It has been a really long time since my last edition of “My Favorite Things . . . Right Now,” so I decided this morning seemed like a good time to remedy that, while, as the header suggests, simultaneously drinking a vanilla chai latte, listening to Pandora, and daydreaming.

Okay, let me just put this out there: If you prefer a standard espresso latte to a chai latte, I don’t understand quite how your brain is wired! I mean, I love my pumpkin spice, I love my gingerbread, and I’m a fan of cinnamon dolce lattes, too. But vanilla chai is off-the-charts amazing. It’s cozy and spicy and my favorite way to start a day. Or to have a break in the middle of the day. Or end the day. Pretty much whatever time it is, I think it’s a good time for a vanilla chai latte. And so I’m always shocked when my local baristas still ask me what I want to drink, since my order is the same nine times out of ten.

Speaking of nine times out of ten — that’s how often I turn to my go-to Pandora station when I want to listen to music these days. I virtually never listen to all the music stored on my computer and phone now. It’s just always the Erin McCarley station on Pandora and has been for months. Erin McCarley, John Mayer, Regina Spektor, Coldplay, Switchfoot, Mumford & sons, Mat Kearney, Ingrid Michaelson, One Republic, A Fine Frenzy — it’s good stuff, and the soundtrack of my life this year.

And that brings me to the other thing that has absorbed so much of my time, thoughts, and energy this year: Pursuing the things that used to only be daydreams. But as I wrote a little while back, there comes a time when you have to stop dreaming and start living. But that doesn’t mean the dreams go away. It just means they have to exist in your physical, literal day-to-day life instead of existing only in your imagination. Making these things happen in 2014 has been the best thing about this year for me — yes, even better than my beloved Starbucks and Pandora.

~ Laura