Hello 2012!

Happy New Year! Our Christmas/trip to Colorado was quite eventful, which I'll recap later this week, but for now I want to get my 2012 goals down before 1. I forget them and 2. so I can hold myself accountable.


But first, a quick recap of our New Years -- I don't think I've ever been so excited to welcome in a fresh start and a new year.  We had a great, low-key night welcoming in 2012. This was the first New Years in two years that we weren't traveling and were at home (2010 - Wintergreen, 2011 - beloved Nashville). We enjoyed a romantic night, just the two of us, that started with a delicious dinner at a favorite, neighborhood restaurant, Circa. I chowed down on the new years special, surf and turf and the hubs chose salmon. We splurged and ordered the most amazing dessert, key lime creme brûlée. It.was.to.die.for. Totally worth every last calorie! Since our wedding cake was key lime flavored we're partial to anything key lime. And hubs' favorite dessert is creme brûlée so this was a double whammy of goodness.


I digress. After dinner we grabbed after dinner drinks before heading home with about an hour to spare. We flipped back and forth between Carson Daly's new years celebration and the country music new years special, which was awful! Earlier in the day we hit up one of our favorite local wine store for some cheese and charcuterie to snack on while waiting for the ball to drop and enjoying the last bottle of our favorite wine.

The night ended in a dance party and hashing out our resolutions as a couple before calling it a night around 2:30 and sleeping for 14 hours!  Yes, 14 hours!

Okay, goals.
1. Continue working out and eating clean/healthy.  Hubs and I have done pretty good with working out 4-5 times a week.  The struggle I have is when life gets busy, the gym is the first thing that gets dropped from my schedule.  I hope to find the balance and make time, regardless of how busy I am, to work out.
2. Finally sit down and put together our home management notebook.  I bought this cute binder this past summer and have yet to do anything with it.

3. Make a list and pull coupons before going to the grocery store.  I am a chronic grocery shopper.  I make lists, off the top of my head, but my lack/failure to plan meals results in visiting HT and T. Joe's multiple times a week to pick up the forgotten items. Such a time suck.  I also fail to grab coupons for my shopping trip, when I'm in a hurry, even though they're already clipped!
4. Buying lunch no more than once a week while in the office.  This should be fail-proof since I telecommute two days/week and am only in the office 3 days.  We did pretty good with this the first half of 2010 but then lack of planning/laziness resulted in many bought lunches.
5. Get back to blogging regularly.
6. Remember the resusable totes for grocery shopping!  Again, something I did for half of 2010 but failed to make a habit. I'm guilty of bringing groceries home in reusable bags but then for some reason the bags never make it back to my car for the next trip!
7. Get back to sending my grandmother a weekly card or note.  I love getting mail and sending mail/cards/notes and I get at least one card or letter from her each week -- which I love reading.  I know she is equally excited when she receives my notes/letters and this year I slacked on this, bad.
8. Volunteer more.  Since 2006, I've volunteered a lot with St. Jude. It's definitely a charity that is near and dear to my heart.  I hope to continue giving back to St. Jude and find one or two other organizations to get involved with this year.   

Favorite goal for us as a couple: make dinner together one night each week. The recipe has to be a new recipe that we've never made.   This is two-fold since it will allow us to spend quality time together and will mean saving money by not dining out.

Here's to an amazing 2012!