Ready for a fresh start!

There's just something about the new year that gets me all giddy. I have this insane desire right now to organize everything in my life. I've let so many things go to pot the past few months that I'm ready to get back to my old self and get on top of things. This is probably going to be a long post so stick with me!!!

First off, Christmas...I managed to get presents bought at the last second and still have a couple gifts to finish up for Glen's side of the family so that I can mail them off. But, while I was out Christmas shopping I managed to pick up a couple things for myself that I like to call the steals of the century!!!! One of the things I wanted for Christmas was a knee length black wool dress coat. I figured I would just use my Christmas money and it would probably cost me around $150. I was out shopping a couple days before Christmas and "just happened" to go past my favorite store to shop at for myself - New York & Co. The ENTIRE store was 50% off. I went in and found THE coat I was looking for. Now, I'm known around my family as the coupon queen so of course I had a coupon on me for $20 off a $60 purchase. My $130 coat was mine for -- get this....$45.00!!!! I called Glen, my mom and my sisters just to tell them about it. I LIVE FOR a good bargain. Now, I'm still on a shopping high so I decide to run into The Limited. I NEVER buy clothes at The Limited, but I saw they had several things on sale so I went in. I have been hoping to buy some new dress pants for work so I took a stroll around and looked through their clearance section. I found a pair of brownish/black wool dress pants that I wanted to try on. They fit awesome so I ended up getting a pair of $90 wool dress pants for $30!!!! And, I found a cute black skirt in there a month back but it was $70. No way in heck was I going to pay $70 for a skirt. When I went in this time, the skirt was on sale for $30 so I bought it! It was one of those shopping trips that will go down in history for me! :)

Anyway, we spent a couple nights at my parents for Christmas. We had a fantastic time with them. Glen and I got a lot of movies on our list - Ratatouille, Spider Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Footloose and Flashdance. My sister got me some really cool necklaces and earrings. Mom and dad gave us money and I got a movie gift certificate from my grandma. The one fun gift opening of Christmas morning was Glen - it's well known in my family how much Glen loves imported beer so my sister Jen went to World Market and got him a "Beers of the World" gift pack. He flipped out! He thought it was the coolest gift ever! It was so funny! He's been slowly savouring his gift one bottle at a time! :)

When we got home from mom and dad's, we got ready for our conference at Lake of the Ozarks. The resort we stayed at was beautiful! It was huge and had 5 restaurants on the premises - even a Burger King! :) The first night we treated ourselves to a yummy steak dinner - it had been ages since we had gone on a date so we deserved it! The conference itself was fantastic - all about being an impact player for God. The speakers touched on discipline and service - more on this in a minute. We went to a great seminar on procrastination - definitely something I needed to hear. We had a great time growing closer with our church family. We ate meals together in the evenings and one night stayed up until 1 a.m. playing Apples to Apples. When the conference ended, we drove an extra 4 hours to Glen's parents in Arkansas. We spent New Year's Eve with them playing cards and Apples to Apples. We also celebrated a late Christmas. The one very cool gift we received from Glen's mom and dad was a piano - Glen's childhood piano to be exact. His parents sold it to a local family in Iowa before they moved to Arkansas and asked that if they ever wanted to sell it that they call them first. We're going to pick it up on January 16th! :)

We traveled back to Iowa on Wednesday just in time for the Iowa caucuses. Our man, Mike Huckabee, placed 1st in Iowa! We were so thankful that he did so well here and it was really fun to be part of such an important political process!

I spent the weekend cleaning, doing laundry and trying to get things back to normal, or better than normal! :) My sister is here for a short visit so last night we went to see P.S., I love you -- fantastic movie! Please do yourself a favor and go see it. It was so good that I want to see it again! I cried throughout the whole thing.

So, now that I'm back and ready to roll...I thought I would share a list of what I'm looking forward to in 2008. I'm not going to share resolutions because they're so hard to keep, but these are more like goals for myself this year.

1) Adopting a baby! (I'm really hoping and praying this happens for us this year!)

2) Working out and eating better (I have a goal to run the 5k race at my hometown's 4th of July celebration - most people train for marathons - I train to run a 5k!)

3) Being a better servant to my friends, family, church and husband

4) Being more disciplined - reading the Bible and praying more; organization counts here too!

5) Enjoy the creative process - I haven't found much joy from creating lately and that's making me sad

There! I feel like that's a great list for this year! I'm ready to make it happen. Have a fantastic Monday - it's the first one of 2008! :)