2015 Resolutions/To-Dos

We're now 11 days into January, so I guess I've had enough time to reflect and decide on my goals for the entire year, right? Right. Here goes.

1. Have baby, name the baby!
The second part is seeming harder than the first at this point. I've had a boy name picked out for over 10 years now, but girls' names are hard.

2. Still be pumping at work a year from today.
I'm kinda dreading pumping again (even though I have my own office with an actual door), but I know it's best. And cheaper. That's really the main reason.

3. Decorate Cora's room.
I re-painted it back in August and never got any decorations back on the wall! I think I want to add some curtains, too.

4. Read 12 books.
This is pseudo-ambitious, but I do get lunch breaks at work.

5. Run ONE race.
This sounds lame since I did 6 this past year, but I feel like it took me forever to recover from giving birth last time. I really didn't start running until Cora was almost a year old. So if I can just get out there and do one 5K, I'll call it a success.

6. Host 4 dinners at our house.
One is already scheduled!

7. Learn how to use my fancy camera.
I have the fancy contraption, even an extra lens, the manual, and even a book about photography I got for Christmas. Now I just need to add it all together and stop shooting in Auto.

8. Get that blasted passport already.
This is a leftover resolution from last year. And get one for Cora, because you never know if your weekend may have you driving to Ontario, right? (I just realized right this moment that the new baby will also need a passport for that, and ugh, have you ever seen a tiny baby's passport photo? It's so awkward.)


So there ya have it, my 'big' goal list for 2015. Feel free to leave me some book/dinner/name suggestions in the comments.

12 in 2014

Already did my resolution/to-do list recap, so how about a yearly photo recap to top it off?

So much goodness at House Unseen.

Some older recaps:
13 pics in 2013
12 in 2012 (this and 2011 are more question-based)
11 in 2011

JANUARY

This little munchkin turned the big 0-2!

FEBRUARY

I could cry and whine reminiscing about the winter-to-end-all-winters, but instead here is a picture of me sledding for the first time ever. Cora and I both had a blast with this new experience.

MARCH

We went to Louisville and saw the HOT sign on at Krispy Kreme.

We also decided that jockey fashion is rather becoming on us.

APRIL

Easter, pinkeye, and somebody's first trip to the dentist.

MAY

So much goodness in May--husband's birthday, a 5K PR (and I won a gift card!), and the SOTG cocktail I made that I'm still drooling over.

JUNE

I turned 30!  B left for his 2-week AT in Italy. We hosted some visiting friends during his absence. I drove on my own [plus tot] to Georgia and celebrated the twin nieces' baptism. Cora got up-close-and-personal with Bill the Lion.

JULY

B and I climbed Stone Mountain, then celebrated my long-time friend's wedding in GA. We spent a lot of time at a lake in Michigan, I started weight-lifting, found out I was pregnant, then went to my first NASCAR race.

AUGUST

I got a job! We had lots of 'little moments,' including various types of flying discs. B played Ultimate on a summer league and we had a family disc golf outing.

SEPTEMBER

I officially started work, and Cora took to daycare/preschool like a fish to water. We got good news of a heartbeat at baby #2's first appointment.

OCTOBER

I designed an ad that ran in the local paper, Cora refused to wear her hand-me-down Halloween costume to the point where we ended up at Wal-Mart on the day before to pick a new one (Minnie Mouse). We celebrated 5 years of marriage with a date to a local dinner theatre production.

NOVEMBER

We found out the sex of the baby and had a Thanksgiving gender reveal. My parents came to town, and we got one of the few halfway-decent family pics of the year.

DECEMBER

I passed my licensing exam to become a bona fide real estate broker, Christmas happened, and I got a fancy camera that I'm still learning how to use.

And that was 2014 in a nutshell of a blog post.

2014 Resolutions Recap

I had a fitting 14 resolutions for 2014. I did a check-in about halfway through the year, which you can read here. Or you can skip that noise and see how I fared overall.

1. Organize the basement. Make it functional. Make it awesome.

Well, it WAS organized back in July when I did my last update. It's kind of a mess again, but looking at the before picture makes me realize that we're still better off now, even though we still need a blasted shelf.

Long time ago

Mid-year check-in

Current state. Trampoline and bassinet were gifts/hand-me-downs from people,
 and the high chair will be back in the kitchen by this time next year.

