30 Brand-New Food, Travel and Wellness Stories + 4 Intentions For 2024

And I'm holding myself accountable and reporting back on my goal for 2023!

Hi all,

Welcome to Monday and the second full week of this shiny new year! Below, I’m revealing my 4 major intentions for 2024. Before we get there, though, let’s take a brief look back.

2023 ended with a beautiful array of festivities (holiday jazz shows at Noce, Christmas carol string quartets , dinners at restaurants with halls fully decked) and reflections. My friend Sammy and I commemorated the winter solstice with an insightful aura reading at the mystical shop KIN, and I adored flipping through my 2023 publishing archives to select my 10 favorite features of the year.

I enjoyed 5 days of quality family time bookending Christmas itself. Highlights included:

• Learning how to make my Grandma Rita’s egg noodles (thank you for the lesson, Mom!) to “invite” her to dinner and carry on important family heirloom recipes

• Watching three very different but equally awesome movies, Kelce, Elemental and Wonka

• Playing countless games of Yahtzee and Rummikub

• Enjoying plenty of Bread by Chelsa B. sourdough, Grateful Chef mezze and Sift n Sprinkle macarons

• Reliving the magic of Fashion Plates with my nieces

• Gathering with my Mom’s extended family to catch up on the year’s most memorable moments

Speaking of which, here’s a 6-second recap to succinctly tie a bow on the beautiful 365 that was 2023!

karlaswalsh

A post shared by @karlaswalsh

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What to Read…

It’s been nearly a month since the last new story drop. Despite taking time off for the holidays, I have 30 pieces that have been published in the meantime that are ready to explore. You’ll notice a couple end of year and Christmas-specific pieces scattered throughout (don’t miss the 2023 food trend retrospective for Allrecipes!) alongside a wide array of recipe ideas, wellness wisdom and travel trends.

• VERANDA: Dual-Concept Hotels Will Be the Hottest Hospitality Trend in 2024

• VERANDA: This Is the Ideal Temperature to Keep Your House, According to a New Survey

• Better Homes and Gardens: Roast Dinners Are Everywhere—Here's How to Make One At Home

• Better Homes and Gardens: Our Best Goat Cheese Recipes That Celebrate the Tangy Flavor

• Better Homes and Gardens: What Is a Crisper Drawer—And Is it Different From the Rest of the Refrigerator?

• Better Homes and Gardens: Copycat Coffee Shop Recipes to Recreate Your Favorite Menu Items

• Better Homes and Gardens: We're Calling It: The Gingerbread Negroni Is the Cocktail of Christmas

• Better Homes and Gardens: 8 Mistakes You Might Be Making With Chicken—And What You Should Do Instead

• Better Homes and Gardens: You’ll Dig These Carrot Side Dishes

• Better Homes and Gardens: 14 Easy Pasta Side Dishes to Pair With Your Favorite Proteins

• Better Homes and Gardens: These Luxurious Risotto Recipes Taste Gourmet, But Are Surprisingly Simple to Make

• Food & Wine: Costco Is Currently Selling One of the World's Rarest Wines for a Relative Bargain

• Southern Living: Blake Shelton And Gwen Stefani's Secret To The Best Roast Turkey Comes From A Gas Station

• Southern Living: These Southern Recipes Made Google's List Of Most-Searched Recipes In 2023

• Southern Living: Martha Stewart's Controversial Trick To Get Party Guests To Leave

• Southern Living: This Is The Recipe Alton Brown Would Make If He Could Only Eat Meat Once Per Year

• Allrecipes: I Put This Viral Jar-Opening Trick to the Test—Here’s How It Stacks Up

• Allrecipes: The Secret Ingredient That Gives Brie Larson's Christmas Chicken Recipe Ultra-Crispy Skin

• Allrecipes: Barbra Streisand's Relatable Semi-Homemade 5-Ingredient Meal Makes Us Love Her Even More

• Allrecipes: Taco Bell Just Quietly Added a 1990s-Favorite Menu Item Back to the Lineup

• Allrecipes: The Top 10 Food Trends of 2023

• Woman's World: Goodbye, Bladder Leaks! Doctors Reveal the Best Urinary Incontinence Remedies

• dsm Magazine: Too Many Guests For the Holiday Feast? Rent Moxie

• Peloton: How Does Kinesiology Tape Work & Can It Help Your Workouts?

• Runner's World: The Best Postrun Snacks, According to Sports Dietitians 🔒

• SHAPE: What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Too Much Salt?

• SHAPE: 3 Simple Steps to Better Sleep, According to Health Experts

• EatingWell: The #1 Habit to Start to Improve Your Memory, Recommended by Brain Experts

• EatingWell: What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Butter Every Day

• EatingWell: These Are the Best and Worst Diets of 2024, According to U.S. News & World Report

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What’s Inspiring Me…

The New Year!

There’s something about the potential that comes with a shiny new calendar. Rather than restrictive resolutions, I’m on team self-growth goals and love envisioning ways to add more good to my life each year.

ICYMI, at the start of 2023, I created a book bucket list of sorts to inspire my overarching goal: to read or cook from at least 12 books. I’m proud to report that I conquered 13 and two halves (I’m partially through both The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson and West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge).

The final report…

Reading:

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Gamus

• From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks

• It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

• The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

• The Old Place by Bobby Finger

• Happy Place by Emily Henry

• Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Cooking:

• The Clean Vegan Cookbook by Jackie Akerberg

• Go-To Dinners by Ina Garten

• What’s for Dessert by Claire Saffitz

• The Modern Proper by Holly Erickson and Natalie Mortimer

Sticking to—and slightly beating—this goal was a win, but the real victory was shifting to a lifestyle that allowed more time for leisure. Reading before bed isn’t an everyday thing (yet), but it’s regular enough that I’ve grown to look forward to it and adore it as a way to wind down and rest at the end of a full day.

I aim to keep up with page-turners as we turn the calendar to 2024. Already on my shelf and ready to devour:

• The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert Waldinger, MD, and Marc Shultz, PhD

• The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food by Andrew Friedman

• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

With 2023’s self-growth mission rocked, I’m excited to ease into 2024. I have 4 diverse intentions, which I look forward to reporting back about in 12 months.

1. Journal daily. For the first time in my life, and with prompts from Michelle Obama guiding the way, I hope to integrate more personal writing into my life. A huge thank you to one of my mentors, Connie Wimer, who is full of 91 years of wisdom. She advised me that “you’ll never regret keeping a journal. Please start!”

2. Drink more water throughout the day. I sip during my workouts, with dinner and throughout the evening, but often find myself in the zone during my desk time. To inspire me to have H2O top of mind, I invested in a countertop pellet ice maker. So far so strong on both of these top two.

3. Be kinder to myself. Building on “space” in 2022 and “ease” in 2023, I’ve selected “softness” as my word of the year. I’d love to learn to be softer in the way I view myself, physically and emotionally, and with the way I share my heart with those in my inner circle.

4. Rebuild a solid foundation. When I refer to “softer physically,” I mean that I hope to maintain muscle while gaining some much-needed healthy fat. A recent InBody scan (this charts your muscle mass, fat mass, hydration levels and more) revealed that I was letting down my guard a bit too much on the ample fueling front. So as of Friday, I’m a proud client of Expedition Wellness. I’m looking forward to working with a dietitian for both the accountability and for reminders about where I might be slacking in my fueling. I’ve come so far since those years that were taken over by anorexia, but I need to be better about ensuring that I treat my body with as much TLC as I do my career, non-profit work and other passions.

Comment below: Do you set intentions at the start of a new month or year? If so, I’d love to hear one that you’re working on right now!