 Hey guys, it's Monica. Thank you so much for joining me in this video. I am actually gonna share with you my top 10 favorites of 2021. So if you're interested, stay tuned. Gosh, can you believe it's 2022? When I look back at 2021, it was a very turbulent year for me and I know for many of you, but now it's like here's a new beginning, 2022. And I'm so full of, I think, excitement, right? Because it's a clean slate going forward and it just makes me feel really good. I wanna put the past behind. I wanna put anything that happened negative in its proper place in my memory bank but not let the past hold me still. You know, I wanna be able to move forward and I don't wanna be glued in place in the past. I wanna put those memories where they belong and just have a wonderful 2022. So I hope that you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve. Whether you went out, whether you stayed home in your jammies or whatever you did, I hope you had a wonderful New Year's Eve. Jay and I actually had a early luncheon with my mom and my sister, late luncheon, early dinner. So we did that and that was just, that was nice and then we came home. So anyways, my top 10 favorites, the things that I really, really enjoyed in 2021. And because it was such a weird year for me, I really, I didn't really do a whole lot of skincare makeup, new stuff and all that. I do have a video coming up. So my skincare update is coming up. That'll be my next video. Then after that video, I have a collab video, which is gonna be super awesome. And then I have a video on magical marriages. I know, I know, I know. Actually, it's more in tuned of when it's just the two of you, you know, empty nesters. How do you keep that spark alive? How to have a magical marriage, basically. So those are the videos I have in the queue. So I hope you join me. If you're new to my channel, please consider subscribing. Please ring that notification bell so you'll be notified whenever I do upload. I know YouTube is so funky on that at times. But if you don't get a notification, just check back. And you might be surprised to see that I have some new videos. Anyways, top 10 items. Most of these are not going to be skincare or makeup. I do have some top skincare and makeup. I'll talk about that, obviously, in my next video. But the top 10 items or things that really made me happy in 2021 in a no particular order, right? In no particular order. So first up has to be my bike. Many of you know that Jay and I bought e-bikes in 2021. Jay and I always loved biking. We have, we had some really nice expensive, actually, Cannondale Mountain Bikes that we bought like 20 some odd years ago. And we would bike in Arcadia. We would bike around our neighborhood. We would do a lot of biking. Always enjoyed it. We take the bikes on our motor home. We'd go up to the beach and bike along the beach. And then it got to the point where the Cannondale Mountain Bikes are hybrid bikes that we had. Mine was super big. I had a hard time throwing my leg over it. I had a hard time just feeling comfortable in that big bike underneath me. And it's Jay. So we made a decision. We had seen some people on e-bikes and we said, wow, that's the way to go. We're getting older. You know, we want to still stay active. We want to be able to exercise. We want to be able to enjoy those things. So we made a decision to pursue e-bikes. And we did that. We investigated and we ended up buying an e-bike that I consider to be midline, you know, as far as price wise. There's many bikes that are in lower price point and there's many bikes that are much higher price point, which might be shocking to you because we're not talking hundreds of dollars. You know, in some cases these bikes are, some of the bikes I've seen are $16,000, $18,000. So I was like, oh my gosh, never. So we found a midpoint basically and what was important to us was a warranty and local servicing. We wanted to be able to take our bikes because neither one of us are handy. We wanted to be able to take our bikes and have them serviced locally. Even though we could have gotten cheaper products price wise, you know, by ordering them off the internet, et cetera, we could have done that, you know. However, the horror stories of ordering online, the horror stories of not having anyone service them, the reviews really made us nervous. So we ended up getting pedagos. They were pricey and, you know, you can finance, you could have a 0% finance, whatever your budget is. But we looked at it and said, okay, these bikes will probably outlast us. So we looked at it. So we bought pedagos and we absolutely love them. So for us in 2021, for the two of us, getting back on bikes, getting back out there, just exploring and being able to cruise the beach and do all the things that we really love to do on bikes, being able to do that again in 2021 was just awesome. So bikes absolutely love it, love it, love it. That outdoor activity, something Jay and I can do together. The second thing, number two, and again, no particular order, but number two has to be my Apple Watch. And this is a repeat. It's