Wow. It truly seems like this past year went by faster than any before. Maybe it was all of the activity that kept us so busy!
This year in 2013 we:
- Celebrated our daughter’s 2nd Birthday!
- Purchased our first home (yay, no more climbing apartment stairs!)
- Participated in a Dragon Boat Race together! (I really wish there was a video.)
- Experienced the sudden death of a friend.
- Went on a family canoe trip.
- Completed an internship while working full time.
- I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree!!!
- Took our first family trip to the zoo.
- Bought a Welsh Pony for our daughter.
- Attended monthly youth rodeos for our daughter.
- Successfully (we think) planted our first flower bed together!
- Welcomed a new niece to the family!
- WE GOT ENGAGED!!!
- I volunteered to become a Girl Scout troop leader.
- Adopted our first Salvation Army Christmas Angel.
- Got a 12 week old Miniature Dachshund (long-haired, dapple) puppy for Christmas.
- I overcame an iron deficiency after 2 IV iron treatments.
- I am still battling an anemia induced B12 deficiency.
- Successfully potty trained our daughter. Hallelujah!
- Decided on/ purchased our first major appliance together: a Dishwasher.
Of course, we did the celebrating birthdays of multiple family members and friends (trust me when I say MULTIPLE); attended weddings and showers for those getting married; and of course showed up for every holiday get together with both sides of our family.
Did I mention that we have a two year old who has two speeds: asleep and wide open?
Maybe that list does not seem as busy as others, but it was very constant for us. And 2014 already looks busy!
With planning an upcoming baby shower in January for my best friend, a 3rd birthday party for our daughter in February, and then our wedding in October I am already tired. Ha! I feel like I should’ve went into a career involving event planning.
Throughout the last week I have been reflecting on this year, how it has flown by, all of the events coming in 2014, and like most honest people, the things I regret never getting around to or that I had hoped to do. I’ve decided instead of doing “resolutions”, I want us to create a Bucket List for 2014. I don’t want our end of 2014 year reflections to mainly be surviving or going through the motions of life. I want to accomplish more than that. I want us individually and as a family to be more adventurous, dedicated to one another, and accomplish those projects we keep procrastinating. Here are the things we hope to experience and accomplish this year:
2014 Bucket List for Our Family
1. Sky dive. Isn’t this usually on everyone’s “Life Bucket List”? I wanted to sky dive for my 18th birthday, but you had to be 19 without parental consent. There was no way my mother was signing a consent form allowing me to jump from a plane. I want to sky dive this Summer. Obviously, the toddler will have to miss this adventure.
2. Zip line through the mountains. We are going on our honeymoon in Asheville, North Carolina in October and have actually found a place to check this off of the list. Yay!
3. Spontaneous weekend Road Trip. I know that we will be going on our honeymoon in October and need to be budgeting for the wedding, but the honeymoon trip will be made without our daughter. We already missed out on any traveling in 2013 because I used every bit of my vacation and sick time from work to complete my internship. Even if we do a simple Memorial Day weekend trip to stay with friends in Gulf Shores, it will be a needed refresher.
4. Put down electronics and focus more on one another. You can find the inspiration and need for this in a previous post about becoming a Hands Free Mama.
5. Complete major outdoor projects. We really NEED to refinish/refurbish/revamp our storage building and build the pony a stable and put up a fence for her, so that we can bring her home from my in-laws house. She has already eaten a few young tree saplings. (Oops.) And I WANT to plant our front flower bed since we did the back one first. I know that sounds backwards, but the way our house was originally built, the back is the curb appeal view when pulling into the drive way. Hopefully we are going to be here for a few years, so I’m not trying to rush ALL of the projects and to-do lists. If we can get those three things done this year I will just be happy as a lark. (;
6. Survive our wedding. No really. Not because I am a bridezilla and plan to make it a helluva day for everyone, but because I want to hopefully have a stress-free planning/wedding day, and then have a great honeymoon trip. I want to have the plans made without procrastinating so that the day can just flow and happen. Surely that’s what every bride wants, right?
7. Invest more in our relationship. With both of us working full time and having a 2 year old, there leaves little time for the necessity of sleep, let alone time to invest in ourselves and in our relationship the way we should. If there is one thing I want to make a priority this coming year, it is to remember our relationship needs more. Even if we have a low-cost date night just once a month, that will be more than we accomplished in 2013!
8. Practice patience. I want to learn how to practice patience with our daughter as she is learning and growing and changing on us.I don’t want to miss a moment of it.
9. Let Go. Let go of the people and things in our lives that we cannot control and that we cannot continuously please. Letting go of how much effort I put into wanting to achieve an environment of “harmony” or “getting along” with the overly and unnecessarily negative people that are permanent figures in my life is a huge issue of mine. To be such a strong willed, opinionated, and minded person it amazes even me that I have such a problem with this. I cannot and do not want to remove them from my life, but the concern for their happiness/ approval/ “friendship” before my happiness has come to a halt. Hey, lessons have been learned this year!
10. Focus and invest 110% more on my daughter than I already do. I hope that we can develop a schedule of 2 nights a week that are ALWAYS devoted to crafts/ learning/ bible study with her. We already do those things, but this week might be 4 nights a week, next week just once, then 2 weeks might pass until it happens again. I want to get us on a schedule of consistent development and learning time.
11. Learn ABC’s by recognition. This one is for our daughter, as I hope you knew. (; She can singe her ABC’s 50 times in a row and never mess up. But we are still struggling with recognizing a majority of them on sight. By this time next year, I want to have made significant progress on this.
12. Pray more. I believe this is self explanatory. Before making major decisions in our lives, I want us to learn how to pray more and end up stressing less!
13. Live. We both want to learn to let go of obsessing with the little things or the stressors in life. Our daughter spills an entire glass of milk in the kitchen floor because she is truly trying to be a “big girl” and help, hey it is okay. They make towels and napkins for that. Life is about so much more than that.
So how was your New Year’s? Do you have any important resolutions or a bucket list for 2014?
Whatever your new year thoughts and plans are, I hope that you thoroughly enjoy life this year and all it has to offer!
From my family to yours, have a great 2014!
Southern Mom Life 