Friday, January 13, 2012

The New Year

Hello, loyal readers! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and left 2011 with happy memories and lessons learned. Devin and I had a great week visiting both of our families in IN, MI, and IL. Lots of driving - a big THANK YOU to my mom for giving us some gas cards for Christmas! I plan to post all of our photos on Facebook soon, but for now, here's the highlight reel:

Chewy got a present!! ...not looking too excited though...

He's too polite to tear it open in front of everyone, so "cousin" Daniel helped!

First Christmas photo!

First FAMILY photo!

In Wixom - the littlest member of the family :)

ANGRY NOMS

Chewy died for awhile.

Baby gets passed around...

Fun with Uncle Devin :)

...and Great-Grandma K. (winner!)

My husband in action!

Perfect :)

Having some playtime with Chewy...

...but he died again.
Ahh. Can't wait til we all get to hang out again ;-)

Onward, to 2012!

For pretty much the first time ever, I have set some New Year's resolutions, as follows...

-Stop sleeping in. Increases productivity! Devin has been great about helping me with this one so far, I just have to stop going back to bed after he leaves for work...it might sound lame, but this one is probably the hardest to deal with. I have REM issues.
-Keep showers under 15 minutes. Saves time, resources, and money! But oh, how I love my 1/2 hour showers...
-Spend (on average) 1 hour each day making art (including recreational photography, not including photo editing time). Must admit I've failed dismally at this one so far. Partially because we were keeping ourselves very busy with improving the apartment for a few days...partially because now, I can't stop sleeping. But I've ideas!
-Go to the gym at least once a week (I'd like to run a 5k this year). I realize it will probably take more workout time than this to run a decent 5k, but I have to start somewhere. Another starting point: pick a specific 5k race to enter!
-Buy more healthy food. Cut down on processed junk. I'd already started this one, but I'm going to be more diligent. I'll be buying gluten-free when I can; trying to buy more produce and actually COOK more, rather than boiling noodles and throwing some sauce on it...meat consumption is at a minimum. Fast food happens less than once a month. I rarely buy junk food, and never buy soda. I want to keep both of us healthy for as long as possible!

Maybe writing them down and sharing them with the world will help me stay on track. Help keep me accountable, friends!

On a more somber note, one of my close friends' mother passed away on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately I know too well how she feels; fortunately, I know how she feels. I am glad that I was able to take some time to be with her and help her with some of the funeral arrangements...but there is so much more to say on the subject of friends who have lost loved ones that I'd like to devote a separate post to it. To the tune of "here's what they're probably going through." Sometime. Later.

........
As 2012 goes, it's been interesting so far. We did have a couple of shopping sprees with Christmas/wedding money at IKEA and Target. There's still a few items on the "to get" list, but our place feels much more lived-in now! Photos of those endeavors will be posted soon.

In dog world, last week we went to the humane society and made a belated Christmas donation to help sponsor a dog's medical expenses (she's a sweet, adorable border collie/basset hound mix with a raging case of heartworm...poor girl!) and we also bought an annual membership to their dog park. We've been twice already, and Chewy LOVES it (and we love watching him - we'll have to take some video to show everyone!) He definitely still has some social skills to learn, but he's already figured out to beware the big dogs - a Great Dane/greyhound mix ran him down several times his first day! So there's my plug for dog parks: your dog will have fun, and you will too. Even if you're not feeling your best or having a bad day, this will make it better. Just be prepared for everyone to come home dirty!

On the honeymoon front, we've booked our lodgings, our inter-island flight, a morning snorkel session (possibly swimming with wild dolphins/whales/turtles/etc!), and a volcano hike; our rental cars are reserved and our transportation to and from IND is taken care of. We've purchased new bathing suits (neither of us had bought one in at least 7 years) and new hiking boots (for me); a new point n' shoot waterproof digital camera, extra memory cards for all 3 of our cameras. Yeah, this deserves a separate post so I can properly share all of our plans. * mental note*

I really need to post more so that these aren't so insanely long. If you're still with me, I applaud you, and will make you read no further. In closing: good night. And have a pleasant tomorrow :)