Happy New Year 2013

Happy New Year a few days late!! After the week and a half break we had, it was hard to get back in the swing of things on Wednesday. We were so spoiled with Bill either being off or only working half days that I did not want to go back to work and take the girls to school. I loved my little break from reality. It was during this downtime that I was able to think about what I wanted to accomplish in 2013. I'm not much of a resolution person but I actually came up with a good handful of goals.

This first one is kind of silly but I want to work on my handwriting. I don't write in cursive - very few people my age do anymore - and over the years, my handwriting has just gotten sloppy. And when I do write in cursive, it's terrible. I really want to make the effort to write nicely again.

I want to save money on food. Being foodies, we spend a ridiculous amount of money each month on food. We don't even shop at Whole Foods or anywhere crazy. It doesn't help that our weekly grocery bill doubled when we moved to Cleveland due to higher prices but I still think the amount we spend is way too much. My goal for the month of January is to see if we can get by on $50 of groceries a week like we used to in Iowa. Even if we go over $50 a week by a little bit, we'll be doing better than the $100+ we currently spend. This has already proved difficult as I spent $57 in week 1 and that was only to cover 4 dinners plus a few stock up items. As for eating out, I'm capping it at $150 on the month. I won't even tell you what we usually spend. This sadly means no date nights because one date would use this all up. Hey, don't judge, remember we like to eat. Good dinners out are what we do. I'll let you know at the end of the month how we fared.

I want to try all of the million recipes I've saved. We have a few tried and true cookbooks that we use but we also have binders full of cut out and handed down recipes.

My goal is to try them all and get rid of the ones we don't like. No point in saving them if we're never going to try them.

I want to finish making our house a home.  I really caught the bug when my dad was here helping with all of the house improvements and from my new under mount lighting.  It's amazing how little fixes and enhancements can really change how you feel about a place.  We still haven't decorated any walls, new 6 panel doors we had hung throughout the house last April have yet to be painted, many rooms either need paint retouched or we'd like to completely change the color, there's gross carpet to pull up, a laundry area that desperately needs some TLC, a cedar closet to refurbish and a guest room that is seriously lacking in furniture.  We have our work cut out for us but I know I'll be so much happier in this house when it's all done.

ADDED 1/9/2013: I forgot that I also want to master a creme brulee!  We have the ramekins and torch but we've never attempted to actually make creme brulee and it's my favorite. 

So that's it.  Nothing crazy and I think it's all attainable.  2012 was great and I'm excited to see what 2013 brings!