Year in Review: 2014

A quick report on how I did on my 2014 resolutions.

1) Love better. Every year of my life teaches me a little about love. I didn't have to make too much effort here. I have made an effort to love my hunny more selflessly, and I think I've improved there. Right, Abe? RIGHT?

2) Be more positive. I did spend some time recording "Happies" throughout the year at the end of the day. (Not every day, mind you, but once in a while.) I love that. It's such a boost.

3) Prettify the house. Well, um, we bought new couches. And I bought paint for the kitchen cupboards! Which my sweet sister-in-law Hillary then actually applied to them. So now we have beautiful white cupboards, which are surprisingly easy to keep clean.

4) Write that dang novel. I wrote 30,000 words of my novel! Not the whole thing, exactly, but a helluva lot more than I've ever done before. 

5) Eat more healthfully.  #totalfail  

6) Get over my phone phobia.  I have gotten FABULOUS at this! Not perfect. But better. The phone is NOT as scary as it seems to be, people. 

7) Play the organ better. I've gotta be honest. My organ playing skills have not really improved. It's completely my fault, since I just haven't been able to bring myself to prioritize practicing. 

8) Track household spending more carefully. Nope. Totally sucked at this. 

9) Read scriptures at least 3 times a week. I have an on-again, off-again relationship with the scriptures. I definitely didn't do this consistently, though I did read all of the Book of Mormon except for 2 Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, and Words of Mormon. 

10) Continue exercising at least 3 times a week.  Be able to do 50 man push-ups in a row. HA! I exercised three times a week, but I can only do about 8 man push-ups in a row. 

11) Continue praying at least 3 times a week. This went pretty much the same way as the scripture reading.
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12) Learn how to blow dry my hair with a round brush. Learned. Decided it wasn't worth all the effort. 

13) Teach Soren how to ride a bike without training wheels. DONE! BOOYA! 

14) Plan and cook healthy, nutritious dinners 3-4 times a week. Sometimes I did this. Aaaaand sometimes we ate cereal and sandwiches and pancakes every night. 

15) Improve our family's food storage/emergency preparedness.  Make awesome 72 hour kits, first aid kits, and car emergency kits. Well, I did think a lot about this! And discovered that the 72 hour kits my parents gave us for Christmas several years ago are pretty well equipped. And that's about as far as that went. 
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You know, that's not too bad. I didn't do All The Things, but I didn't completely fail, either. Yay for goals!

Other things I accomplished this year:

1) I made an Adoption Wiki! Okay, I actually just figured out how it worked, created a structure for it, and then supervised interns and employees as they filled it with content. But still. I was proud. 

2) My hair grew another six inches without my hacking it all off. Then I discovered braiding, thanks to Lagertha, my new best friend--er, I mean, a character in the History Channel drama Vikings. (Which you should watch. After the kids are in bed. Because it's so good. But kinda gory. And then Lagertha can be your friend, too.)

3) I spent more hours in meetings talking about navigation for Adoption.com than I'd ever thought possible. I did not realize, until 2014, that website navigation is such a very serious business. 

4) I kept the lawn alive all the way through October! And mowed it pretty much every week! Plus, sometimes Abe put magical things on it, like fertilizer and weed killer and such. And it was all green and lush and such. I'm considering adding weed trimming to my repertoire for next year. That's pretty intense, though, so don't get too excited. I'm not sure if I can commit to that. 

5) I grew a garden! Get this, people: FOOD GREW IN MY BACKYARD. The edible kind. Strawberries and cucumbers and lettuce and things. Also, squash and pumpkin, which almost took over the world. Surely there's a movie about a squash patch that takes over the world? Because those squash--they're seriously so aggressive. 

6) I learned to advocate for my children. I am not a naturally assertive person, so this was hard for me, but I realized that if I didn't do it, no one would, so I stood strong and pushed and annoyed and pestered until I got them both what I felt they needed. 

7) I read so many things about adoption and fell in love with every single member of our Adoption.com writing staff. 

8) I learned the piano accompaniment for a pretty intense Christmas Cantata that the stake choir put on this year. 

9) I crocheted an entire scarf for Briar in 4 hours. I haven't crocheted anything since '07, so it was kind of a big deal. 

10) We went on two vacations with the children and made it out alive.  

11) I bought a flat iron and learned how to use it. 

And I think that's about it.

Otherwise, if you needed to find me in 2014, I was probably washing dishes, hanging out with my kiddos, kissing Abraham, or napping. There was a lot of napping. 

In 2015, I hope to nap less. (But more about 2015 later.)