not new for 2021 for me. I've had an Apple Watch. This is I think my third Apple Watch or my second. I've had an Apple Watch for many, many years. I love my Apple Watch. Not only does it give me my text messages, can I listen to Vox messages on it or email on it? It gives me my health reporting. It also has safety, a fall factor. If I fall and I don't respond, it'll call 911. There's just a ton of things that my Apple Watch does. So the first time I got my Apple Watch, I was like, okay, but I didn't really maximize the use as much as I do now. So for me, an Apple Watch is a must. I would never be without my Apple Watch. And I love the fact that I can, and I buy these on Amazons. I have all these little replacement bracelets or bracelets that you can swap your watch out on. All of them have been bought on Amazon. I don't buy them from Apple. They are extremely reasonable. Some of them are like 20 bucks. Some of them are on sale for nine bucks. So it is super easy to swap out the bracelet or the chain and have several in this little box that your Apple Watch, you can have a different look. I have the pretty pearl ones when I go away to a wedding. I still wear my Apple Watch, but I have the pearl bracelet on. And the same thing, if I'm wearing something that's pretty fancy and I want the pink one, I put that on. I just love these little pink beads. And I just love how they look. So my Apple Watch for many, many reasons is definitely a favorite of 2021. The other thing, number three, would be for sure my Fire Pit. Oh my gosh. I love my Fire Pit. It is something that I've wanted for a long time. Jay and I bought it last year. I'm sorry, the year before. So we've had two seasons out of it. We'll probably get a different one next season. But we've had so much enjoyment. Now granted, Jay and I are not, we're sort of casual folks in many ways. I'm not really super into a lot of glam in my real, you know, personal life, my day-to-day life when I go to work, et cetera. I'm just not really into all of that. However, we love the simple things. And the Fire Pit is definitely a simple enjoyment that we've had that we really like a lot. Number four would be the podcasts. I have a podcast app and I can listen to it on my phone. I can listen to it on my Apple Watch. I can listen to it on my iPad. You know, my earbuds, I plug them in and I listen to a podcast. I have several podcasts that I really like. Most of them are True Crime. Love, love, love the True Crime. Right now I'm in the middle of listening to a True Crime podcast, The Teacher's Pet. Oh my gosh, it's unbelievable. So podcasts and my audio books, Outlander book number nine, I'm listening to that. I'm trying to go very, very slow because I know that there's gonna be a big drought. Droughtlander, they call it between the books when book number 10 comes out, which I've heard is going to be the last in the series. I don't know. I hope that she does like a prequel and she talks about there, you know, prior to Jamie and Claire and all that. I love Outlander. Oh my gosh, Outlander is my favorite. Number five is my skincare. I have a whole line of some new skincare products that I'm using. Some of them extremely affordable. Some of them a little bit more on the pricey side. I'm gonna talk about them in my next video, but I love my skincare. I am a creature of habit. I get into a routine. I usually stick to that routine, especially when I start to see results. So my skincare number one for me, I've seen probably the most dramatic changes this last year in my skin. So I love my skincare. I love my skincare. Number six, my collagen. Great Lakes Collagen is what we use. Jay and I take two tablespoons every morning and sometimes I mess up in the afternoon or in the evening but two tablespoons at night. I've noticed the biggest difference since we've been doing the Great Lakes. I think we've been taking it since 2016. I'd have to go back and look. But we religiously take the collagen. It's you drink it. It does not have a taste. It isn't something that is gonna make an overnight difference. I started to notice the difference like three months into my collagen with my dry skin. That's the difference I noticed the most. So Great Lakes Collagen. Love it, love it, love it will not be without it. An app called Voxer, V-O-X-E-R. I love my Voxer app. I have the free version of Voxer. Voxer allows me to talk to people and sometimes it's in real time. Sometimes they're on the other end. So it's an app on your phone where you can leave a voice message without having to dial in, without having to pay any kind of like long distance charges or anything of that nature. You don't have to listen to any kind of an outgoing message. So you can also see when that message has been delivered to the person and also when that person plays that message. So I use Voxer with Jay to leave him quick messages. I use Voxer with a few of the other beautiful beauty content creators that I talk to almost daily. We leave Vox messages with each other. I really like Voxer a lot. And again, I'm using the free Voxer app. So it's