Reflections and Resolutions

Happy New Year! With the new year upon us and last year's memories fresh in my mind, I have no regrets, only desires to improve. With 2011 I saw many a change; I traveled, I made new friends, I stayed in love, I got engaged, I got married to the love of my life. I became a proud Navy Wife. I had good times, I had rough times. But I feel like there is always room for improvement. With deployment in full force and being far from over, I deem it critical to maintain a certain level of being a busy-body. I decided to make my self-imposed activities productive and constructive.

Without further ado, my resolutions:
- Take one photo per day. Why? Because I believe it will help me focus on the positive aspects and/or beauty in life. Who takes a picture when they're in a bad mood?

Day 1. Orange infused creme brulee, made by yours truly.

- Make a bucket list. We've all had those "someday I will..." dreams. I figured I might as well make it an actual document and give me the satisfaction of being able to cross it off the list once it's been accomplished.

- Make AND finish our wedding album. We have so many amazing photos from the most beautiful day of our life. I have every intent of putting an album together so that we can look back on it whenever we want without having to scroll through all 1200+ photos. (It takes a while)

- Bake an awesome cake. I have baked a few favorites over the number of years that I've been a cake decorator (and that's been a pretty long time), but this year I want to make a cake that'll blow all my previous favorites out of the water. Maybe a homecoming cake? Maybe a super cute cake for someone's birthday... My grandpa does turn 90 this year! That's a great excuse to go all-out!! Maybe both.

- I have a number of projects that I've got in my queue. They usually include sewing projects like pillowcases and care package ideas to send to hubs. I haven't been bad so far at starting up projects but I plan to follow through with them.

- Take exercise classes. Now when I say room for improvement, I mean it! I intend to maintain some level of activity to stay fit and get in better shape.

Photo from wholeliving.com

- Think of 1 thing I'm grateful for each day. Today, I'm grateful for my husband. Although there are oceans between us, I am so lucky to have him in my life. I eagerly await his return.

Photo from photobucket

- Add more healthy foods to my diet. I don't eat badly at all-- I seldom eat processed foods, I make higher fiber, higher protein or lower fat substitutions everywhere I can. But I don't have a lot of fish in my diet, and the meats I do consume are not the best I can buy. I intend to make better efforts to buy from ethically friendly places. I found a website I really like called wholeliving.com, with great recipes and tips for living a healthier life. I will definitely check this site out on a regular basis.

Pantry staples to have on hand. From wholeliving.com

- Organize!! Yes, we all have clutter. I am following two decluttering sites. One offers one activity a day to maintain a clutter-free life. The other is a week-by-week list of sections of the house to focus on. I decided to follow both to maybe have the place tidied up sooner rather than later. Ambitious? Yes. But no harm in shooting for the moon!

One declutter calendar I'm following; see mysimplerlife.com

- Do at least one cool thing a month. Now that's vague, I know. But I want to keep it that way because I want to see an indie film, add a new item to my wardrobe every now and then, hop on a train and visit some not so far away town, go for a hike or a picnic, maybe even train for a half marathon (ok that one might be a stretch).

Seeing as how this is the first day of the new year, I decided to be off to a good start. Today I went with a few Navy wives to Coronado. We hit up dog beach and after the canines were wiped out we headed back. We soaked up some rays in the 70-something degree weather. Ya, first day of the year and it's in the 70s. Life doesn't get much better. I think I just found what to be grateful for tomorrow.

View of SD out of the car window on Coronado Bay Bridge.