Resolution Time!

I love making New Years resolutions. I know that's becoming less popular, but I'm a goal-oriented type and love to-do lists. Plus I love buying organizational things, so New Years is like a special holiday just for us type-A personalities! Yippee! 

Here's my list for 2015:

And I already did a little ground work for some of these. I downloaded the Bible app and I'm two days in to the plan for reading it in a year. That one is definitely going to take some discipline! I've done a little research on my meetup group I want to start since I'm unsure about the logistics. I already put into a savings account the first four weeks of the savings plan and we have a little in the emergency fund already.

And part of my plan to get us out of this stupid debt is to stop being so wasteful with our money. So this morning I unsubscribed from nearly all of the retail emails I get. I mean look at this junk!

Hopefully that will help free up some money and some time. It took me about 15 minutes to go through it all. Barf! 

The last things to tackle is organizing/purging/finishing projects around the house and healthy changes. But those aren't resolutions since they're constant battles and already a way of life for us. Just need to get better at the healthy changes and be more consistent. So what are your resolutions or do you even worry about it anymore?

Not "resolutions", but a to-do list...

Last time I wrote about the things I want to work on to improve on myself. Well while I've been spending this past week moaning and groaning on the couch with an ice pack on my cheeks I made a to-do list for the year:

1. Try one new restaurant in town.
2. Do something I've never done before.
3. Go somewhere I've never been before.
4. Eat something I've never eaten before. 
5. Gravel the driveway. (apparently I REALLY want this done... I wrote it down twice. :D )
6. Learn to make chicken salad.
7. Run a 5k.

I've already started working on number 2 and 7. I signed up for the Color Run at the end of March. A co-worker and her boyfriend ran in it last year and said it was a ton of fun. Then a friend of a friend made a team to run in it and I decided to follow resolution #7 and say yes to the opportunity. I may not "run" in it per se, because I'm pretty sure Whit will be joining me for the fun. And I'm not where I can jog with the stroller for a full 5k... yet.

Edit: Whoops, I did #4 today and totally forgot! I had pho for the first time and it was very delicious.

Still not sure what those sausage-looking things were, but I don't care!

Probably not the most authentic version I could find seeing at was from a Chinese restaurant in Tennessee, but again it was very delicious.

My R-words for 2013

I am a HUGE fan of resolutions, but I realize most people aren't. Hence the "r-word" in the title. Y'all, I am so excited for 2013 and the challenges and opportunities in front of my family! In a few months we're going to have a one year old, a ONE YEAR OLD! I can just hear 20-year-old Ashley freaking out.

Originally I wasn't going to worry about any resolutions this year and just focus on being the best mama I can be. But in the past couple of days they've been creeping into a list for me:

1. Use up all the cleaning stuff we already have and then make my own. I've never seen much use for green products as long as you had enough ventilation. But with Whit, and one green solution I use actually works better than the cleaning product you can buy, and it saves you money... okay I'm in. This blog has a couple of recipes I'm going to try if you want to try yourself.

2. Waste no food. Well, as little as possible. I cleaned out the pantry last week and was shocked by how much I had to throw out because it had expired. I was even more shocked by how much we spend on cereal every week, only to find out we had TONS of breakfast options in the pantry just going to waste.

3. Continue to lose weight. This almost doesn't count since I've been really working on it since October. But, I've been making progress and I'm hoping to lose the last 25 lbs. by my birthday (July 7). If you're on myfitnesspal.com you can friend me here and we can lose together!

4. Give more. To charity, or in random acts of kindness. And I'm really interested in finding ways to give without it being just giving away money. I'll do that too, but it's not as fulfilling as working for a charity. 

5. Write more notes. I've steadily been doing this over the years, but now I'm ready to start writing the little "miss you" notes. Not just birthdays and holidays.

6. READ MORE! Once Whit was born I stopped reading anything fun. Now I just read baby books and baby magazines. I have got to become interesting again and start reading big girl books! 

7. Say yes. I am a bit of a baby when it comes to social situations. So this year I am going to some of those meetups from meetup.com and I am going to say yes to new situations that I would normally feel uncomfortable about! 

And as a mini resolution I'm going to try a challenge my cousin posted on Facebook today: Try to not complain for seven days. Ooh, this one may be tough for me. I don't know what's gotten into me lately with having such a rotten mood, but I'm hoping this can break it!

So what are your "R-words" or just something you want to work on a little?