You're listening to the Girl Next Door Podcast, and it's a little something different today.

It's just me, Kelsey, coming to you with a mini episode.

So we recorded a year-end wrap-up episode that should be airing today, but in 2020 fashion,

there were technical difficulties, and at this point, it is not clear

yet whether we can recover that episode or not. So kind of a bummer. But I didn't want to leave you all

empty-handed, or maybe empty-eared, at the end of this long year. So I thought I'd do just a

mini solo episode for you. I'm actually putting this together the night

before it comes out. So it's a little bit by the seat of my pants. So I thought in this mini

episode I could share a few things with you, how I'm making time and space to close out 2020,

a couple of rituals that are putting me in the right head space to welcome a new year, plus a few podcast

episodes that have kept me company lately that I think you would enjoy.

So first, how I'm making time and space to close out this crazy, hard year that has been 2020.

If you're a longtime listener of the show, you will know that I love a fresh new year.

I love lists and goals and a whole new year of getting things done. That is not how I was

feeling about ending this year and starting 2021. Until about a week ago, I felt rung out and

frustrated from lots of things, big and small, both in my control

and out of my control. And then I took a day off. It was my birthday on December 22nd,

and Erica's birthday too, in case you didn't know, we share a birthday. And I told Chris that for my

birthday, all I wanted was just the day off.

So for my day off, I went to my parents' house here, which is wonderfully empty and wonderfully

quiet.

I took coffee.

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