2018 in Review

I should post at least once in 2018, right? ;-)

This was a good and bad year - the same can probably be said of most years.

We said good-bye to our sweet Clyde-dog on October 8, which was by far the worst part of the year. He was almost 14 years old and he was so very loved. He still is. I feel some peace knowing he and Cus are together, waiting for us in Heaven.

We also had some great experiences in 2018. We adopted Jim, our Great Dane mix puppy, on July 7 from {San Antonio Great Dane Rescue}. He is timid and and shy, but filled with love and excitement for life. He was 80 lbs when we adopted him - he's probably close to 100 now, but I don't think he'll grow much more, though he is still quite slim.

We were able to adopt a giant dog because we bought a house! We closed on our home on April 23. It's in San Antonio and we love it. The neighborhood is friendly and walkable. The house is small (for Texas - it's actually over 1700 sq ft) and secure and has everything we wanted. We just spent our first holiday season here and it was warm and lovely.

Our house is on the newer side, so there's not much that has to be done to it. We would like to finish painting all the rooms (everything was stark white when we moved in), and spruce up the kitchen to be a little more our taste, but we can take our time and do it when we feel like it. I love that.

We were able to sell our camper really easily and painlessly (we are so grateful for this) because our decision to sell it overlapped perfectly with a friend needing to buy a temporary home. It was a perfect win-win for all of us, and he's been in it for about 6 months now. He'll be back in his house soon, but he plans to keep it for camping trips with his kids.

We had a family wedding in June. My oldest niece, Danielle, married her sweet fiance-now-husband in a beautiful ceremony up in New England. It was so hot for that part of the country, but the heat couldn't keep us from having so. much. fun.

I got an amazing double dose of family this summer when my youngest niece, Hannah, came to visit us for a week. We had the best time and it was so hard to let her go home.

I'm looking forward to 2019 for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is that I'm going to be a great-aunt! My niece Renee and her husband are expecting their first baby in the spring and I am so so so excited. I already love going home to visit my family and our new addition will make it even more exciting.

Wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year's Even celebration, and a wonderful 2019!

January Resolutions

Last year I made it through April in my monthly resolutions. So if I make it through May this year, that'll be an improvement! I'm making two resolutions this month:

1. Stride School!
Couch to 5K "class" three times a week that culminates in March with a 5K. I need this push. I am always so off and on (mostly off) about running and I need a new motivator. 

2. Bathroom closet
The top half of my bathroom closet needs a couple more shelves built into it and it needs to be caulked and repainted. Ugh. I really don't want to do this. But I need to and I hope hope hope that making it a resolution will make it actually happen. I have 24 more days to get it done!

Let's Try This Again

It's January 2014, and it's been quite a while (nine months, to be exact!) since I've posted on here. I don't even really know why I stopped posting, but I want to give it another try. I loooooove January and the new year and resolutions, even though I'm pretty terrible about keeping them. For example, I made four resolutions last year and I only kept one (well, half of one really - I donated money every month to Kane's Krusade, my favorite dog rescue group).  But I'm not giving up on resolutions! I will, however, alter my approach to them so that I don't fall into the insanity rut. 

So this is my 2014 approach to self-improvement: monthly resolutions. I'm going to pick a few resolutions that I think I can complete in one month. Some of them will be things that I can hopefully turn into habits, but I won't expect that to happen. They're all kind of centered around some overall goals that I have for myself: read more, run more, blog more, keep doing home projects (even small ones), save money, and get more organized. You know, just self-perfection. No big deal.  

January Goals:

• Get up at 5 am every week day (and by extension, get to bed on time so that waking up at 5 isn't torture).

• Read The Interestings.

• Get our entryway looking like it's part of a house where people actually live.

• Bonus: Run three times each week (I'm counting this as a bonus because I already work out Mon-Tue-Thu with my friend Kate and Wednesday evenings are taken up with a committee meeting. That means I would have to run every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in January to achieve this, and life often gets in the way of very specific requirements like that. So I'm going to run as often as possible, but not feel bad if I don't get in a run every Fri-Sat-Sun).

I am so excited about 2014, and there are so very many things I want to do. These goals are a only a small part of that, but I think by keeping my monthly targets reasonable, attainable, and practical, I'll be more likely to achieve them (or at least stay on track to achieving them). 

Cheers to a great year!

*Bringing in 2013*

Lazy, laid-back, perfect New Year's Eve and Day. The best way to bring in 2013!
(By the way, Clyde wasn't available for photos because he was snoozing under a blanket all day...)