I began last year tracking a lot of my daily activity to help get in better shape. Among the things I've begun tracking on a daily basis are steps, weight, sleep, and workouts. I also have a daily to-do list using the app Productive to make sure I do the basics (take vitamins, wash my face, brush my teeth and floss twice a day, etc.). It's not something that works for everyone but for me its a way to stay accountable to where I want to be in my life and I can't tell you how proud of all these stats in 2016. 

Each year I put together a list of a handful of goals for the upcoming year. I try to make the goals realistic but also things to better me as a person whether physically or mentally. For goals I've found that looking back on how I did, not only at setting goals, but also achieving them can be just as important as actually accomplishing them. So how did I do?

Last year Jenn and I started a new annual tradition to write up and rank our favorite shows of the year. It began with 18 shows last year and ballooned out a little this year to 24 for me and 21 for Jenn. This list does not include the multitude of political shows we watch (Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Full Frontal) or reality shows (The Amazing Race and Top Chef). This list only includes scripted shows where we completed at least a season in the year.

There's something magical each year when Jenn and I bring the multitude of Christmas boxes out of storage and into our home. This year we decorated (like we have for many years) the Saturday following Thanksgiving. After renting out the freight elevator and taking up our boxes of Christmas trees and decorations Jenn went to work on making our home beautiful. I helped where possible (building the trees and lugging boxes up and down from storage) but for the most part I stepped back and let Jenn work her magic. 

Welcome to our second annual 12 Christmas Movies post. We tried for many years to watch a dozen Christmas movies during the holidays but failed a couple of times before suceeding last year. In fact I was reading my post last year and found one glaring error, I called it 12 Days of Christmas Movies when in actuality it was really the 12 Nights of Christmas Movies. That has been corrected in 2016 and with it an updated batch of Christmas movies. Many have remained the same from last year with a few exceptions. 

I originally wrote this post before the election. Now with the results known this post has quite a bit less relevance then I thought it would. I still believe that although we as a country lost a big battle this November, I do want to highlight some of the bright spots of this political season. These were the voices of reason that Jenn and I clung to up until days before the election.