2024 in Review
It’s the last blog post of 2024! 2023 was bigger year for CCCH than 2022, and 2024 was a bigger year than 2023!!! This is my 80th blog post of the year, the lowest total number I published in one year so far, but I had my highest year of page views AND I made the most money yet.
I didn’t hit my scary monthly page view goal…but maybe it’ll happen in 2025? Fingers crossed! Thank you, as always, for reading and for sharing my content! It means so much to me. 🫶🏻 It’s so exciting to watch this space grow, Google willing (lol).
As I’ve done for the past few years, I went through my 2024 posts and picked out the most read blog posts that were published this year. I also recapped the books I read, picked out my favorites, and recapped my travel. This was another heavy year of travel for me!
Perhaps my favorite (or least favorite? ha) part of this post is looking back at my sartorial purchasing trends, including spilling how much I spent on clothes this year (as always, I’ll be sharing my best and worst purchases of the year in their own post next month). Ready or not, here I come 2025! ✨
READ NEXT: 2023 in Review
2024 in Review
MOST READ BLOG POSTS
READING RECAP + FAVORITE BOOKS
It’s sort of silly to write this recap before sharing my November and December reads, but it is what it is! In 2024, I finished (or will finish) 55 books, 16 of which were short stories and 26 of which were audiobooks. Like in 2023, the majority of the books I read this year were on audio!
I set two reading goals on StoryGraph for 2024: read 45 books and 13,000 pages. I exceeded both! I’m planning to set my 2025 goal to 50 books and some number of pages I haven’t decided on yet…maybe 14,000? I was aiming for a round number in the thousands, but 14,000 doesn’t seem like enough and 15,000 feels like too many!
Of note: I read four of the books in the first collage below in 2023, and I finished three books in November and will finish nine more books in December that haven’t been shared yet.
Out of the 55 books I read/will finish this year, my favorite books were Behind the Seams, Finding Me, Such a Bad Influence, A Home for the Holidays, Consumed (read in November), and The Idea of You (just finished)! I read a lot of good books but these six are the ones that stuck with me.
Like in 2023, in 2024, I had a near-book-buying ban. The exceptions: I preordered three physical books, and I grabbed a bunch of free Kindle books through Prime First Reads. I still own so many books (physical and digital) that I’ve not yet read, and I have hundreds of books on my wish list through the public library. I plan to continue this “ban” through 2025 and only make exceptions for a select number of preorders/free Kindle books. (…as I write this, I’m filling my cart with 50% off hardcovers at Barnes and Noble…LOL…)
I use StoryGraph to track my reads! It’s an alternative to Goodreads that was founded by a Black woman; I’ve actually never been on Goodreads, but I know you can easily import your Goodreads data if you want to try StoryGraph out. The best part is the multitude of STATS!!! Fun stats, though, haha—stats you actually want to look at, like your most-read genre, how many pages and books you read every month, etc.! I love the year-end roundup and am looking forward to seeing mine soon. If you join, add me as a friend—my username is cottoncashmerecathair!
TRAVEL RECAP
Compared to 2023, 2024 was another year with lots of travel, but we took shorter trips more frequently and only had one long trip. Between personal travel and work, I was on a plane every month from April to October!
We spent a weekend in March in Utah attending the afternoon session of the final Pac 12 Gymnastics Championship (since the conference fell apart… but it’s coming back in the future!). We also attended the inaugural Mountain West Gymnastics Championship, and Boise State won!
In April, we skipped NCAA gymnastics regionals and flew to Texas to see the total solar eclipse. We couldn’t fly directly to Austin (where we had a hotel reservation), so we flew to Houston and drove to Austin. On April 8th, we woke up early and drove about an hour north of Austin to Lampasas to see the eclipse from the centerline! Luckily, it wasn’t totally cloudy like we were fearing. It was AMAZING! I can’t believe we saw totality for over four minutes versus the two minutes we got in 2017.
Korri and I traveled again at the end of May when we flew to the U.K.! Our itinerary took us to Houston for a night before our flight to Manchester (we flew Singapore Airlines again!). Our final destination was a town near Glasgow, so we caught a TransPennine train from Manchester to Glasgow. We were in Scotland for 10 days; seven days were spent with Korri’s family near Glasgow (and taking day trips), and three days were spent in Edinburgh to see The Eras Tour! We stopped in Houston again on the way home.
Shortly after we returned from the U.K., we flew to Minneapolis for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for artistic gymnastics! Korri didn’t know that he could go until a couple of days before, but I was going either way. I did not want to miss seeing Simone Biles do gymnastics in person! It was so much fun; we went to four meets (two for the men, two for the women) and watched them select the teams that went on to the Olympics! I really loved Minneapolis, too. That was my first time staying and hanging out downtown. Bonus: Korri and I ate at a pho restaurant near the University of Minnesota campus and Suni Lee walked in!!!