easy to use and it's instant gratification because I can leave a message without having to dial in and without having to go through a voicemail system or anything of that nature. So Voxer's been a game changer for me for this year. Love it. My coffee maker, a couple of years ago, and I'm going to try to insert a picture. I, years and years ago, I grew up, my mother had a glass coffee pot and she had the cone, the Melita cone, and she bought the filter papers and she would put her own coffee in there, boil coffee in a teapot and then pour it over. A couple of years ago, Jay and I started to do, we actually started to do it when we were dry camping, when we're camping in our RV and we don't have electricity, but I want to get up in the morning and I want to have coffee and because you can't always turn your generator on early because of the rules. So we were looked into the Melita coffee system. So we bought a thermal craft and the cone that you put on top of it in the filter paper. Then we have a little grinder and we grind our own coffee beans. It has become a routine that I enjoy so much. Every morning I love when I hear those coffee beans grinding. I love the smell of those coffee beans and I love the coffee the way it tastes. So it takes a while, right? Because it's not going to be you're going to turn on a pot and plug it and go. You have to boil the water, then you have to gently pour it into the cone until it's full. So it does take some time to do it, but my coffee, my thermal coffee maker that, my drip coffee is awesome. So we have now, we bought a second one, went for the house and one to keep in the motor home. That's how much we love our coffee. So I am a coffee snob. I do like coffee beans and I like to ground them myself. Mm, just the thought of it makes me want to go have a cup of coffee. So coffee. The next thing that I didn't think I would ever say that Facebook would make one of my top 10s because I'm not a huge advocate of Facebook. I think it's full of spam. I think it's full of crap. I hate the political stuff on it. I hate all the different arguments people get into, but Facebook has connected me with relatives that I haven't seen since I was a little girl in Germany. So Facebook has become to me a place where I can keep connections to people or reconnect with people, relatives, family members that I may not have seen for 40, 50, 60 years or more depends, right? It's just awesome. So this past year, and a lot of this has happened since my dad passed away, but this past year, my mom and I and my sister, we've really focused in on trying to connect up with relatives. And I've been able to connect up with my cousins and all of that. So Facebook for the connection value of it, not for any other avenue of the political rah-rah and all that stuff, but just the family thing. So I have my family groups and I work Facebook by going into the groups and not just in general all the time. And then lastly, somebody had left a comment about giving a gift of experiences. And I had done a video talking about the best gift of all the gift of experiences. So number 10 for me has been memory making and memory making or the gift of experiences has always been big for me. You know, Jay and I have always done day trips. We've done this, we used to take my mom and dad out. We'd pick mom and dad up and we'd take them here or go there and do this with them. And in this year, Jay and I've done it with my mom. So memory making, treasuring those little gifts of experiences that you can have together, being together, spending time together. That was huge for me in 2021. And I so treasure all of the memories that I've been able to make in 2021. Oh my gosh, so treasure them. And I'm so happy that the gift of experiences is so achievable. Doesn't cost much, just time, right? You don't even have to plan some big super special place to go, just be together. The gift of experiences, memory making, I absolutely love it. And then lastly, every single one of you. So every single one of you have added to my life, enriched my life and just added whole different dimension. I love my YouTube time, even though I haven't been super consistent at times, I love my YouTube time. And I just think it's amazing. And so many people, people that I hope to meet again in real life, hope to get together with them again and people that I have not had the opportunity to meet but that have enriched me by supporting the channel, becoming friends of mine, talking on Vox or even direct messaging. There's so many beautiful YouTube content creators that are like that. And then there's my subscribers, every single one of you. I would be nowhere without you. And YouTube would be a very lonely place if you were not watching my videos and commenting and just being there. So I treasure every single one of you. And I, gosh, I hope we all collectively have the most amazing 2022, all of us. So thank you for watching. Love you all. And I'll see you in my next video. Oh, and don't forget, skincare is coming out. And the collab and a magical marriage. It's gonna be a good one. Bye guys.