• Ophelia’s Webb: All You Need Is Love Series (Volume III) Elisa’s incredible series is on its third round. I participated in the first one and have always loved it.
• Flavorwire: 10 Albums You Need To Hear In February
• Simply Zesty: 5 Case Studies Of Brands Using Niche Social Sites (And Why You Should Too)
• Life is Like a Box of Chocolates: Lost and Floating On the Open Sea I know this is something we can all relate to at various points in our life.

One of my favorite tags are the online, fill-a-need, tools that I discover (and usually use). As a startup chica myself, I want to share the love.

In no particular order is a list of tools – plugins – applications (that I may or my not use, but either way I love them and a friend has likely recommended them):

• accompl.sh – develop, track and accomplish your goals
• betterment.com – invest the smart, simple way
• canvaspop.com – allows you to print any photos (think Instagram) to canvas
• barkbox.com – make your best friend happy, a once-a-month box of goodies for your pup
• postcardontherun.com – send real postcards from your phone
• stylate.com – reasonably priced brand packages for startups
• vizify.com/tweetsheet – your Twitter activity as an instant infographic
• cakehealth.com – the best free way to manage your healthcare expenses
• loosecubes.com – find shared office space by the day or month
• turningart.com – rotate artwork in your home or office
• redbutler.com – a personal assistant and concierge for professionals
• urbandig.com – off the beaten path experiences
• 7shifts.com – online employee scheduling for your staff
• themanregistry.com – gift registry for men
• tripit.com – travel itinerary and planner
• foodspotting.com – find and recommend dishes, not just restaurants
• occipital.com/360/app – realtime panorama creation
• hashtagmom.com – add #mom to your check-in, she gets an automated call or text, she knows you got there safe
• trello.com – a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards.

That’s my latest list. I tried to add the non-obvious (e.g. Twitter). There are more and as I find them, I’ll include another roundup.

Here’s to geeking out!

• Twitter Chat Schedule: Have you seen this? This is an all encompassing list of total Twitter chats and hashtags. Useful.
• The Rumpus: Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship One of my favorite things I read all week. A beautifully, raw description of a group of women, their story, their heartbreak and lives
• CNN Tech: 50 New Tech Tools You Should Know About
• Reuters: Facebook’s newest frontiers: inside the car I wonder if this trend will continue? Facebook now being built into systems for Mercedes
• What Would the Internet Do? http://www.wwtid.com/

My blogging friend Mehnaz, wrote a post in response to my 2012 year of saying no, where her year is to say yes more.  I love how we all have different needs and pieces we want to work on. Makes me feel alive and diverse.

I almost always say yes. It is excruciatingly hard for me to say no, moreso in personal relationships and requests, not so much business. My mom or boyfriend would joke, I’m great at saying no but that’s not the kind of opinionated no I’m talking about.

It’s when feelings are involved, it’s requests, favors and let me make your inconvenience mine (at a high level of repetition).

A true no doesn’t include making up an excuse or if I actually have an obligation, so I have to say no.

When I don’t have the capacity, I don’t want to, I can’t or I just am not up to it – those are true no’s.

I pride myself on giving and being helpful. I want that to be part of my life, forever. However, I resent the fact that I begin resenting situations or people, when their asking becomes an assumption, not a request. When their asking becomes so regular, you don’t remember not being asked. I feel drained if it’s take, take, take and I find sometimes, that what I begin giving back isn’t wholehearted or out of the goodness of my heart.

I still will say yes more than no.

I know that.

But I also know that I will feel empowered by speaking my truth and by just saying no, when I simply cannot.

I am scared because in general, we, as humans, don’t react well to no. More often than not, we request something from someone expecting them to give it, just assuming the no won’t be there.

It’s true.

I also recognize, that people come to expect me as the “Yes, whatever you need,” type-of-gal. I will still be reliable. If I say “No, I don’t think I can this time,” once every six months to someone that’s still reliable. There are just circumstances that don’t always align and the notion of asking, is that you are truly asking with a chance they may not be able to and it has nothing to do personally with you.

