Life Laid Bear

New year, new attitude, new goals

The holiday season is over, our family is gone (sadly), (and now that half of January is already over) I am ready to think about the new year. While I don't do resolutions, mostly because they have a bad connotation about them and I don't want to set myself up for failure, I do make goals. Simple, easy to understand, and no added stigma to it.  

In 2015, I want to work on being the best me that I can be. For myself, for my family and friends, and for my husband. I have made a small list of those things I want to work on. Some are a little more personal, that I will only share with my guy, and some I feel more comfortable sharing here in black and white. It makes me feel more accountable to say/write/express it here. 

Grateful

- Being grateful for the small things was one of my favorite goals last year. It helped me stay thankful for the good weeks and most importantly the bad weeks. Of course, the bad weeks were harder. It's always a test to be positive when you don't really feel it. But all you can do is try your hardest, and I feel I did a good job. I can give myself a small pat on the back. 

- This year, I am not going to do a weekly thankful post. But I do want to spend time each night thinking about the simple things I am grateful. That really nice compliment that the girl in the grocery store gave you, the flirty mood your husband was in, or the sweet kisses that your pups gave you. Life is so so sweet. Let's try to remember it a little more. 

Open

- Let's open our hearts more often, be less angry about things that aren't worth it, and love eachother a little bit more.

-  Being open is a really hard thing to do. No one wants to put themselves out there and be rejected. But it is even worse to regret not doing something, or saying the thing you really wanted to. So I am vowing myself to be more open. To love more, be more patient, and give more of myself to those I meet. 

Being There

- With all of the technology out there and the mass amounts of ways you can connect to people, it is easy to get carried away with being on your phone all.of.the.time. I see it everyday. The couple on their phone at dinner, or the people talking in line at the supermarket. 

- I don't want to be that person. I have a friend that says all the time " be with us". Meaning, get off of your phone and be in the moment. With the people in front of you. So from now on, I am going to try to stay off of my phone and more with the people that mean the most to me. 

Productive

- I have put too much off, for too long. And it is time we get to business getting everything together. The project I said I was going to finish last month, well let's just go ahead and get it done. That room that need repainting, take a day and paint it. Just go, and do it. It will feel so much better when I can check it off of my list. 

- This is going to be my hardest goal this year. I start projects and have a lot of energy at first. But if I don't get that project done right then and there, I lose momentum. And don't end up finishing. 

Fun

- This goes hand in hand with being less serious for me. So many terrible things going on and we need to have more fun while we can. Don't turn down that free trip your parents invite you on. Don't turn down that drink with your girlfriends because you are tired after work. Because these are the days guys, these are the memories. Make them good! 

So here is to a new year and a new attitude! Cheers and Happy New Year's. I am ready to take on 2015. The best is yet to come! 

November Goals

(As good as a family photo can be with these two.)

October was a month of checking things off of my to do list. Now that a couple things are marked off, my mind is swimming with new things to fill their place. So this month, I am trying to make smaller lists and keep that feeling of acomplishment going. Small changes really do help. So here is my list for the month. 

- I am on the hunt for the perfect planner. Any suggestions?

- It's my birthday month. My brother's birthday month. And my mom's birthday month!

- We are taking a small vacation to Mexico, so I hope to come back relaxed and still on island time. 

- Thanksgiving is going to be an extra special one this year. Both sides of our family will be together! So excited!

- Eyeing a new comforter for our bedroom. 

- Walking in the beautiful crisp weather. Maybe even adding some biking. 

- Thinking about Christmas cards.

- FInishing up our Christmas list and picking out wrapping. 

What does your month have in store?

September Goals

Print from here. 

Somehow, it is already September. August passed me by in a blur, but I so hope I will be able to savor this month. I love the way the air is cooler at night and the days are still long and bright. It is an exciting time of the year, and an even more exiting time in our life. We are young, we are busy, and above all else we are happy.

We are only nine days in, but boy has it been a great couple days. We have been on a small weekend getaway, had the best of times with an old friend and spent some quality time with family. 

