2012 Resolutions

Every year, I make my New Year's Resolutions.

Every year, I completely bomb out on actually accomplishing any of them.

I am however very proud to admit that I kicked the habit of drinking soda...

...specifically Mt. Dew.

I even gave up caffeine almost completely, I don't count the little caffeine in green tea.

The week before Christmas, I decided it was important to accomplish something and kicked the habit "cold turkey."

YAY ME!

This year I am again going to make New Year's Resolutions.

Guess we shall see how well it goes...

1. Get healthy...

I try to do this all the time, but working nights, I don't always do the best at eating healthful foods.

I am begining a new program called "Live the Life."

It is a great program that combines foods that will help to boost metabolism.

It also has a fitness program that goes along with it, but I will have to hold off on that until I get the "go ahead" from the orthopaedic surgeon for my foot and wearing a regular shoe on my right foot again.

I've used the program before, but fixing the food can be a bit of a pain in the rear. I am bound and determined to get through it this time though. The foods are really very good and I don't feel that I am missing out on anything.

2. Read 100 books in 365 days...

Last year, I read 69 books in 365 days, so why not "go for the gold" this year.

I love to read and luckily, I have plenty of time to do it during the down times at work

3. Get gifts made for holidays, birthdays, etc. made throughout the year...

...starting in January.

I have begun to map out my plan for what to make whom and will hopefully have things made and wrapped and ready to go when the time comes.

This is VERY ambitious for me, but at least with a plan, I will have an idea of what each gift is going to potentially cost. JoAnn Fabrics is going to get a lot of business from me this year!

4. Get better at keeping house...

This has always been a very sore subject in our household.

I admit it, I HATE cleaning. If we could afford to have a maid come in twice a month to clean the 4 bathrooms in our house, I would totally do it.

Unfortunately, that is NOT going to be happening!

This year, I am determined to make myself a monthly schedule for cleaning and inlist the entire family in helping. I have found some great ideas for weekly cleaning and I will be utilizing one of them,

So there you have it!

I am not super ambitious, I have to keep the resolutions pretty simple.

If I had this huge long list, there is no way I would even accomplish one of them.

This is a pretty extensive list for me, but definitely NOT un-attainable.

How many of you have made resolutions for 2012?

What are your resolutions?

Trying to do Better

The past few months have been very boring on this little blog of mine. For that, I appologize! Really, I am so, so sorry. I just sort of lost all motivation and couldn't think of anything good to blog about. Hopefully I will be able to make that all up to you!

I am completely re-vamping my etsy.com shop, so it has been and will be closed until further notice. It just wasn't what I had hoped it would be. As things get going for me, I will start posting sneak peaks at the new and improved products going into the shop. I am not going to focus on just one or two things, but a multitude of great gift items. So as not to shock everyone, I will attempt to introduce new products slowly and only 1 or 2 at a time.

During that whole process, I will also make blog post corresponding to the new products. I will still do "everything bagel" posts, but I am hoping to get more people interested in reading my blog and checking out my shop.

It is a new year, and I have a new outlook on my blogging, crafting life.

Please stick with me, I will make 2012 a better blogging experience for my readers and myself!

Love y'all!

XOXO

Beth

2011 - A Year in Review

Out with 2011, in with 2012!

Our family had an amazing year in 2011.

Lots of new experiences for our children especially.

I continued working as an LPN at a local factory on 2nd shift and the hubby continued to work for the local hospital along-side their IT department.

Both kids took swimming lessons during the summer.

Logan played baseball and seemed to enjoy it, but we have decided to go for a different baseball program in 2012 where dad will be his coach and my bestie Lindsay's hubby will also be assisting.

They will hopefully have a great season and learn a lot while having tons of fun!

The best part, is that I will be able to get to go to more of his games this year.

I officially opened up my esty.com shop (sorry, it is closed at this time for some re-vamping of products). Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as well as I had hoped, but when I re-open hopefully things will be more prosperous.

During the summer months, I participated in a weightloss challenge at work. During the 12 week challenge, I lost 21 pounds, my partner lost 29 pounds. We came out #1 over 21 teams and were awarded with an iPad2 for each of us. I was so excited! He kept telling everyone that he had to win, because he didn't want to have to deal with the "Wrath of Beth!" I was not that bad! the whole point of having a partner was to encourage each other. Oh well, we WON anyway!!!

The hubby went on his annual hunting trip to South Dakota in October and returned home with 12-15 pheasants for our freezer. Then took another trip down to Kansas for his other annual hunting trip and brought a few more birds back from there.

We are both hoping to go deer hunting during the "late season," which ends January 15th. If we succeed, this will be the first time I have ever gone hunting. I really enjoy shooting, so now I am ready to actually put that to some use and put meat in our freezer. My hubs has informed me that what I kill, I will also be butchering, so, I guess I will be learning how to butcher a deer if we shoot a couple of them too.

At Thanksgiving, I broke my foot by missing the last step walking down the stairs. Snapped the bone right in half, but luckily it stayed in alignment. I was in a cast and on crutches for 4 weeks (therefore off of work). I had the cast removed the Wednesday before Christmas and now I am in a walking boot until at least the 23rd of January. The good thing is that I will go back to work on January 9th. It has been nice to be at home though! I got a lot of our Christmas shopping done really early.

Christmas brought the kids lots of great surprises.

Mommy and dad got them some exciting gifts that they both can't seem to get enough of.

Santa brought the both electronics that they had been asking for for quite a long time!

Logan got an iPod Touch and Jillianne got a TV for her bedroom.

Unfortunately, Logan hasn't put the iPod down too much and Jillianne is still not sleeping in her room.

We were kind of hoping the TV would encourage her to sleep in her own bedroom, instead of on our floor, while watching her own movies.

We will have to continue to work on that!

To ring in the new year, we had my brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and neice over.

We played Wii games, the kids played with each other very well, and the adults played a couple games of pitch and competed in Wii bowling (which the ladies won of course).

The kids stayed up WAY late (I'm talking 3:00 am) and woke up WAY early (7:00 am).

We had pancakes for breakfast and then lazed around the remainder of the day.

Very anxious to find out what 2012 will bring for all of us!

Hope you all had an enjoyable time celebrating the new year, we definitely did!