Happiest New Year!

It sounds so cheesy to say, but I can't believe it's 2014. Two-thousand fourteen. What? I'll spare you the "I remember when it was just turning 2000," and the "I still think 1990 is ten years ago." But really, the last year has flown by. Maybe it's becoming true to me, too, what they all say about time going faster as you get older.

To recap 2013: It was our first full year of being married. It was truly nothing short of wonderful. We're so blessed and thankful that this has been such an amazing year. We are not ignorant that many people do not get to experience so much joy for their first year of marriage. For this we are thankful. I started an amazing new job that provides flexibility and opportunity to travel. While it's not what I ever pictured doing, it's a great opportunity for me while we're here. We spent most of the year sharing a car. Not fun considering he leaves for work around 5 am daily, and I'm a terrible morning person. We just purchased another car and we're thrilled! It has made life so much easier. Not to mention heated leather seats in the negative degree temperatures is pretty fantastic. We added our little dog, Jameson, to the family. We love him. I've been able to be back home twice, travel to Chicago and Louisville and to Indiana to see my sister. In November we took a belated honeymoon to Hawaii. It was blissful. We've been on plenty of adventures and have learned a lot.

We've done so much in the past year. This year, Kjirk is going to be getting out of the military. This is just as terrifying as it is exciting for us. So to be sure, this upcoming year is to be full of adventures.

I've never really done new year resolutions. If I have, they were things that I didn't put much thought into or thought through how I was actually going to attain them... they were just wishful thoughts. But this year I really made a lot of effort and put a lot of thought into what I wanted 2014 to look like for me. I came up with these:

1. I want 2014 to be the year of creativity. I'm always about being creative, but haven't really done a lot about it this year. I want to create and finish real projects, not just little half-ass projects. I want to finish reupholstering the chairs I started tearing apart last year. I want to paint and decorate our bedroom. That room definitely gets put to the back burner. 2014 is about pushing myself in ever form of creativity- to learn more about photography, to have some real sewing projects, to have a bit of accountability with it with my friend and my blog.

2. Read more. I love to read, but don't do it much. I'm just trying to make some conscience effort into choosing to waste less time on mindless games (like Candy Crush) and reading instead.

3. Make healthier choices. I was really trying to avoid any health related goals, because often I find they are not actually healthy or unattainable. I've done the "lose 20 pounds by ____" or the "work out every day." I'm being realistic here. Often I find myself being obsessed with trying to be fit, and then I get depressed because it's "not working" and then not working out at all, eating whatever I want and then feeling like crap. This is not a good cycle. So instead, I want to love my body more and just want to focus on making better choices daily, because it's about each individual choice I make. This also includes doing yoga & pilates more.

4. Save money! This is something we are not good at. But also, I think the first year of marriage (in a very expensive part of the world) and being 2,500 from home causes it to be difficult to save. We have good intentions and s strong plan to help accomplish this. I'm excited to see where we are headed for this!

5. Be kind & love Jesus more. I struggle with patience and love for people. Often, I just get frustrated. I want to be "one of those people" that just radiates kindness and love. And of course, I know I cannot do this without loving Jesus more. I know I want to love Jesus more, I'm just not sure what that is going to look like for me this year. Several years ago I left an extremely dysfunctional church and honestly haven't wanted to back to church since... and even worse, I haven't even wanted to be around Christians. I hope it looks like finding an amazing church like I found my last year in Spokane. A place of grace and hope. I'm excited to see what this looks like.

I'd love to hear your goals for 2014!