September is my "squirrel mode". It's the hoarding before the winter. Or in my case, getting stuff fixed/organized/cleaned before the holiday season. So this month is about doing all of the very unfun things like calls to the pool guy, cutting back trees, fall cleaning and just making sure everything is generally taken care of. All of the fun things adults get to do. 

With all of that being said, here is a list of some of the fun goals I am working on. 

- Nightly walks now that it isn't so hot. 

- A beautiful wedding at the end of September

- Followed by a fun trip to San Diego (First time! Do you have any recommendations?)

- Stop putting off painting all of the baseboards. (Maybe?)

- Switch to darker shades of nail polish (plums, deep red, browns and dark gray)

- Drink atleast 6 more ounces of water every day

- More date nights exploring the city with the husband

- Save, save, save for a rainy day

Let's do this, September! Bring it on. 

August goals

One of the most important goals that I made this year was to  get out and do more. The second was to make more memories that we could eventually share with our little ones. I think we have done a great job living up to both of those goals. So it is easy to say that our little family has had a pretty spectacular year so far. Every month seems to get better and better throughout 2014 and I can't wait to see what August has in store for us. As always, my goals are simple and sweet and center around family, friends, and love. 

• We have a fun last minute beach trip planned with family coming up, and I want to take advantage of a full weekend just to spend time laughing and being silly with both sides of our family. 
• Get back to the basics. I wrote a little about this here, and I plan of writing more about how it went. 
• Start making Christmas lists and thinking about budgets. 
• Try to take nightly walks three times a week. 
• Pencil in more quality time with the mister. 
• Find a large world map for the house. I love these two. 1. 2.
• Call/text my brother at least once a week to see how he is liking college. 
• Facetime with my niece as much as possible!
• Do the nails painted all month challenge. (I totally made this up, but feel free to join in) This month is red! 

June goals

Tilly's tiny legs are so stinking cute. We call them chicken legs.

I sat down to write this post roughly ten times. And I was having a really hard time. Mostly because my goals are always changing and it has been difficult to nail down goals that I can feasibly attain in one month. So this is my best shot (half was through the month).

I have talked a lot lately about life being really sweet. It really is! Life is so full and beautiful right now. We have adventures to plan, goals to meet, and more happiness than I have seen in our little house in a long time. So with that said, I am more excited than ever to go into June feeling hopeful. 

June is what I call a flyover months. It isn't one of those really exciting months for me. There are no big family birthdays, it isn't packed with vacations, and the heat in Florida is coming to an almost unbearable temperature. Not to say it is a bad month, because it has been pretty great so far.

I was looking at last years goals, and most of the same apply this year. I will add just a couple new ones for the last half of the month. 

- Stay healthy! I came back from the cruise with a mean cold. Bedtime has been 9:30 with a shot of cough syrup. 

- Go to bed earlier, and wake up earlier. Pushing it to get to work on time is not working for me anymore. I need to give myself some time to breathe in the mornings.

- Celebrate someone else's acheivement this month. We get so caught up in our own lives that we forget to ask others how they are and what is new.

- Spend more time talking with Kyle. I am talking about uninterupted time. No tv, no phones, just us chatting over dinner or coffee at the house.

- Get in the pool atleast another 3 times this month. 1 must be a night swim.

- Night walks with the pups. Lucas really needs to socialize more. He is becoming grumpy.

-  Break out the bikes for a short ride. You are crazy to think in 90 degree humid nasty heat that I am riding 3 miles. 

- My brother goes to college this month, and we are lucky enough to be able to tag along. So we are spending a weekend in Ft. Myers checking things out. I want to enjoy the last moments with my brother before he is sucked up by Florida Gulf Coast's basketball team for the next four years. 

Last year I wrote that my number one goal was to enjoy this time and this place in my life. And it has never resonated more with me than right now. That is the neverending goal. It may not be stated here all of the time, but it is always with me. To be content, to be happy, to be just here in this moment always. 

