Happy New Year babes! Now that we are officially one week into the New Year, I thought I could start recapping some of 2017. A lot happened in 2017, it was a learning and growing year for me for sure.
One significant life change that happened in 2017 was with my relationship. My boyfriend moved from DC to Chicago in January, so that we didn’t have to do long-distance anymore. We fell hard and fast for each other and were 100% sure that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, so when we broke up, everyone was shocked. Everyone kept asking “what happened?!?!” Which is the hardest part. Nothing “happened.” We just realized over time that we ultimately wanted different things. We still love and care about each other more than anything, which makes it so much more difficult to part ways. Unfortunately, sometimes love just isn’t enough. I discovered a quote a couple of months ago that really helped me with the break up, “Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.” This resonated with me because this was by far one of the hardest choices we ever had to make, but it will absolutely make our lives easier long term. We could’ve taken the easy way out and stayed together, but we would have ended up resenting each other for not living the lives we each wanted. As hard as it’s been the past couple months, I am trying to focus on all the positives that came from our time together. He taught me so much and truly changed me for the better, and I will forever be grateful for our time together.
On a more positive note… 2017 was also the year I decided to start my own business! In true Rooney fashion, I didn’t think too much about it. One day, I thought I should start a travel company and the next day, I announced it on my Facebook and Instagram and applied for an LLC. In retrospect, it was a pretty dumb way of going about starting a business, but somehow it’s working out just fine!
Sometimes, I think you just have to think less and put yourself out there. Overthinking can be a dream killer. Have any of you ever heard of or read The 5 Second Rule? If any of you tend to overthink decisions or can’t pull the trigger on something, it’s definitely worth a read.
Some of the best decisions I have ever made have been impulse. Like for example, one day I decided I wanted to go to Peru. The next day I applied to a volunteer program and got accepted. Three months later, I quit my job, was in Peru volunteering at an orphanage and climbing Machu Picchu on the weekend. One day I decided I didn’t want to live in Florida anymore, a couple of days later I started looking for places in Chicago (Chicago was in my sales territory at work, so it made sense), and now here I am 2 years into being a Chicago resident. It’s always funny to me that I make these major life decisions on a whim, but literally for the life of me cannot decide on a place to eat dinner. Is anyone else like this??
So, back to starting Champagne Getaway… I actually started Champagne Getaway because I was getting so many requests from friends and friends of friends to help them plan bachelorette parties. I spend a lot of time in Nashville for work, so people always ask for my opinion since it’s now the #1 place for bachelor/bachelorette parties. I’ve also been to Vegas, Charleston, NYC, Savannah, Miami and other popular bachelorette destinations, Munich, London, Prague, Mexico, Thailand, Spain, etc. multiple times, so my friends have always come to me for trusted travel advice. That’s when I realized that there must be other people out there looking for the same advice.
I initially started Champagne Getaway as a bachelorette planning company, but as I’m sure many of you have noticed, I’ve changed the direction and path of Champagne Getaway 10 times over and still continue to modify it. I still want to focus on girl’s trips because some of my favorite memories have been on vacations with my best friends. However, a lot of my travels are solo or work-related, so I want to be able to document those too. Now my blog has become more of a documentation of all of my travels and what I wear.
It’s funny because I didn’t set out to do anything with fashion, but as I started posting pictures, I kept getting messages from random followers asking for outfit details. I even got emails from people asking me what they should wear in Southeast Asia, Europe or even Nashville. I started noticing through my analytics that more people were clicking on my fashion posts than my travel posts. That’s when I realized that fashion is such an essential piece of female travel, so now I am trying to incorporate both. It’s fun because travel and fashion are genuinely two of my passions, so I love to share them with you guys!
Champagne Getaway has been such a fun project/hobby for me. For those of you who don’t know, I do work a 9-5 job at a tax management company. It is actually a family business, so I am super grateful that I get to work with my dad, uncle, and cousins on a daily basis. I am also thankful that I have such a steady, reliable job, but as you may have guessed, taxes don’t exactly set my soul on fire, so Champagne Getaway has in one way or another given me a sense of purpose. I absolutely loveeee getting messages from all of you asking for my advice or commenting on my posts. It makes me feel so amazing that my page is an inspiration for others. Recently I got a message from one of my German followers saying that she goes on Instagram every day just to look at my page because it brightens up her day. I couldn’t believe that my page was impacting someone on the other side of the world!
Getting these sweet messages from all of you is what pushes me through when I have days where I want to give up on it. As fun as it is to document my travels and post about them, it also sometimes takes the vacation out of the vacation. I have been swamped with new accounts at my real job for the past 7 months or so, and sometimes working on the blog after hours or on my vacations is just too much. When we went to Hawaii this year, I was so excited to have a week off from my tax job so that I could finally have time to work on my Champagne Getaway website that I had wanted to develop. I spent almost the whole vacation in Hawaii getting content for the blog and developing my website in the hotel room. Before I knew it, our Hawaii vacation was coming to an end, and I felt like I hadn’t even enjoyed it. We were supposed to go to LA for a few days on our way back and get some more content for the blog, but I decided to cancel it at the last minute and spend a few extra days in Hawaii so that I could actually RELAX. Those 3 additional days in Hawaii were probably the best days I had all year. Sometimes you just need to take a break.
Between my job, starting Champagne Getaway, my relationship, and my crazy travel schedule in 2017, I feel like I never made any time for just me. So, tomorrow on the blog, I’ll be talking about my New Year’s Resoltions and how I plan to focus on me in 2018. Cheers y’all!
Byeeeee 2017!
