2014 in Review: Movies I Watched

January
We're the Millers

February
Captain Phillips

March
None

April
None

May
None

June
The Descendants
The Grand Budapest Hotel

July
View from the Top

August
Remember Me
Breaking Dawn Part 1

September
Super Troopers
The Heat*
The Fault in Our Stars

October
None

November
Gone Girl
Admission

December
Maleficent
Tammy
Divergent

*My favorite

2014 in Review: Books I Read

January
Inferno by Dan Brown

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

February
The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene

March
Divergent by Veronica Roth

April
None

May
Longbourn by Jo Baker

June
Moonlight Becomes You by Mary Higgins Clark

July
On the Street Where You Live by Mary Higgins Clark

August
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick*

September
The Virgin Blue by Tracey Chevalier

October
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

November
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

December
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

*My favorite

Christmas 2014

**My sister Niki took all these photos and I stole them off her FB page :-)**

April Resolutions

It's almost halfway through April and I've only just now sat down to report on the outcome of my March resolutions (which I did finish in March, I just didn't write anything up until now), and to put my April resolutions on paper. I picked my April resolutions in the beginning of the month and have been working on them, so without further ado...

Say "Well" Instead of "Good" When Someone Asks Me How I'm Doing
This one is really hard for me and I've struggled with it. I'd say I'm doing it about 50% of the time. Although I know that "well" is the correct answer to that question, it sounds sounds sooooo haughty and pretentious to me! But my friend Kate has a thing about using "well," so I told her I'd give it a try. It's hard.

Curb Appeal!
I want to get some hanging plants for my porch and plant some new stuff in my pots. Time for another upgrade of the front porch fairy garden as well. Maybe, maybe, maaaaaayyyyyybbbbbbbeeeee I'll sand/paint/stain the spool table we have out there too. MAYBE.

Buy New Jeans
Every single pair of jeans I own has holes in the crotch. I guess that's what happens when you buy all your stuff from Old Navy. Anyway, I need new jeans. So it's happening this month.

March Resolutions: How'd I Do?

I completed all of my March goals! 

Finish Divergent

It was ok. I'm not chomping at the bit to read the other two though. And I haven't seen the movie. So I guess that says a lot about my overall feelings on the book. 

Only Read "Fun" Blogs (e.g. Home Improvement, Design) on the Weekends

I did this and it was hard. But I do believe it helped me to be more productive. Now that it's April, I've slipped back into my bad habit of reading every day. However, I did clean out my blog reader in a major way so I only have a few in there now. It keeps my blog reading time way down. Good stuff. 

Build Something with My Kreg Jig

I built this towel rack, and IT IS AWESOME.

March Resolutions

Since I didn't quite complete everything I wanted to in February, I'm going to lighten up a little in March.

Finish Divergent

I've been reading this YA book for like three months. It's (obviously) not grabbing me, but it's time to put my game face on and just finish it. 

Only Read "Fun" Blogs (e.g. Home Improvement, Design) on the Weekends

I love blogs. Bloggy-blog-blogs. I love them so much that they become a time suck for me. And while I find it thrilling to read about the lives of stay-at-home moms who have tons of time to cover all their stuff in gold spray paint and chevron wrapping paper, it's not really productive for me. I need to be reading about stuff that is pertinent to my own career. But let's be real: I'm not gonna stop reading this stuff. It's Swedish Fish for my brain. So I'm limiting myself to only reading them on the weekends this month. It's actually been a great exercise for me because I find myself scrolling through my blog reader and only reading the posts that are actually interesting to me. I believe I've reduced my wasteful blog reading time by 1 billion percent (+/-). 

Oh, did I mention this is really hard for me? It's March 14th and I'm still going through withdrawals.

Build Something with My Kreg Jig

I WILL DO THIS! I am making this towel rack!

I'll be back in April with an update on my results. Fingers crossed they're better than February. 

February Resolutions: How'd I Do?

Ummmmm...I didn't quite complete everything I wanted to in February. And I haven't even had time until now to write about it, but it's because I've been doing way more fun stuff, like hanging with two of my favorite people who came all the way down from Massachusetts to spend their Spring Break with us. I have to say, I am quite honored by that.

When it comes to my February resolutions, I was going to say that I bit off more than I could chew, but that's not really true. I actually achieved a lot in February; my achievements just didn't fully align with what I set out to do. I'll explain further below.

Read The Fault in Our Stars
Done and done! And it was great. I cried almost the whole time. I didn't write a review. I'm not sure if I will.

Spruce Up the Guest Bedroom
Did it! And it looks really cute. I have before and after photos, but I'm kind of hesitant to post them. I feel like the photos never look as good as real life and it makes my achievement feel less. I don't know. I still might do a post. 

One of the great things that came out of this room makeover was that I cleaned my garage. They seem like completely unrelated spaces, but since we don't use our guest room a lot, we had taken to storing stuff in there that did not belong, like Chris's hunting and golf stuff. So I moved that stuff into the garage closet, which spurred a huge garage purge and it looks so great in there now. This derailed my other February goals, but I feel fine about it because I am so, so happy with the current state of the garage.

Watch Four Oscar-Nominated Movies
Fail! I watched Captain Phillips, but that was it. I really liked Captain Phillips, and I know I would have liked at least some of the others. I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and watch them. I still plan on watching Dallas Buyers' Club and maybe, m-a-y-b-e 12 Years a Slave if I can handle it emotionally. We'll see. I don't do well with historically accurate movies about horrific times in history (I couldn't even make it through the first 15 minutes of The Pianist).

Make One Project with my Kreg Jig 

Fail! No excuse. I just didn't get to it.

Bonus: Learn the Basics of American Politics 

I kind of did this. I now know who my congress person is and who the U.S. Senators from Texas are. I actually saw a creepy commercial for John Cornyn and knew what he was running for. I also know why John Boehner was sitting behind President Obama during the State of the Union. I'm still confused about the whole Joe Biden thing.