 

May goals

Months are funny. Funny not in the laughable way, but in the bizarre way. For me months come with memories, feelings, and of course weather change. May has always been a pretty great month in my book. I was engaged in May of 2010, made an offer on our first home in May of 2011, got Lucas in May of 2012, and infused vodka in 2014.

The weather is not terribly overwhelming, everything is beautiful and blooming, people are in great moods, and it is beach time all of the time. What is not great about that? On top of that we have a holiday. Which means a wonderful day of rest off from work. 

My goals for this month are simple, as they all are. Because that is the way I like it. Simple, realistic, and of course me. 

- Buy a new bathingsuit. I am so leaning towards this one or this one. 

- Decide on some lighting for outside. I have been pinning like crazy. 

- My brother is graduating. Like from high school. This is not happening, he is not old enough. So I have to make it through two hours of graduation without crying. This will be hard. 

- Spend some weekends working towards a beautiful outdoor patio. 

- Get a good family photo. These are tough with two very squirmy pups.

- Catch up on some reading. Six books are waiting for me this month. 

- Scrubs marathons with my guy. 

- Booking flights for a birthday weekend in July for Kyle's 25th!

- More sleep and more cuddling on Saturday mornings. 

 

 

 

April Goals

(Found on pinterest with no original source. Does anyone know the source?)

Guys, April has been a mixture of hectic + happiness mixed with overwhelming + sadness. We started with a beautiful baby shower for my sister in law (which turned out wonderful), and then she had to go and leave us this past week. So, today is really the first day I have stopped to think about my goals for the next two and a half weeks. This month has flown by! 

- Our family has a beach vacation planned this weekend. So I really want to take some time off from phone, work, life and enjoy my family. Maybe even read a good book by the ocean. My brother is bringing his girlfriend by, so I can't wait to introduce her to the in laws. And of course, lots of cold drinks by the water. 

- We are buying a new laptop, so I am hoping to be able to acclimate myself to a new operating system this month. I am officially switching from PC to Mac. A huge step that my IT husband is not loving. 

- We are slowly but surely getting our outside area ready for the summer. Moving furniture and making sure our pool is ready for some summer parties. I hope to get this all done by May 1 so we can enjoy the hot hot weather. It's already in the high 70's most days. 

- I want to remember to water all of our new plants. I have the worst black thumb. 

- I really want to try to remember the good of this time of year in Florida. This time last year, I already had it in my head that it would be a "too hot to be outside summer" so I lazied around on the weekends. No more of that! I want to get out of the house more, open the windows, and maybe even cruise around the city. 

 

March Goals

This year, I am using a Stendig calendar to keep me organized. It is my first year. Oh man is this thing wonderful. It is very large, and I can add little notes about what we did each day (or whenever, I don't note everyday). It helps me get my thoughst together when I am working on Project Life. So each month, I can rip off a new page and it feels so good to start fresh! So here goes February and we are on to March. March you are going to be a glorious month. We are a week in, and I already like you.

In March we have our third wedding anniversary, a short but wonderful trip, my sister in law is coming home from Japan (with an adorable baby bump in tow), and I hope to spend some time with my parents. So it is easy to say it will be a jam packed month with our loved ones.

My goals are simple as always. Savor life, love each other, get some projects done, and of course read read read. 

- I want to celebrate our anniversary by starting some new traditions. 

- I want to go on our romantic getaway and be completely out of pocket. No phones, no computers, just me & my guy, and of course beautiful Savannah, GA. 

- I want to see my parents. I miss you guys so much. 

- I want to make time for friends, and work less. 

- I want to finish the Divergent series (I am currently still on hold at the library)

- Finish up February Project Life and get both January and February up here. 

 - Spend some quality time with my beautiful sister in law. 

Happy March! It is going to be a good one. 

 

February goals

January was my month of catch up. Cleaning, planning, adjusting, and being cold and sickly. The truth is I am glad to see a new month. I needed an attitude adjustment and a new month is the perfect time for it. A new happier, more pleasant self is a must.

