2012 is behind us, and it was a pretty exciting and eventful year for our household. Here are some of the highlights:
- In February, we moved into a new apartment, which we still love.
- In April, we had a visit from Micah’s family for several weeks. We don’t get to see them much, so we always cherish the time we do get with them.
- When his family came up, his sister came for good. She moved in with us and things have worked out pretty well, if you ask me.
- Probably the biggest news of the year came at the beginning of May, when we found out that we were expecting a little one!
- Also in May, we welcomed a new nephew into the family. Mr. Judah has been a ton of fun with his little old-man grins, and he sure loves his Uncle Micah.
- August brought news that our little bundle of joy was going to be a little girl! I was convinced otherwise for some reason, but definitely not disappointed when we found out.
- At work, Micah got moved to a different team that allows him to use his Portuguese. Plus he gets to work with his brother, which they both really enjoy.
- I moved into more of a leadership role at work this fall and really enjoyed the new responsibilities.
- We’ve become a lot more involved at church with several different programs. And I think we met more people at church in the last 6 months than the first year we were there. Mt Juliet is such a big congregation that we struggled meeting people at first. It’s taken some time, but we’re meeting more people, and developing deeper relationships with the ones we met when we first placed membership.
- The last few months have been a bit of a blur. We started working 6 to 3 at work, which has been challenging to our sleep schedule. The first trimester morning sickness, which I was fortunate enough to miss out on, has come with a vengeance in the form of third-trimester evening sickness, so that has made life a bit more challenging. We had Thanksgiving and 3 baby showers all within about a week of each other. Since then, we’ve been working to finish getting the nursery ready, washing baby clothes, and all that fun stuff in preparation for Little Miss. All this while trying to stay as involved in normal life as possible.
So 2013! What on earth is it going to look like for us?? Honestly, I have no idea. Micah and I were talking about resolutions a couple of weeks ago, and I was having a lot of trouble deciding what I wanted my resolutions to be. There were obviously the ones that everyone has every year, but I hadn’t figured out how to make them specific yet. I realized that every year so far, I’ve had a decent idea of what our routine was going to look like for the next year. With the exception of 2 years ago when the New Year brought our move to Nashville, things never really changed that much for us from one year to the next. The changes were gradual, and our resolutions were pretty easy to adapt when they did occur. But this year? I had no idea what kind of goals to set. We’re about to be first-time parents, and we have no idea what that’s going to look like. So it took me a while, but I’ve come up with some resolutions that I think will be easy enough to keep, even with the chaos of adding a newborn into the mix.
Spiritual goals:
1. Bible study. I need to be more consistent, definitely. And I need to be more effective. In the past, I’ve struggled with maintaining a specific focus. And I want to do more than just read my Bible. Obviously, that’s a big part of it. But I find that it becomes just something to cross off a list if my goal is to just read a set amount every day. I need to incorporate a specific topic to study, and I need some guidance when it comes to that study. I still haven’t decided what route I’m going to take starting off in January, but I’ve got some ideas.
2. Prayer. I’ve mentioned before that this is an area that I really struggle with. I’ve kept a prayer journal, albeit inconsistently, in the past, and I’ve enjoyed it and have found that it helps me to focus. I plan to make that a more consistent practice this year.
3. Be more involved at church. Micah was approached with heading up a ministry opportunity about a month ago, and we’re really excited to get involved with that soon.
Family Goals:
4. We are hoping that I’ll be able to stay home after my maternity leave instead of going back to work. There are a lot of factors that are involved in this decision, so we’re praying that everything will line up to make that a possibility. That being said, there are several goals that Micah and I have in order to make that happen. But that would make for a SUPER long post, so I won’t go into detail here.
5. Changing our lifestyle to a more healthy one is going to be a big focus for us this year. Micah was plagued with some pretty bad migraine issues for most of this year, but thankfully, we think we’ve found a solution for it in the form of chiropractic care. We found a chiropractor that we both love, and I plan on starting to see her after Little Miss gets here. She’s also a nutritionist, and a strong advocate of natural remedies.
Along with that, we’re going to try the Paleo diet this year. It’s going to be a huge change, so we’re planning on easing ourselves into it, but the more I read about it, the more excited I get. I think it’s going to be really awesome for both of us. We’re also going to be implementing exercise routines to go along with it. My main focus this year is just to get into the habit. I know that if I make my plans too ambitious, I won’t be able to do go through with it, so I’ll get discouraged and quit altogether. So I just want to get into the habit of doing something, even if it’s just 30 minutes on the treadmill a few times a week. Then I’ll build up from there.
Personal Goals:
6. I want to take more pictures this year. I’m HORRIBLE about taking pictures. We have a decent camera, but it stays in the closet. Granted, I think that Little Miss will do a great deal to change this, but I want to take pictures of events as well. I’ve seen on Pinterest the idea of doing a family yearbook, and I think it’s an awesome idea. I’d like to start doing a photobook to chronicle the year’s events, and this seems like a great year to start.
7. I want to learn a new crafty skill this year. Especially if I’m able to stay at home instead of going back to work. I’m thinking that it will either be knitting or sewing. I already have the supplies to start knitting from when I decided to learn a couple of years ago, so that’s probably what I’ll start with. Who knows. Maybe I’ll do both!
8. A few years ago, I set a goal to read 25 new books for the new year. I believe I ended up reading 40-something. I thought about making a goal like that this year, but as I mentioned before, I have no idea what my routine is going to look like this year. But I’ve barely read at all over the last several months, so I want to set some sort of goal. I haven’t decided on the specifics yet, but I want to incorporate different genres of books into my goal.
9. I know I mentioned in the title about blogging more this year, but I’m not sure how high up on the list that goal is going to be this year. I would like to blog more often. But I’m not going to but a number on it. Not yet, at least. And who knows, maybe I’ll do awesome and blog twice a week all year long. (Doubt that! lol)
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