2. Start a toy rotation for Cora. Maybe once a month swap stuff out.

Did this for a while, with reminders in my phone and all, then stopped, mostly due to laziness. Purposely stopped when she began daycare full-time because there's no real need for it any more. I still should probably donate a bunch of toys we have in the basement.

3. Weekly Family Meetings!

Still going strong. Still in the bathroom. We keep changing the days of it due to B's class schedule, but hopefully something will work this semester.

4. Potty train Cora.

Fully daytime potty-trained! Even for naps, which is good because it's all-or-nothing for her daycare class. Night-time is still diapers, even though she whines about it. (We tried 3 nights in undies when she started resisting, and only the first night was dry. Another time...)

5. Use time outs for Cora.

I KNOW she does these at daycare. She does them here, too, sitting on the stairs, but we generally have to stand somewhere nearby or she'll just get up and run away. Ugh.

6. Conquer Cora's picky eating.

Nope. I don't even know what to do here any more, and I'm too tired to worry about it at this point. So she just gets her cottage cheese/yogurt/peanut butter bagel (seriously, that's all she'll eat at dinner), and we have a lot less screaming and tears and we can all eat dinner in peace.

7. Get new passport.

Argh. Has not been done.

8. Make a home management binder. Not sure if I want it as detailed as the one I read about in Organized Simplicity, but there should be some type of manual on running this house if I fall into a hole.

It's currently a few documents that sit in an online file. I have no idea how to manage a home that I only spend about 3 waking hours in per day

9. Keep up with the budget on YNAB. (I just bought this thing!) And in effect, tithe more.

Yep! I LOVE this budgeting program! And I do feel like we tithed more. Now that I'm pretty sure our income is steady, we'll be tithing automatically online each week.

10. Read 7 books. And actually finish them.

1. Unplanned by Abby Johnson
2. Pope Awesome by Cari Donaldson
3. Girl At the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther
4. Strange Gods by Elizabeth Scalia
5. Something Other Than God by Jennifer Fulwiler
6. New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler (my first textbook-style read this year, and it went pretty quickly)
7. Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves by Jason Evert
8. These Beautiful Bones by Emily Stimpson
9. My Sisters the Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbll
10. Modern Real Estate Practice (19th ed.) -- I read this entire textbook, so I'm counting it!
11. A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans

I had already read 7 by my mid-year check-in so I upped it to 12. I didn't hit that number, but I didn't know then that I'd be reading an entire real estate textbook and trying to pass a licensing exam. Curveballs and whatnot.

UPDATE: Thanks to Goodreads, I realized I had left a few off!

     12. Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews
     13. 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan

11. Learn 5 new dinner recipes.

1. Sweet & Sour Meatballs in the crockpot (we love these!)
2. ATK Cooking School Hearty Vegetable Lasagna (this was a "labor of love" and was way too involved)
3. Gouda/Cheddar Mac n' Cheese (from Betty Crocker) -- my fave! just made it again the other week
4. Spasagna (B was not a fan, but I liked it. Especially because it fed me for 4 days and I didn't have to wonder what was for dinner when I got home.)
5. Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings

There were probably more, but that's what I remember. B did a really good job with cooking this year, too, learning recipes from our ATK Cooking School book! He definitely has more "chef-like" tendencies than I do.

12. Get pregnant. (!!)

Hooray.

And thank you for the prayers. I had a lot of anxieties through the first half of this pregnancy and am finally feeling more at peace now.

13. Make 2 friends in this town. Like, actual friends that give me their phone numbers and call me to hang out.

I think I can safely say I made about 5 new friends! And I also have co-workers that I go to lunch with sometimes, which is nice.

14. Run 2 races. Setting the bar low . . .

I ran 6! Even 2 while pregnant. Go, me!

1. 5-Kilt
2. Frontier Run n' Fun
3. Nun Run
4. Matthew 25 5K
5. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish Miracle Miles (never did a recap on this one, sorry)
6. Galloping Gobbler

My favorite victory picture

It looks like I hit about 10 out of 14. Not too shabby. For someone who has barely blogged in a while, I sure have a lot more to say in regards to the new year and the old year and maybe some plans for next year. And I have 4 days off, so hey, maybe I'll actually take the time to write it all down.