Happy New Year!

In celebration of the new year, I am embarking on another 365 day photo challenge! The challenge is to try to capture the essence of our day in one photo. I will then use it as a jump point for a journal entry. The goal is to have a nice record of our year at the end of it all! I would love it if anyone wants to join me! :)

I have other resolutions for the year:

• Get better at budgeting. I really want to get to a zero-balance budget. I believe this will help acheive our goal of having all our debt repaid besides our house within 2 years (hopefully less, but it seems as of late there hasn't been much work at Google).
  
• Working on getting certain muscle groups in my body back into good working order. In particular, my abdominal muscles; I still have diastasis recti from my pregnancy with Leila.
  
• Working on my marriage. Not that it's going bad, or anything is terrible, but having two small children, we haven't been as good about finding time for us. We need to be better about that.
• I want to FINISH one crafty/sewing project a week. I agree to allow myself to cheat by finishing up projects I've already started, but not finished. :p
• I want to read one book a week; I realize this might not happen, but I think 4 books a month is doable.
  

I'm very excited for this year. I'm working on my garden now by deciding what to grow. I am hoping to grow enough to significantly reduce our grocery bill in the summer and fall months. It will be an adventure, since I've never grown anything in Iowa, and I'll need to feel out the climate. I'm trying out some new organic planting practices, especially companion planting (thanks for the book, Mom!). So many things are happening now, I think this will be a really wonderful year for our family!