New Year = New You, right?

Okay, so call me cliche.... but I'm going for the good 'ole New Year's Resolutions again. So here goes:

1~ Every year there is one thing that is ALWAYS on my list... yup, you guessed it, get healthy and lose weight. That's everyone's goal, right?! To start living a healthier lifestyle. Well, I actually did follow this, mostly, last year. See, back in April we started planning our vacation to Jamaica, which was AWESOME! But I knew that I did not want to look back at my pictures after the fact and be too embarressed to show them to anybody because of the way I looked. So I set a goal to lose some major weight before we went. So I started counting my calories using Livestrong and started running. I followed the couch25k  program and it was amazing! I started noticing a difference withing a couple of weeks. I hoped for losing about 20 lbs, and ended up losing 17. I was content with that. So then we went to Jamaica, all inclusive drinks and food.. that's where my problem started! I didn't run while we were there, and the food was killer! Not to mention the alcohol... Needless to say I gained about 4 lbs while we were there. Then the holidays hit.... cue the next 6 lbs! So of the 17 I worked so hard to lose over the last year, I managed to only keep 7 of it off. Now, I know that if I would have at least attempted to eat healthier in the last couple of months, this wouldn't have happened. And I know how easy I can get back into it, so that's my goal. I won't be able to run quite yet, it's just too cold outside. But I have a couple of indoor options as well :)  I'm not setting a time limit for myself, just a goal. I want to lose about 30 lbs total. Would I like to see it all happen within this year? Absolutely! Do I really expect that?? Not necessarily, but I'm sure going to work towards it.

2~ Getting my family more organized. I mean our entire lives, all the way around. Financially, Spiritually... we can work on it all the way around. I have so many goals for us financially this year. God has blessed us with an amazing career for Jason! We've been very fortunate. My way of contributing to that is to help us save where I can. I've already alleviated alot of our "un-necessary" bills and reduced many bills where we could. I'm trying my hand at couponing... like, the serious-hard core-crazy-hate to be stuck behind that person at the grocery store kind of couponing and bargaining. So... watch out for that! :) Spiritually... we are working on this one. I am not good with change. When we moved from OK to MO, we left an amazing church. It was a very small, close knit little place, but it was home to us. Now that we are in MO, we don't have the same synod... they were Wisconsin synod, here we only have Missouri synod. We could drive to Kansas city every sunday for church, but it's over an hour away. Just not really practical for us. So we are considering switching our membership from WI to MO synods, and becoming members at St. Paul, which is where the girls attend school. It is totally different than our old church, much larger and many more people, but the teachings are very similar. We're praying that God leads us in the right direction, and which choice would be best for our family. We'll see where He leads us.

3~ This blog is another resolution of mine. I've started a new project... 365 days of pictures. There is another blog entry explaining this further in detail, but basically I'll be capturing each day in a single image. Also, blogging. It's a release for me. Whether people read it or not, it's like my journal. My way of getting thoughts out of my head that otherwise would be lost in the mix of changing diapers, cleaning, cooking, laundry... the list could go on and on. So I hope people enjoy looking at my blog and reading my thoughts and seeing my pictures.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year! I look forward to what 2011 has to offer for us all!