Welcoming in the New Year

The thing that makes me most sad about how little I’ve blogged in the past several years is that I gave up my tradition of writing a pair of posts every New Year, one about the year ending and one about the year beginning. They’re some of my favorite posts to go back to revisit.

Looking Back at 2015 // Looking Ahead, 2016 Edition

Parting Ways with 2014 // Here’s to 2015

Greatest Hits of 2013 // Bring On 2014

Looking Back, 2012 Edition // Welcome 2013

Goodbye 2011 // And Hello, 2012

But here we are at the beginning of 2018 and now seems like an appropriate time to revive the practice. I’ll combine the two, starting with a look back:

Things that happened in 2017 (the good)

-Probably goes without saying, but #1 was learning that we had a bun in the oven and having (so far, knock on wood) an easy and healthy pregnancy.

–Our road trip!

-Spending Thanksgiving in Hawai’i with my family.

-Last spring, I started taking a lot of barre and Pilates classes, and completely loved both! I hope to get back into them, but have been taking a break since I got pregnant because I have so many other plates spinning.

Things that happened in 2017 (the bad)

–Saying goodbye to Eggs

-I left my weekend massage job in the spring. It was a bittersweet decision, and I cried like a banshee on my last day at the clinic. I miss my clients and fellow massage therapists and practicing massage. (And I won’t lie, the extra paychecks!) But I do not miss working 7 days a week and having no free time to spend with my husband.

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I guess we are getting old because once again, we were both asleep before midnight this year! We watched Wreck It Ralph and Captain America: Civil War, and I baked cookies and recreated the New Year’s Eve feast that we had at the end of 2011 – ham steaks, collard greens, cornbread, and black eyed peas.

I think the turn of the year might be my favorite holiday, because I love the symbolism of starting fresh and all the energy towards self-improvement, and also because both of my parents are New Years enthusiasts and we talked about resolutions every year when I was growing up. This year, I’m making one big, “starting tomorrow” style resolution which is to get up with my alarm and not hit the snooze button.

In addition, I have a number of ongoing goals for 2018:

1. Have a baby!
2. Continue to save money for retirement. Since I first made this a goal in 2015, I’ve almost doubled the amount in my retirement accounts with little more than paying attention and automation. This year will be more difficult, because baby expenses, but what’s important to me is just to keep up the habit of saving.
3. I’d like to do the Kettlebells for Women program by Lauren Brooks again, which I did in the summer of 2016 and completely loved. I know it’ll take time after the pregnancy to get back to my “normal” exercise habits and it will sometimes feel like I’m starting from scratch but that’s pretty well where I was when I did the program originally.
4. Read 50 books. This might be a little ambitious, considering I barely managed it in 2017.
5. Maintain my daily habits around the house even when there’s a tiny and fully dependent human being living in it, so that we don’t end up living in a pigsty.

Oh, and I should add #6: continue blogging regularly!