12 in 2012

If you haven't checked out my 12 in 2012 tab yet, well, I'm about to give you an update! At the beginning of the year I set 12 goals, not resolutions, but goals of things I wanted to accomplish this year. Seeing as it's 1/4 of the way through the year already (WHAT?!?) I thought I'd give an update. Really, more for myself than for you, but follow along if you'd like. :-)

1. Read through the entire Bible!

**I've just started the book of Joshua. I've read 216 pages so far & am exactly 5 days behind. Some mornings when the alarm goes off at 5:30am, nothing is getting me out of bed, even God Himself. Sorry about that Lord. 

2. Read 24 books!

**Jump over to my Books I've Read tab to follow along! 3 down, 21 to go! I need to pick it up. I will say I'm in the middle of about 3 books at the moment. I need to get better at finishing them. :-)

3. Write to our Compassion child, Masereka, once a month.

**I'm a failure at being a sponsor mom. I haven't written to Masereka ONCE! This is causing feelings of guilt & failure. I do not think I should allow this to cause such strong feelings of shame, so I am officially changing this goal to once a quarter. 4 times a year, write to this little boy. Obviously once a month hasn't worked, but instead of beating myself up over it, I'm going to change it to what will work better for me. I love you all the same Masereka!

4. Not spend more than we make.

So far this year, we've saved exactly $71. Ok, not exactly something to boast about. I'm a little concerned too because we're about to put our house on the market, & we have a few projects to pay for before we can do that. And if you own a home, you know that projects are generally never cheap. However, I can say that we have a plan. I love having a plan! Michael & I are going to read & do a workbook by financial expert Dave Ramsey. The book we're going to read is The Total Money Makeover, which gives "7 organized, easy to follow steps that will lead you into a total money makeover." My hope is this will help us save more than $71 going forward!

5. Another financial one would be to pay off my student loans!

**CHECK!! What an awesome feeling it is to know we no longer have any monthly commitments to money sucking financial institutions!! Praise God for the freedom & financial ability to be out of debt. We do still have a mortgage payment, but we believe (and Dave Ramsey will back us up on this one) that a mortgage is "good debt." Well, as good as debt can be.

6. Have a baby!

**More to come...

7. Make a quilt!

**I have fabric! AND, some fabric is cut into squares! Wow, I must say, even I am impressed by my progress on this project. Usually, when I say I want to accomplish something that has multiple steps to it, I get motivated enough to buy all the supplies, then it sort of stops there. I have, let's just say... a few, projects that I've bought all the materials for, but they still sit in a closet somewhere, either half finished or still in the bag I brought them home in. Can I get an amen?! Am I the only one here?!

Michael & I went to Jo Ann's to pick out fabric a few weeks ago. Can I just stop a minute and say how awesome my husband is? What man wants to go to Jo Ann's to pick out fabric?!? He helped with the color scheme & picking out patterns & everything. I'm so thankful because he really does have a good eye for colors & hues, and he's very artsy & has such a creative mind! I'll say something is purple, he assures me it's blue, so I learn it's blue. I put circles & stripes together, he gives me a look, & I go put one pattern back. He's amazing!

I figure, I have until December to finish this thing, but I better get started! Here's the progress so far:

All my fabric to be cut

The squares are cut!

8.Go to the Denver Aquarium!

**Remember my Year of Dates post? Well, little does Michael know this is planned for November... Well, I guess now he does. 

9. Find a super delicious, yummy, authentic Ramen restaurant in the Denver area.

**See #8. But this time I'm not giving it away... =)

10. Michael's 30th birthday is in 2012 & I want to do something BIG!

**People! I need your help!! His birthday is September 3rd & I'm definitely going to need ideas on what to do! We won't be able to take a big trip (see #6). I originally had the idea to go to Chicago for a long weekend, but that won't work. If you can help me out with some ideas, leave a comment!

11. I want to grow something I can eat.
**Long story short, we're putting our house on the market in April! We want to move by September (again, see #6), so that sort of limits my abilities to plant a garden this year. Maybe I'll try a tomato plant again this year (massive failure last year), or some herbs? The problem is our current house faces East/West so the windows get direct sunlight for only 1/2 the day. Nothing that needs full sun will work. Ideas?
Can I say, however, how well my non-edible plants are doing?? This counts for something, right?

My African violet- there was a time the leaves weren't yellow...

My bamboo plant from college is like 2 feet tall!

12. Start one new tradition.

We've done a few new things, but I guess we won't know until the end of the year which one has become a new tradition. We enjoy participating in Denver Restaurant week in February or March. It's a week when restaurants have a meal special for $52.80 per couple. Last year we went to The Melting Pot & this year we went to Sullivan's Steakhouse. So, you can get a really good meal for a reasonable price.

There's also some things I would like to start doing around significant holidays, like Easter & Christmas. This one will take a bit more thought!

Glad you followed along until the end! Let me know if you have thoughts or encouragement to help me keep going! :-)

Hermetical & Cloistered in the Mountains

What? Hermetical? Am I trying to sound smart? Well yes. But I'll admit I didn't know what that word meant until I visited thesaurus.com. It means unseen, or secret.  My other smart-sounding word, cloistered, means secluded from the world, or sheltered. Sometimes I like to sound smart. I just wish I didn't have to work so hard to do so...

Anyways, this post is not about my intelligence (or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it). But really is about being hermetical & cloistered. (Hehe, I'm not sure I could ever use these words in common conversation without giggling.)

Last weekend Michael & I, along with our friends Ben & Lauren, headed up the Poudre Canyon to a spot called Archer's Poudre Canyon Resort. While I'm impressing you with definitions, here's one for resort: a place to which people frequently or generally go for relaxation or pleasure, especially one providing rest and recreation facilities for vacationers. At first I wasn't sure this place would qualify as a resort per say. I mean, there were no celebrities or fireworks, shows or room service, but I will tell you it was most definitely relaxing & restful. 

I didn't realize how uptight technology can make you. Checking your phone for messages, watching facebook for notifications or comment-worthy status updates, having the TV on all the time, or computer open to email. All this has become, sadly, an everyday lifestyle for most of us. I just didn't realize how restricting technology really is until we were cloistered from it for a weekend (hey, I tried). 

The whole weekend, our cell phones didn't work, we didn't have a computer, we didn't watch pointless TV shows. We were stuck with each other, our dogs, games, books, & the beauty of creation. How amazing. I can't wait to do it again.

Here are some pictures!

From our living room looking into the 2 bedrooms. Bathroom is the door right above the fireplace.

Our kitchen/dining room. Haha, there was really 1 big room & 2 bedrooms. That's basically it. :-)

Grizzly enjoyed himself!

My handsome lumberjack of a husband roughing it. With Grizzly sprinting around in the background. :-)

We're in the middle of the river looking to the south. We're walking on water!

How far we came out into the river. It's solid, but was still a little nerve wracking walking out to the middle!

Michael took this gorgeous shot of the layers of ice & the part of the river that was running.

Wishing it were warm enough for a campfire!

An arch that I'm sure serves as a beautiful wedding location on warmer days!

This wasn't our cabin, but it looked similar to #8.  Nice and... cozy...

 My artsy husband then got the idea to try to find all the letters of our last name in photos. He is so creative & I think it turned out great! I want to print them & hang them somewhere in our home!

Oh how beautiful the Lord works in His creation, & how wonderful it is when we get away from man made distractions & just slow down, quiet down, & relax.

Come back next week for some exciting hermetical news! =)