Those are my fears. Loud and clear.

More and more I find the need to exercise the no in my life. I barely have 30 minutes truly to myself these days and I find, with time to give back where and when I truly can and want to, it will be better for everyone.

Here’s to the no, opening up your life and allowing you to give back in the most honest way.

How do you say no in your life?

• Positively Positive: The Anatomy of an Epiphany
• Giant Step: Pepsi and Pandora Provide Exclusive Grammy Content to Fans
• Stratejoy: Some Lovely Things To Shift Your Perspective
• Letters Of Note: I Know What Love Is

Here are some goodies to send you off into the weekend.

• Mail Online: PLUS Model Magazine’s Katya Zharkova Cover Highlights Body Image In the Fashion Industry
• Mine Life with Life After College: Life After College Roadmap [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Just a Titch: Be Kind Online
• accompl.sh: After my resolutions post this week, my friend Tara shared this goals site. Interesting. Anyone else use it?

And thanks to Cirque Du Mot for including me in her list of marketers to follow!

I actually disagree. I think that resolutions, challenges and goals are important. The part I disagree with is only doing them on New Years. I like to set quarterly goals throughout the year and my birthday, in particular, is “my” new year and beginning. Stepping back is what really helps me look back and forward.

We were up in the snowy mountains snuggled at Amazing Grace cafe writing our resolutions this New Years. The man and I.

Maybe the people who lament are the ones who can never keep goals? I think I know the feeling.

I’m all about progression and I’m the type of person when I write pen to paper and say them out loud, they are resounding. But here’s the thing. I set some hefty goals for myself this year.

I won 40 days of free yoga at one of my favorite yoga studios here and I wanted to start that January 1 and go at least 4 times a week for 40 days (even more if I could). I cut out gluten for the month of January (health testing) and I setup individual and professional goals as well.

On day 10, I feel good without gluten. I have to be conscious of everything I choose to eat (or not) and it’s definitely hard. I’m not the type to “limit” myself. I admit, I’m such an indulgent and spontaneous personality type that the idea of cutting something out, is HARD.

On the yoga, my first week, I put in 4 days and felt great. This week already, looks like it’s falling to shambles with no time to fit in yoga and I’m angry. At myself.

I hate feeling guilty. Guilt is wasteful. But I do. I feel somewhat like a failure.

Then I took a step back and realized, there is absolutely no point in punishing myself.

Each day is a new day. The resolutions are guidelines and visions for ourselves, but we just may not make or hit them each time. That is okay. I repeat, Grace, that is okay.

What’s the point in beating ourselves up? None.

So here’s to more yoga and less gluten and less guilt and more happiness.

Do you struggle with making goals? What’s something you’re so proud of and stuck with?

• Feed the Pig: [INFOGRAPHIC for Gen Y] Discussing why Gen Y could and should save more and the stats around it!
• Sortable: Take the pain out of buying. Sorts by price, features, etc.
• The New York Times: The Joy of Quiet
• The Daily Love: Life Only Sucks If You Do (Bring The Radness)

Oh happy Friday!

Most of the time, you aren’t developed enough mentally to truly understand what matters to you at those adolescent ages.

I’m not a big serial dater. I’ve had four long-term relationships (first love, high school, college, now) in my life that have all taught me something and I can firmly say, I do not regret. There are pieces where I shake my head, but I know I wouldn’t have learned. I just wouldn’t have.

For me, I don’t believe in marrying young. I want a lifelong partnership, not a piece of paper and first, I will develop the partnership. I know, it works for some people and high school sweethearts, well that melts my heart, but it’s few and far between. We simply want different things. We stay with someone for the wrong reasons and we don’t even know that it’s not right, until far after the relationship melted.

Now I look in my partner at: loyalty, trust, solid friendship, laughter, conversation that could go on forever, kindness, respect to his mother and other women, ambition, love, chemistry, personal and spiritual development, family oriented, wants a family, adventure and communication.

These are a lot of foundational pieces.

