2013 Is Upon Us!

Well, we're on the brink of saying goodbye to what has been another wonderful year for our family and we look ahead to the beginning of a new one.  I also think about and anticipate what the year ahead will bring.  There are always things to look forward to and a year always holds new surprises - some good and some bad.  It's kind of a mixed bag but we have to take it all as it comes.  So 2013, I hope and pray that you will be good to us!  

As we approach a new year I also often have new goals for the coming year.  I don't have any "resolutions" or anything of that sort, because everything I desire in 2013 we are already in the process of doing and hope to continue to do throughout this year ahead.  So, I bring you a few hopes and goals for this coming year.  Hopefully I can reflect on this in a year and can say we did good!

1) Continue to get in shape!  Peter and I have been working hard to reach our running goals.  I am not a runner and still don't consider myself to be good at it. It is not natural or easy for me, but it is also something that now that I have worked through (most) of the knee pain I don't want to quit.  We started running in June when I was 2 months post-partum.  Since then I have reached a point where I can consistently run 3 miles pretty easily and Peter (the runner of the family) has worked himself up to where he can run 12 miles!  Some of the goals on the top of my list are being able to run 4 milees (which I should attain today!), being able to average 10 minute miles (definitely hoping for that for my 5K in March) and being able to run a 10K at a 10ish mile pace by our Disneyland 10K in September.

Along with continuing my running journey, I also want to continue to lose more weight.  I gained 35 whopping pounds with my last pregnancy (thank you bedrest). Since I gave birth to Sabrina 8 months ago I have lost 40 pounds.  It is a great start, but I am not content to finish this journey there.  I will be happy if I can lose another 5-10 pounds bu ideally I would love to get rid of another 15 pounds.  I refuse to allow myself to obsess about it and believe that slowly and steadily with some hard work I can get there!

2) Continue our year of focus on our marriage relationship.  I won't lie - marriage has had its difficulties this last year.  Nothing major at all, and I still think we have a very strong and good marriage.  One thing I pride ourselves on is that we always strive to make it better and work through everything!  However, a difficult pregnancy and adjusting to a 3rd child in 2 years did remove some (or possibly most) of the focus off of our relationship together.  We sat down on our 6th anniversary (way back in July) and talked and made goals and agreed to spend this year of marriage focused on making it better!  Not going to go in to the details here, but we are doing great and I can't wait to continue to build and invest in our marriage this coming year!    

3) Make Financial Sacrifices.  We are avid Dave Ramsey fans in this house!  We've worked our behinds off on getting financial freedom since we started our Total Money Makeover in January of 2009. To date, we have paid off over $28,000 in debt, and got 6 months of expenses put in to savings!  This has allowed us enough freedom that I have been able to be a stay at home mom which has been the biggest blessing of my life!  With that being said, having 3 children back to back took our focus to meeting immediate financial needs and we haven't been able to continue very much.  However, that has changed in recent months!  We are at a place now where we can continue our focus in this area!  We broke Dave's "rules" a bit and focused on getting our savings in order when I became a Stay-at-home mom.  That seemed like a higher priority than continuing our debt snowball.  But now it is time to get our focus back on our final (and largest) debt of Peter's student loan.  If we make some huge sacrifices, we can get this loan paid off in the next 18 months.  18  months of sacrifices and we will be DEBT FREE, which will give us so much more financial freedom and peace!  I hate feeling indebted and a huge weight will be lifted if we can get this taken care of!  I know it won't necessarily be easy, but my new Mantra is "Sacrifice for a short time!"  So, if all goes according to plan 2013 will be the year of Financial Sacrifice in our household. Time to say no to the spending and we will be well on our way to being debt free when the clock rolls over and 2014 begins!  I have some big and exciting plans once this debt is repaid ;)

So 2013 we welcome you!  We know it is going to be a year of hard work and dedication but the life long rewards of meeting our goals will be so worth it!  We're ready for you 2013!!!