I used a LOT of PTO between those two trips in June, so I stayed home for most of July (minus one short work trip) and for the first half of August. During the second half of August, my dad and I flew to California to visit my 92-year-old great aunt, and that trip was sandwiched by two work trips. I hadn’t seen my great aunt in 16 years! It was so good to see her again and get my butt kicked playing Ticket to Ride.
In September, Korri and I flew to Denver for a night to see Kacey Musgraves in concert! The venue, Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre, was super cool. Fun fact: That was my fourth time seeing Kacey live and first time NOT meeting her in a pre-show meet and greet, ha. We also met my brother for breakfast!
In October, Korri and I had two nearly back-to-back trips on opposite ends of the country. We decided a couple of years ago that we’d go to Hawaii next time Boise State football played there, so we took a long weekend to do just that! It was Korri’s first time to any Hawaiian island and my first time to Oahu. Honolulu is definitely a different vibe from the other islands and towns! Due to a flight mishap, we lost a full day and only had two days in Honolulu, but it was still fun. My mom and step dad were able to meet us there, too!
The following weekend, we took off for Miami! Thanks to Korri’s CapitalOne Venture X card, he had the opportunity to buy tickets to another Eras Tour show…and he got them for Miami night 1! I was thrilled to see the show one more time, but it was an extremely quick trip.
Because we got the tickets on such short notice, the only reasonably-priced flights got us into Miami around midnight (the day of the show) and leaving at 6 am the morning following the show. Our inbound flight was an hour delayed, so we got in at 1 am and only had about 29 hours total in Miami. Worth it to see the new rep bodysuit and Florence, but oof. It was rough. We also had two layovers going back. I was so ready to be home for a while after both of these trips!
Korri and I are wrapping up our year by flying to Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl next week! We’ll be spending NYE in Arizona. Go Broncos!
Idaho Recap
While not necessarily travel-related, I also blog a lot of cool things to do and places to see in Idaho! This year, I shared a new post on year-round weather in Boise, a round-up of the best day trips from Idaho Falls, highlights from seeing the northern lights, and a list of Oktoberfest events in Boise! Otherwise, I focused on updating some of my Boise-specific content: best brunch spots, summer guide, holiday events and things to do, and best date night restaurants.
I traveled to eastern Idaho and north Idaho for work. I spent time in Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Preston, Coeur d’Alene, Sandpoint, and Bonners Ferry, among lots of little towns in between! It was interesting to see how much the scenery varied all over the state, and it was super fun to make it all the way to the Canadian border; I hadn’t been up there in so long.
CLOTHING BUDGET RECAP
Now for the fun part: the annual clothing budget/wardrobe additions recap! 😅 It’s always eye opening to see the stats laid out like this. After December 2022, I added two new items to my wardrobe in January and February 2024. Most of my winter wardrobe additions tend to happen in December because of the great late November/early December sales. (I added four items in December 2023.)
In spring 2024, I added 12 new items to my wardrobe (including six new tops), most of which I bought in May. I added eight new items in the summer (June through August), and all of my purchases were from the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. I also made a number of returns in the summer (seven total).
Fall is usually a big shopping quarter for me because of my birthday in September, but I didn’t buy anything new at all in September. In fall 2024, I added five new items to my wardrobe. I did not make any returns in the fall! I also added six items to my wardrobe this December, which will be shared in my forthcoming winter budget update. You can find all of my 2024 wardrobe additions in one place on this Pinterest board.
In total, I spent $1,681 on clothes this year (almost $1,000 less than I spent in 2023). I was well under my $2400/year ($600/quarter) budget! I’m not surprised that I spent less this year than last year; I didn’t shop as much as usual throughout the whole year and even avoided using my birthday coupons for I think the first time ever.
Even more random sartorial facts from 2024:
Total number of items added to my closet: 37 (9 less than 2023; this includes items I didn’t count against my budget and may not be on my Pinterest board)
Total number of items bought and returned: 11 (down from 14 in 2023)
Total number of items from my “main” closet sold on Poshmark: 16 (down from 29 in 2023)
Added six pairs of leggings
Added five tank tops
Added five pairs of shoes
Added three pairs of jeans
Added no new jewelry
Purchased 2 new-to-me items via Poshmark
Spent the most money on another pair of Lululemon Align High-Rise Pant with Pockets 25" ($136) and the least on the Amour Vert Berkeley Long Sleeve Tee ($0 after using $25 from a gift card)
Top brands/retailers: MATE the Label, Nordstrom, Uniqlo
New-to-me brands/retailers: Vessi, Good American
