Ah a New Year - Resolve

(Photos here from a fantastic New Years Eve party at a great new friends house)

Years go by so quickly now that we have children - I can literally see Lilly growing day to day, which is tragic and amazing at the same time. Then somehow, being home, days go by more slowly. Maybe there is some age when you start appreciating the seasons but for me this year (my 30th) was my first. As blissful as our Christmas was, I am relishing January's arrival. I am thinking about crafts and cozy fires. I am already starting to browse seed websites and I am thinking about what crops we can add to what we successfully grew here last year once the spring comes. I am excited about a long hot summer with lots of slip and slides and visits to the ocean. Then we'll be almost back here again with a busy, crisp fall and a magic Christmas. We only get so many trips around the sun - not to be cheesy or morbid - but truthfully some of us just get a handful. I am definitely a goal setter. If I am not planning and creating and changing then I am watching BBC remakes of Austen novels in my PJ's all day. That's it - black or white.

(Last photo of the year, maybe the first one ever with all four of us smiling)

I asked Ava (three) to come up with something she wanted to learn this year to be her 'resolution' and she started doing flips while I was talking so that I was pretty sure she was ignoring me. To ask a three year old to pick something that they could reasonably learn to do over a years time is asking a lot! Then, with her feet behind her ears she excitedly starting interrupting me and said "I want to ya know like put my feet up and ya know learn to stand up on my head". What a super resolution right! Totally doable, fun and completely useless to real life. So of course we all have to pick one, my husband is going to make at least four batches of beer this year (a batch yields about 60) bottles, so no small task. I am going to keep up with my hair all year. I have two kinds of hair: a. kept up with hair and b. three inch roots in a messy bun everyday. 

(Photo - getting ready for my pretend fancy New Years Day meal which featured a tweak of this good fortune soup)

I did a really good job this year of meeting my 2011 goals - more sewing, losing the baby weight, spending dedicated time working with Ava on educational pursuits (she can read pretty fluently now!), growing food, eating much healthier and increasing the organic portion of our food consumption. In 2012 I want to just get better at many of the things I started working on this year. I would love to set some financial goals as well but until our Florida house sells my mind just can't go there! Finger crossed we will be through that huge, year long personal challenge at the end of this month. As soon as it is over we will be re-focusing on our long-term financial goals because that is really important to both of us. There is just something about body image and money, no matter how spiritual you are, that can throw everything off if they just aren't exactly where you want them to be.

Cheers!