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Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by McCafé at Home. All opinions and photography are our own and are not influenced by McCafé at Home. Thanks for supporting the brands that support this blog.
If you’ve been following our blog for some time now, then you probably know that we are both to-do list queens. We’re busybodies at heart and love nothing more than a productive day working together. And life has changed a lot in the 6 years since we started this blog. We’ve each gotten married, moved into new homes, Bridget had a baby and is now expecting her second, while I’ve spent 1.5 years going through time-consuming fertility treatments. And while we still have lots of blogging days working side-by-side, they’re really all business…and there isn’t much time for fun.
Life continues to get more complicated and at the end of 2018, we realized that we weren’t spending enough time on our friendship. And at the core of this blog, is our FRIENDSHIP. That’s the only reason there is even a DIY Playbook at all.
We had a big end of 2018 meeting to review the year and make plans for 2019 and during that meeting, we discussed this “issue” and decided that we needed to take steps to fix it. We honestly couldn’t remember the last time we went out for lunch and didn’t bring our computers along. Or we had a sleepover just because, and not for a blog event (Fun Fact: In high school, Bridget and I made a pact that we would still have sleepovers even when we were “old and had kids.” haha).
During that conversation, we realized what we needed to add to our list of blog goals for 2019…more time for us!
Our 2019 New Year’s Resolution
Our new year’s resolution is to focus a bit more on our friendship. And with any resolution, we’re taking small steps to make this change. We can’t simply duck out on our work and family obligations and head out for a girls’ trip once a month. But we can take the time to sit down and just talk about life (and not about business) every time we’re together.
National Ditch Your New Year’s Resolution Day
I know we shared it on Instagram, but did you guys know that yesterday was National Ditch Your New Year’s Resolution Day…a day when it’s most common for people to abandon their resolutions? Who even knew there was such a thing? It kinda made us sad to hear that people quit after only 17 days of their new routine.
And we certainly don’t want to quit on our New Year’s resolution so soon!
Yesterday, Finn and I headed to Daley Plaza with McCafé at Home for their “Brew Happier” campaign. This campaign is all about kick-starting your day with a moment of positivity with a little help from McCafé at Home coffee. 
It was a chilly day, so we drank free cups of delicious coffee to keep us warm. They even had a huge truck (the Brew Happier Mobile) on site, and one lucky consumer gets to ride it to work this morning. I can only imagine this huge truck on the highway with people peering inside. Hilarious!
By far the best part of our afternoon (sorry Finn!) was meeting Mark Consuelos! He is just as handsome in person and was soooo incredibly friendly. It was freezing out and he was out there chatting with fans and handling it like a champ. That Kelly Ripa is one lucky lady!
Now you’re probably wondering what does McCafé at Home have to do with us focusing on our friendship?
Well, coffee is actually a big part of our relationship. And while we can’t spend tons of one-on-one girls time together anymore, we can certainly find time to sit down and have a cup of coffee together (without our phones or open laptops).
Sticking to Our Resolution
On our work days together, I usually drive out to Bridget’s house (especially now with baby Ben around). I’ll leave the city bright and early and once I get there we often work for hours and hours…without much of a break.
Bridget always puts a pot of coffee on (loving the Premium Roast from McCafé at Home. A super smooth taste, and the one you get when you visit McDonald’s! But the Breakfast Blend is also good!). They go old school in the Matkovich house with a bag of ground coffee, but the 10 roasts of McCafé at Home also come in k-cups (you can purchase at McDonald’s or online!).
When I get to B’s, I always help myself to a cup (or 2…or 3…). Remember when we gave up coffee for Lent 2 years ago? Clearly, that didn’t last very long. Ha!
We used to then open up our laptops and get straight to work on our to-do list for the day. But as we vow to stick to our resolution, we now take the first 20 minutes of our time together to just sit and talk.
Kicking Off with a Cup of Coffee
To make sure we discuss absolutely no business stuff, we set an alarm for 20 minutes. During that time we talk about all the things…family, life, health, and everything in between. You know things that girlfriends discuss! When that timer goes off, we’ll usually keep on gabbing away for quite some time before we actually open our laptops and get down to business.
This probably sounds kinda crazy to you. But as two work-obsessed women, this is a priority for us! And we’re vowing to stick to this new gameplan on our days working side-by-side.
This weekend we’ll actually have tons of together time! We’re finally starting Bridget’s half-bathroom makeover and we’ll be tiling the floor all day Sunday and Monday. There’s nothing like quality time during a good ol’ fashioned DIY project (and don’t worry, we’ll share lots on Insta Stories as we work away!). 
So cheers to 2019! We hope you take time to slow down and focus on the most important people in your life. Sometimes it takes a gentle kick in the pants to nurture your relationships and be the best friend/mother/daughter/wife/etc. you can be!
Bridget&Casey
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