Mill City Mama

All right, it’s time to put my New Year’s resolutions out in time and space. (Hm…maybe one of my resolutions should be timeliness since I’m nearly a week late on this one.)

I’ve never been one to do resolutions in January, however I thought this year I’m sorely in need of them. Since Ada was born at the end of April, lots of our life has been just “making it through.” Sure, there have been tons of joyous moments and happiness like I’ve never felt before, but it’s time now to pay attention to some stuff that’ll make my soul zing and not just get through life’s daily requirements.

I also turned 29 on December 30, meaning I have one year left in this incredible decade of my 20′s — two graduations, a can’t-believe-you’re-mine husband, trips to faraway places, first jobs, and, of course, one incredible baby. So, I’m going to make this year the exclamation point of my 20′s.

As a Capricorn, I’m always climbing some made up mountain, and I tend to set little goals throughout the year. My goals to step into for this year are not to make me a better person, as I don’t believe there’s any gold standard or “best” for us to live by. Rather, these are things to round out my soul a bit and bring even more joy to my life.

I’m looking forward to sharing my monthly progress here on my blog to keep me on track!

1. Decorate our condo and make it feel like home. We’ve lived in our apartment together for nearly five years; Tom’s been in it for seven. Although we’ve decorated and painted here and there, we never wanted to spend the time or money to get it really great because we always figured we’d buy a house soon. Well, we’ve had heart-breaking failed attempts at buying a house since the summer of 2011. Leaving my job this fall put the final nail in the house search coffin for a while.

For us, decorating and settling into our condo is definitely emotional, because it’s in some ways admitting that our dream of a house isn’t going to happen for a while. But, I’m ready to spruce up the the place and enjoy it for our little family. Architecturally, it’s not necessarily what I would choose, but I think we can make some tweaks to jazz it up (and we’ll just have to ignore the ishy carpet for a while).

2. Cook one new recipe every week to increase my kitchen mojo. I really, really, really love cooking. I haven’t always, but as my cooking confidence has grown, most evenings I enjoy making our meals (and some nights, it’s still a chore). I take on the majority of cooking in our family because it interests me more than Tom, and sometimes it bugs me, and sometimes my control-freak self is okay with it.

Although I am one to research and try new recipes, there are plenty of weeks where I rely on old standbys to get us through. However, I’d really like to up the amount of my go-to recipes, so I plan to explore a new-to-me recipe each week.

3. Run the Minneapolis Half-Marathon on June 2. I’ve run two half-marathons in my life, the first being the Arizona Distance Classic in Tucson (breath-taking and great for my first) and the second being the Team Ortho Minneapolis Half-Marathon. The Minneapolis half-marathon kicked my a**; I hadn’t accounted for the hills along the Mississippi (hm…would’ve benefitted me to train on the course that’s right outside my door).

I’ve decided to tackle the Minneapolis half-marathon again this June 2 because it was a really neat course. This spring, I have a destination wedding in Cancun (hi, Hailey!) and my sister’s wedding, so girlfriend’s gotta get in shape. Living up to my Capricorn ways, I like to have an end goal in mind, so a hal-marathon is the perfect opportunity to get some cardio, plus strength training and yoga to round everything out.

Wish me luck!