Welcome 2013!

I love January.  I love the clean slate.  I love having the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season behind me.  I love taking inventory.  I love planning for the new year.  And since I also love making lists, here are several things that I resolve to focus on in the year 2013:

1.  Make eye contact and smile more:  I'm socially awkward.  I don't know why, but I am.  In just the last few days I've discovered how uplifting it can be to make more eye contact, smile more and exchange pleasantries with friends, with family and with complete strangers at Target (which is my second home).

2. Host more gatherings: Our house doesn't have to be perfect or 'finished' to have people over on a regular basis.  Let's face it, my house will never be finished, and the quirky unfinished parts are okay, and what make our home ours.  Also, people are really important.  Is there anything more important, really?  And connecting with others in our home on a more regular basis is going to be a blast this year!

3. Maintain a Positive Outlook: This year, I want to remember that in every negative, unexpected, disappointing and upsetting situation, there can be positive, exciting, uplifting and blessed opportunities. Sometimes, you just have to work a bit to find them, but they are always there. I want to keep my eyes open to the positive opportunities in all aspects of my life.

4.  Meal Plan:  This one is fairly self explanatory.  We don't have a great meal plan.  I want at least a six week meal plan that gives great variety and includes kid friendly options, so we aren't making two meals every night or eating the same exact thing every fifth day.  This project is a big one, and will require a good amount of trial and error.

5. Organize: This one comes quite naturally to me.  I love organizing cupboards, closets and rooms.  What I really want to organize this year, however, are two daunting areas: our music and our digital photos. 

Music:
We have a huge box full of cd sleeves from our life before kids when we actually bought cd's and attended live shows.  I love my music collection.  I seriously love it, but I haven't listened to it in eons.  We have a computer.  We have an ipod.  It's time to get these CDs into the 21st century and onto user friendly playlists.  2013 will be the year of music in this house. 

Pictures:
As for our photos, I have to come up with a system to keep family and blog pictures separate, and to organize the huge quantities of pictures we already have.  I picture myself sitting in front of a computer for hours working on this...I'm thinking good music would help the process go faster:)!

6. Simplify.  We constantly fight a battle against 'stuff', and although we're doing better on this front than this time last year, we can do better.  I already have a third of our sun porch aka 'winter refrigerator' filled with garage sale items.  Our annual spring garage sale is perfectly timed for a winter purge fest.  After the holidays, I have a good 4-5 months to set aside things that we've outgrown or no longer use.  It always feels so great too get this unused stuff out of our house.

7.  Find balance: For the past 5 years almost all of my focus has been on being a Mom.  In fact, if you asked me, "Who are you?"  The one response that comes to mind is, "I'm a Mom."  But the truth is, I'm more than that.  I'm a sports loving, organizationally talented, sappy movie watching, deal shopping, creative soul and I think its time for me to pursue my interests more.  I'm just trying to figure out what that might mean for me.  My eyes are wide open for opportunities that might present, and I'm giddy thinking about the possibilities!

Just writing this post has me energized and excited about the upcoming year.  So excited that there's a big smile on my face write now...I'm practicing #1 already!!