when I don’t feel up to it and be honest with you all. So while I will be making adjustments to the streaming schedule due to work, we’ll be streaming at least once a week. What we will be doing during those nights is still up in the air so just hang with me while we get that figure out. There are a million things we can do like cooking, reading, makeup, tarot/witchy stuff, crafting, or gaming. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Point being, 2024 will see the return of the streams.

Witch Travel Guides

You may be thinking, “Trula, are you turning into a travel blog?”

The answer to that is more of a resounding maybe.

To be clear, I am planning on doing more traveling this year. After my first plane flight in 2023 to see one of my long distance besties in Arizona, I have the travel bug. She’s probably reading this right now and laughing at it.

This idea however came to be after a visit to the Broom Closet in Memphis this past weekend. If you’re interested, I already did a write up on them and you can read it here.

So the idea came to me because I usually try to find the local witchy shops to check out when I visit new cities when I can, but I also like to find other things like haunted tours. Thus the idea was born. Now, I could go back and do the Arizona trip however we only got to check out a couple shops while I was there due to my very short trip. My next one is going to be much longer so I will definitely be creating one while I’m there since I’ll have to check a bag anyways.

However, the more immediate one that I am plotting is Memphis, TN. It will have to wait until the weather warms up because as I was typing this there was a minimum of 5 inches of snow on the ground. Plus one of my friends also wants to go with me and I’m super excited about this.

Life Experiences

This also incudes the above Witch Travel Guides in the thought process, but again 2024 is the year I want to do some more traveling. Memphis is always on the menu because it is within driving distance. Atlanta is also the same in this case. However, there are some bigger trips that will require some flights being booked. One of them being a trip to Boston that I am planning with my Arizona Long Distance Bestie. I’m also hoping to get to Florida this year to see another long distance bestie and maybe even one to California as well.

In addition to travel this year, I’ve gotten pretty lucky in some shows that are going to be hitting the Nashville area. The first of 2024 is going to be The Ninth Hour which is a rock musical about Beowulf. The next two shows are with the same artist, The Secret Sisters, which I’m excited to say I bought myself a VIP ticket to the Nashville show and then will be attending the Florence show with Sammi the next night. This also might give us the opportunity to hit Birmingham up that day before the show to see if I can’t sneak in a Witch Travel Guide for there.

But all in all, this is again the year of new places, new faces, and new foods.

Tech Upgrades

Now this is probably more for me than anything.

My poor 2015 MacBook Pro is still doing her thing and we love her. However, the hope this year is to be able to shift her to the travel bestie laptop and get a new MacBook Air for the stay at home bestie this year. However, this may be put on a halt for a bit and instead I may invest in the Mac Mini. I already have a decent screen at home to use with it and it will be the main workhorse for the blog going forward as well as the video editor.

I also did upgrade cameras this year. While my old Sony will still be doing a good majority of the still shots, I now have a camera with filming capacity thanks to Sammi letting me buy her old Canon Rebel off of her. There won’t be a mini vlog camera picked up because I think my phone can continue to do all that which may see an upgrade in the next year depending on my brain and decision making.

But for the most part, we’re investing again in the blog so we’re still going to be here for a while, friends.

As always, I would love to hear from you all and if there is anything else you’d like to maybe see me cover that isn’t typically covered in the blogosphere.

But for now, I shall leave you to marinade in these updates.

My love,

Trula Marie

What to Expect in 2024