New Year

I like the feeling of a new year. My year-at-a-glance calendar is so clean and white. My Christmas decorations, while I love them, are put away and my house is back to its regular "streamlined" decorating style. (It’s actually a lack of style, and 3 small kids, but whatever. Call it minimalist.) I have a list of projects I want to do this year, and at this point it seems doable. (Later in the year I will wonder what I was thinking, but today, they seem doable). I’m even motivated to – AGAIN – try to lose weight this year. Just some. A few pounds. Just to end the year less than what I start.

It was actually nice to work Monday and be off Tuesday. I could get behind working every other day. Monday was crazy busy since I had been out the whole week before, and it was monthend, and blah blah. But most people had taken Monday off as well so I was left to my own devices to work. I don’t mind having alot of work to do but I hate having alot of work to do and then getting interrupted every 15 minutes for work that someone else has to do.

Yesterday we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. Benjamin had alot of fun. He’s been before but he probably didn’t remember. This morning the first thing he said was "Chuck E Cheese was fun!" We went because Rebecca had done so well at school and only gotten her folder signed once the whole semester. So it was her treat.

I accidentally watched The Biggest Loser last night. I had watched a couple of seasons but not the last 2 (I think). I didn’t really intend to get interested in it but I did. I started off rooting for the couple from OKC but by the end the husband was annoying the shit out of me. If you’re going to make the radical decision for you & your wife to leave your kid for unknown weeks to lose weight, then you better cowboy up once you get to the ranch. He seemed like a big whiny baby. My favorite after that was the brown team, simply because they got so little air time I think that must mean they are the most normal ones! Anyone else watch it? Did it seem, when they were packing, that the father & daughter were sharing a room? Ugh. Which made me wonder, are the exes sharing a room? The strangers? The mom & son? Weird.

We’re starting the year with a bang – tomorrow Rebecca is going to a makeup gymnastics class since she will miss 2 Saturdays in a row. Friday night Courtney has basketball practice. Saturday we are going back to OK to see my brother John & his family who are coming down from Wisconsin. (I mean, we are going to see AVA!!) Courtney will miss her first basketball game, but oh well. Short of us flying up to WI I don’t really see another option. Next week I will be heavy into year-end stuff at work, so I know that before I know it, March will be here. Then I will be heavy into studying for my exam in May (the one I failed last May). This week seems like a nice breather between the holiday hustle and the new year bustle.

Oh! David has mentioned several times that his fall semester went really well, and he thinks it’s because of the fun vacation we went on. So he definitely wants to do another big vacation, and possibly even a smaller one as well! We’re thinking another trip to the beach in May for a long weekend and possibly a trip to the Grand Canyon in August. I’ll have fun planning those.

I mentioned a few entries ago that I got a new mp3 player with a $70 gift card that David found from Dell. Well, yesterday he got a $150 gift card from Dell!! Geez! Granted, he has bought 2 laptops from them in the past year, but still. So he got us a new external hard drive. (Exciting). 

I think we came to a conclusion about renovating our house. I had wanted to redo all 3 bathrooms this year but David was dragging his feet. He finally sat down and showed me what he wants to do, and I think it might be doable. He wants to add a 12-15 foot wide covered patio on the back of our house and extend the second story above it. That would give us room to combine our two tiny upstairs bathrooms into one master bath & add another bathroom. So he’s not wanting to do anything to the two upstairs bathrooms until maybe next year, when we can do that big renovation. But he agreed that we can totally fix up the downstairs powder room. It needs new flooring & while we’re at it I’m going to replace the vanity. We also started crown moulding in it but never finished, and I wanted my father-in-law to build some open shelves for over the toilet. So that project will get worked on this year.

So this year will be about trying to lose a little weight, trying to fix up our house a little, trying to pay down debt a little, and trying to have a little fun. What more can we ask for?!