Dear Future Me 2017

Dear Future Me,

Another year has come and gone. Here I sit here writing this, we are at the very beginning of 2017. A fresh start. A new beginning. A blank book. Remember the picture below? You took it on January 1, 2017. You KNEW that this year was going to be AMAZING 365 days ago and this is what you knew you would celebrate...

You and hubby celebrated 10 YEARS of marriage! 10 YEARS! That's amazing and wonderful and, in todays world, quite the accomplishment! You two enjoyed at least one date night ALONE each and every month. Even if it was just to the grocery store without the kids.

You also turned 36 this year. Yup. 36. You are on the downhill slide to 40. Suck it up and get over it. Remember what your mom always says - life BEGINS at 40! And on the mom front - she turned 65 this year. I know that's been weighing heavily on your mind. That's when HER mom passed away from cancer. Quit worrying about that and enjoy her. You can thank me for that bit of advice later.

On the family front - your oldest turned 8 and is now in 2nd grade. Your baby girl turned 5 and will be going to kindergarten this coming fall. I'm not really sure how this happened but your baby celebrated his FIRST birthday in August. We took a trip to Indiana to visit Uncle Lee and Aunt Pam. We spent WEEKS at the lake, the pool, and Conneaut Lake Park this past summer - which helped solidify the 5 of us as a family!

You enjoyed going back to work (teaching) in April, teaching Summer Band, and the start of your FIFTEENTH YEAR of teaching in September! Fifteen years. REALLY??? You had two very successful concert seasons and welcomed a HUGE class of new beginner band students into 4th grade.

In your health coaching business, you had an amazing comeback. Yes, you took some time off in 2015 and 2016, but 2017 WAS.YOUR.YEAR. Your team flourished and grew exponentially. Your coaches found success in helping others. Team Harmony became an Elite Team. You enjoyed New Orleans in July with the entire crew and Leadership in November. You helped 40 people learn to love themselves again over the course of this past year.

In your personal health and fitness journey, you completed every program you started. Beginning to end. You lost ALL your baby weight AND your steroid weight. You comfortably fit into your clothes again. You smile. A LOT. You run around with your kids. You got certified to teach Core de Force and Country Heat. You are taking a smaller dosage of your synthroid and your Lupus symptoms are still under control. You are strong and happy and nothing could be better than that!

You also finally decided to grab yourself a "word of the year". It took you a while to figure out which word you wanted to focus on and you sure found the PERFECT one!

Yup. Balance. Told ya it would be a good one for 2017!

You learned how to balance being a mom, wife, friend, coach, teacher, and Kelly. You learned how to balance a full-time work-outside-the-home job and TWO full-time work-at-home-jobs (mom and coach). You learned how to balance your time effectively - something you have wanted to do for the past 36 years. You now enjoy getting up at 5:30am. It's the peace, quiet, and stillness of the dawn that clears your mind and sets you up for a productive day. You learned how to balance your home - in other words - you quit procrastinating and did what your jobs when they should have been done - something you have always struggled with. You learned to balance your love of eating healthy with your love of sweets. This one was particularly tough. The sugar monster is big and ugly. You took him on and won!

If I'm right, and I know I am, you are beaming from ear to ear right now. You are so.damn.proud. of yourself. You rocked 2017. You learned more about yourself than you EVER thought was possible. You found your passion again.

You found yourself again.

Now, let's get ready to make 2018 even better than 2017!!!

<3,
Kell Bell


If you could talk to your future self, what would you say? What are your big plans for 2017?