Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014.

Oh my goodness!  Is it already the middle of January?  Yikes!  I had the intent of writing this post shortly after the New Year, but as you can see, that did not happen.  But "better late than never" seems to be my mantra.

I hope y'all had a nice Christmas!  Ours was not what I expected, but that was due to me being sick with the flu for 2 weeks prior to Christmas and then finding out R had a double ear infection shortly after Christmas.  Talk about weeks of sickness draining our energy.  At least we were able to have lots of quality family time after Christmas as DH took a week off of work.  We had planned to travel North, but given how yucky 2 of the 3 of us were feeling, we opted to stay home, lay low, and unpack more boxes from the basement.  Sounds thrilling, huh?  It actually was more fun than I'm making it out to be:-)

And then it's hard to believe it's 2014.  I didn't realize how ready I was to turn the calendar to a new year until I did it.  I'm sort of glad to put 2013 behind us as it was a hard year.  Not hard like some of the years filled with IF and miscarriage, but hard because of all the change for me.  Change is hard for me to begin with, and 2013 was filled with so many big changes- the total uprooting of our lives from the West, the move to the rental house and all the "fun" that house brought, buying a house (the 1st time we did so together), moving into our house, and then starting to get settled.  Add to all of that trying to build a new support network from scratch, trying to make myself feel at home within a new church community, trying to find friends with similar interests, adjusting to being a stay-at-home-mom, and learning (yet again) that I know very little about parenting.

***Now I need to make a side comment here to acknowledge that there were many joys in 2013 that I'm failing to mention (the great joy of seeing R grow from a baby to a toddler, welcoming a new SIL into the family with my brother's marriage, many expressions of love and care from others, trips, etc.  I do know there were good things in 2013, but when I look at the year as a whole, "change" is the word that comes to mind.***

And so, here I am, one year later...a resident of the South and still getting used to so many things here.  But I feel much calmer and more settled than I did in 2013, and I like that feeling quite a bit more than the other.  Sure, there's still more that I'd like to do and have done in the house, but we have time for that.  There's no real rush like we felt at times house hunting.

So when I turned to 2014, I could almost feel myself letting out a huge sigh of relief that I hadn't realized I'd been holding in.  It was like...phew.  Fresh start, here I come.  There's just something about a new year that breeds hope in my heart.

And it was full of that hope that DH and I set out making goals for ourselves for 2014.  This isn't something we've done before, but with some prompting from me, he agreed to try it.  And I think we're both excited about it.  We took time to write down our own goals and then shared them for accountability.  I'm feeling really good about the things I'd like to focus on for the year and accomplish and the attitude and outlook I'd like to have with them.  I feel like all of the complaining/down moods don't accomplish much, and I'm tired of doing that same old thing...so change is in store.  Can you believe it...me talking about and wanting change?!?  Sort of ironic given 2013, huh?  Makes me chuckle. 

I've got plans to be a better wife and parent, to exercise more, to eat less of certain items, and to read more books.  I'll share all the specifics with you in another post, but for now I've got to run and get ready for company that's coming tomorrow morning.  My brother and SIL...the first of hopefully a long list of guests to stay in our home...our Southern home!