2013 in Review and goals for 2014

I hope you all had a merry and bright holiday and have some fun plans for tomorrow night.  We had a good trip to Vermont, even though we only accomplished one out of my four goals.  We arrived just in time for 36 hours of rain which took away all hope of skiing, sledding and snowshoeing (just north of us was ice though, so I do consider us lucky that we all got there).  All that we accomplished was the drinking, and we sure excelled on that one!

Christmas itself was really calm and relaxed.  Santa brought my nieces a puppy so there was cuteness abound.  Here he is with "Jill":

My mom woke up sick on Christmas morning, so my sister, Kevin and I stepped up to cook dinner.  We had a really good time and it turned out really well.

My mom recovered in time to carve the bird.

We took the dogs with us but left Pippa alone (it's tough being a cat in a dog-people family).  She was pretty needy when we got back, and had to be cuddling with someone constantly.

Buy all the dresses you want sucker, we both know you won't wear them

Don't judge me for settling for Kinsey, I was alone for 5 days!

We celebrated with Kevin's family over this past weekend and also had a great time.  I am actually glad that our families live far enough from each other that it is not possible to split the holiday.  I get tired just hearing about friends who do Christmas eve with this set of family, Christmas morning with another set, Christmas dinner somewhere else.  I like that we spend the entire holiday with one side of the family and really get some quality time with them.

Overall 2013 has been a really good year for us.  We bought a house, Kevin changed his job and will likely be buying the business next month (!), we had a great hiking trip out to Montana.  I saw two good friends who live far away (I went to Omaha in January to visit my friend Sara and saw my friend Ali in Montana).  Despite depleting our savings to buy the house in January, we rebounded pretty quickly (it helps to have rents pay for 3/4 of your mortgage/tax bill).  The dark clouds were my grandfather passing (but at 90 it was not unexpected) and Pippa's seesaw health issues. 

I have several goals for 2014 - not quite resolutions, because those get broken by February 1.

(1) Get the downstairs of our house completely finished.  Kevin has a goal of February 1 for this (a year after we moved in) but I think we'll need a bit more time and am giving us the whole year.

(2) Compost.  Most of our trash is organic waste and it hurts my soul to send it to a landfill, so this is a high priority for me for 2014.

(3) Give more to charity.  We currently have a recurring payment to the Humane Society, Partners in Health, and NPR.  I feel like we are not doing enough for our community and I'd like to add some local charities (the food bank, the homeless shelter, the animal shelters) to that list.

(4) Prioritize exercise.  I tend to go in spurts where I exercise consistently for awhile and then fall out of it.  I'd like to focus on strength in 2014 as well as run a half marathon.

(5) Visit more far away friends. I have plans to go visit my friend Brie in January and I'd like to see my friends Sarah, Meg and Kelly from law school as well.

(6) Go on a trip with Kevin.  We tend to do a big trip once a year but I am a bit worried that with buying the veterinary clinic we won't in 2014 (I have a feeling Kevin will be working a lot).  Hopefully by the end of the year we will be able to carve some time out to go somewhere together.