Kyle is working really weird hours right now (sad face) but it won't last long and we are happy just to have a couple hours at the end of the day to spend together. Those are our "together" hours. Two joyous hours between the time he gets home and the time I go to bed that we just spend together. The only requirement is that we spend them together. Watching our new favorite The Blacklist, cooking a very late dinner, or just talking on the couch. This time is precious to me. With every storm, we try to reinforce our boat. This is no different. 

So with the lack of time we get to spend together during the week, we are trying to pack our weekends full. Here are my goals for the month. 

- Take the dogs to the beach to run and play. Our weather went from the 30's in January to forecasted high of 70's in February. You have to love Florida's notoriously short winter. 

- A girl's weekend for a very special ladies birthday!

- The office needs to be finished. Long shot...maybe. 

- Plan an anniversary trip for March. 

- Dog birthday party

- Read four new books 

Sweet, simple, and to the point. There is nothing better!

New Year's Resolution(ish)

Resolutions are not really my thing. They seem so daunting, and I feel guilty if I don't stick to it. A year sure is a long time to stick to one really tough thing. So this year, I won't be making resolutions. I will be making resolution-ish-es (maybe not so much a word, but let's go with it). 

What does this mean? Well, it means that I am going to set some very simple goals and see where I get with them. No pressure, no time line, no guilt if I don't achieve everything I set. So what if I don't get to everyone, that still means I did one more thing towards a happier me. That's really what it is all about. Living a happy and healthy life. 

I have been writing ideas and little thoughts down for the past two weeks about what I wanted from 2014. It has been tough to decide on just a few, so here is my big list of resolution-ish-es for this new and exciting year. 

Organize what you can, leave the rest. I have come into this crazy cool laid back attitude lately. And that is definitely not me (I am the type if you leave your glass more than two minutes, it is emptied and in the dishwasher). I blame this new attitude on Kyle always being so calm and collected. I love that man! But without being too much like him, I still have my temperamental moments when I just need to clean and organize something! So I feel like this year, I need to try to be the best of both worlds. I need to have that sense of organization in my home, but not so much that it drives me crazy when something is out of place. 

Write in that journal you have had for two years. I have had the same journal for the past two years. And it has stayed almost completely empty. When I first bought it, I dedicated it to just rambling. Some place that I could write blog ideas, diary entries, or really anything I wanted to get down in writing. Occasionally over those year, I have picked it up to jot down thoughts. But this year, I really want to start keeping it with me. On trips, I want to write about our experiences. On lazy Saturdays, I want to write about how wonderful it feels to just relax. When sad times hit, I want to remember what I was thinking. It all contributes to my memories. I want to hold those as small treasures to look over in years to come. 

Don't feel guilty for reading a book all day instead of doing laundry. 2013 was rough on me for this exact reason. You can exchange laundry for anything you really "should" be doing. I felt so guilty for sitting around on a perfectly good weekend and just doing something I wanted to do. Not because anyone made me feel this way, but because I made myself feel this way. Yes, I should be cleaning the base boards and taking better care of my plants but right now I really want to just read. So you  know what....I am going to. Everything else can wait. I will make time for it. Maybe I will schedule some time for those base boards. Maybe not. 

Get out more. On the other hand of staying in and reading, this year I want us to get out more. In 2013, we went on very few vacations and spent even less time just out and about. I want our little family to get out and see more of our town, our state, and our country. 

Get that library card you have been talking about. Oh gosh, my "want to read" book list is so huge. Over the years, I thought maybe I would grow out of reading, but it has just always stuck with me. I go through books like water. I just love reading, and thumbing through pages until the book is done. But I feel sad when the book just sits on my shelf unloved after that. So this year, no excuses. I know the library has bad hours, but you need to get your butt out of bed on Saturday morning and go. This may take all year to work up to getting a library card, but it will so be worth it. 

So that is it, do you think I can do it? What are some of your New Year's resolution-ish-es, I would love to hear some.