In my ex-boyfriends or ex-crushes, there wasn’t all that. I didn’t really care about personal and spiritual development or their ambition. I didn’t realize then, that the color of their eyes or their twisted smile or their bad habits didn’t equate longevity in a relationship.

When I’m 80, on my ass and tired from the wild ride of my full life, I’m not going to be checking out their bod or the “game” they play.

Also? If you want it bad enough, you always make it work. If they’re into you, they’re into you. If there’s confusion, then why didn’t I realize then, he’s/she’s just not that into you. It’s the truth.

I’m no relationship expert, but I’ve had my fair share to find for myself what I need and want. Like deeper, inside – that match my value system. I feel far too often are we driven by exterior, shallow motives. I’ve been there and some of the surface level “desires” we have are what my friend Jenny Blake calls, “nice to have’s” where it’s not a make or break.

If the foundation is there, you have something. That’s not saying you will have to work at the relationship and not just let it “fall” because everything else is just there. We grow and evolve as people, but if we went after matters of the heart and mind, there seems to be some strength there in relationships.

Something about looking behind, not lamenting but reflecting, helps me see how tuned and true I am being to myself in relationships. I cut out the toxic, romantically and platonically, because to me, there’s no room for that. Back then, I may not have.

It’s a work in progress, my friends, but it’s nice to literally see and feel the growth.

What about you? What did you use to go for?

I pride myself on posting with frequency, holding myself accountable, finding joy in content, this community and always posting Friday Linky Love.

But this time of year is precious.

We wind up the last 12 months tightly with a bow, look back, give big hugs to our family and friends and hopefully, we take time off from whatever occupies us daily to unwind and be with our kin. That’s what I’ll be doing. 

In fact, I’m already home on the first leg of my holiday happy trip.

As I quietly drop off online for a few weeks, I wanted to do my own looking back here on the blog and my year. I think looking back (not lamenting) but celebrating and learning is an important step. It changes the pace and allows us to say, “Oh right, I did do that,” or “Shit, I’ll try again next year.”

Some facts: The most widely read city? New York City, followed by Boulder. I’m amazed that 80% of visitors were new this year. It’s fun to think there’s a new crew stumbling here. It’s fun to think 100,000 new visitors came to the blog this year. That’s nuts.

Most popular posts (to-date):

• The “I Can Do Anything” Freedom In My 20′s
• We See Things As We Are
• Asking For Help and Why I Struggle With It
• Is It Hard For You To Make Friends?
• Women, What Does Your Body Language Say? 
• May Today There Be Peace Within
• Comparing the Eras: Where People Wrote Letters and When They Did Not

MY Favorite Posts of 2011:

• I Didn’t Set A Resolution To Lose Weight This Year
• Make the Blogger IRL: A Love Story
• You Can Tell A lot About a Person When…
• What Are You Willing to Pay For?
• Your Work, Outside of Work
• The Giver Bemoans
• Choosing International Travel; Beautiful Solitude
• The Way You Were Raised
• A Birthday Public Service Announcement
• The Fine Line Between Offensive and an Off-Hand Comment
• Communication In the Digital Age – Lost In Translation
• A True Story: An Upset Reader

General Milestones:

After three years at a job I loved, with people I loved I took a leap and got a new job in June. It was a straight upward trajectory personally and professionally. I love it. I’m challenged everyday and I laugh usually, all day long there.

This was the first full year of my food blog: Grace(full) Plate which included my first year of running and maintaining, two blogs. I can’t believe I did it. Here’s to another year.

I did go to Vegas for Bloggers In Sin City, taking those blogging loves to the real life. I cherish what blogging has brought me.

Also traveled to: Santa Barbara, Boston/Worcester (twice), San Diego, Iowa (twice), Cleveland, West Virginia, and many mountain trips.

Someone pretended to be me on Twitter. That was cool/weird.

This has been a beautiful year. I feel like the blog is truly mine after three years of running along. I respect the lulls, dips and highs and I also know that this is my refuge and place to share. Thank you for believing in me, thank you for supporting and thank you for just being here. I hope you had a wonderful 2011 and that 2012 is just how you need or want it to be.

xo,
G