Happy New Year!

I can't believe that it's already 2011.  It's crazy to me that I've been living in Dallas now for almost as long as I lived in Norman.  That just doesn't seem possible!  Almost half of my life post high school has been here... so weird!  I have to say though, that it really does feel like home now.  Especially because we have our very own place... a place that we can do ANYTHING we want to make it ours.  I love, love, LOVE our condo.  The living room is now (basically) completely finished - finally have our entertainment center built and even the curtains are up.  ...taking down the Christmas tree is another story - it's still Christmas at our house!

So I have a project that I'm going to attempt to embark upon.  I'm going to attempt to do the whole Project 365 thing... you know, where you take a photo a day for a year?  Well, I had wanted to do something scrapbook-y like that, but it was just too overwhelming (and possibly just a complete waste of time and energy!).  So I found this little digital kit online last night - it was only $7, and I got a photo template and a journaling template for each month of the year.  Once a month, you make the template your own... do the digital scrapbooking thing... and for the rest of the month you just plop your photos in the windows and add ONE line of journaling (more like a photo caption than "journaling").  SO AWESOME!!!  The other thing that I think makes it more flexible, is that if you skip a day or two (or 10) of taking photos, you can just plop some pretty coordinated paper in that square in place of a picture, and it still looks cute!  Which seems way more doable than the idea that you "messed up" if you didn't take a picture every single day (which I think we ALL know I won't do).

So here is January so far...
(they'll be facing each other in a 12x12 album that I'll make into a photo book at the end of the year)

I think I'll add the pink border around the first page too just for consistency... but I like it so far!  And I like the idea of taking the pictures each day and then dropping them into a pre-made template (whenever I feel like it)... rather than posting them to my blog everyday or something like that.  Way less hassle this way.

So... we shall see!  I'm typically not very good at sticking to this sort of thing, but I just really love the idea of looking back at an entire year of your life... and not just the fun exciting moments (that I will probably scrap anyway), but the random, everyday moments that truly do make up your life.  Wish me luck!

As far as resolutions go, I'm going to take a page from my dear friend Alicia's book and say that my resolution is just to TRY.  I'm not going to vow to lose 10lbs, go to the gym 5x a week (every week!), to read x number of books, etc, etc etc.  Even my "month of resolutions" plan last year (resolving to do something for a month, rather than a year) didn't even make it to February!  So I like her idea better.  I'm going to try to be healthier in general - which would include eating better, cooking more meals at home rather than going out, hitting the gym as much as time and energy allows (but not using the "try" part as an excuse to be lazy and not go).  I'm going to try to nurture my spiritual side - continuing to go to church regularly (and trying to go more when I can), being better about praying, fasting, and being generous with my time and resources.  And I'm going to try to have a better attitude about this year.  It has been a stressful, frustrating school year, and I'm not even sure why... but I want to be better about choosing my attitude.  Oh, and I want to try to be nicer to my sweet husband... it's so true that you can be the most terrible to the ones you love and trust the most.  We generally get along and communicate really well, but I know that he definitely sees a side of me sometiems that nobody else ever does... and that's not always a good thing!

So there you have it friends.  My "welcome to 2011" blog post.  I'm looking forward to this year... although I've got to be honest, being a teacher and still being ruled by the August-June year, it doesn't really feel like a "new year."  It just feels like the same year, halfway through... and if I'm really wanting to make a change and start fresh, it always seems like the summer (or beginning of the new school year) is the time to do it.  Hmm.  Just realized that.  Weird.

Oh, and one last bit of updating, we paid off my car yesterday!  Happy New Year to us!!!  :)