Welcome to 2008!

I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and made it safely into 2008! 2007 was a huge year for our family, and I hope we can continue to have great things happening this year as well. With the addition of Baby Savvy some of our priorities have changed. You won't see many financial goals on my list of resolutions, but that doesn't mean that our habits formed in previous years will go by the wayside. We will still be contributing the maximum allowed to our retirement accounts, funding our Roth IRAs, contributing to Baby Savvy's 529, reducing debt, and living below our means. These things have become second nature to us (yeah for good habits!), so I don't feel they belong on our list of resolutions. Here's a little clip of a post from 12/31/2006 on my hopes for 2007... 1. I finish my MBA. -- Check! 2. We somehow come up with the money to fund our Roth IRAs again. -- Check! 3. The garage gets built and we miraculously come up with the money to put the driveway in (I have a sinking feeling it will be an either-or with the driveway and the Roth IRAs). -- Check, both driveway was completed and Roth IRAs were funded! 4. We get the property to cash-flow neutral by the end of 2007. -- I think we are there, it depends on vacancies in 2008, as well as our tax return. 5. All this stress doesn't prompt me to start smoking again. -- No smoking! In addition, 2007 brought our household its first baby, a wonderful experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. It is funny to think that this house that was so empty of people and belongings just a few years ago now has the addition of my brother and Baby Savvy, as well as all the stuff that come with a brother and a baby, to keep it busy. I've put a lot of thought into my 2008 goals, and I am very excited about them. Some of them might seem a little out-there, but bear with me... 1. Become a paper-towel and napkin-free house. I want to reduce the waste generated by our household, as well as reclaim the shelf in the pantry currently occupied by our stash of paper towels. We currently have about seven rolls on the shelf, so that gives me a little time to start procuring cloth napkins (used, new, recycled). I was inspired by our success with cloth diapers to take our reusing mentality another step. My brother and Mr. Savvy are both willing to give this a try. 2. Continue to increase the amount of food we buy locally. We currently belong to a CSA and get most of our spring-fall produce from them, buy about half our eggs from a neighbor, and buy our pork and beef from a local farmer. This coming year, I plan to start buying our dairy products from a local farm (they deliver - how cool is it to have an actual milk man!), as well as poultry. I also want to grow even more of our own tomatoes and herbs, experimenting with more heirloom varieties, and support the budding farmer's market that is held mere feet from our front door. Two excellent, can't-put-down books I've read recently have really inspired me... Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver and Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. I highly recommend both of them. 3. Make-do. I still use shopping as a form of entertainment more than I'm willing to admit. I would like to continue my work on reusing or doing without, recycling, or buying used. It seems that I do well for a month or two (while I really concentrate) and then easily slip back into old habits without even realizing. 4. Spend more time with friends and family. I spent much of 2007 exhausted from work, pregnancy, and a new baby, and I hope that I can have a little more energy in 2008. Traveling, having friends over, and being more social in general are things that I would like to do more of in 2008. 5. Compost. I've already started this about a week ago, but I want to get into the habit of composting our organic kitchen scraps (fruit and veggie peels primarily). I need to procure a compost bucket soon, as I don't think the mixing bowl and lid I'm using will be a good long-term solution. So those are my goals. I plan to make them a part of my life right away and hopefully I will be able to look back on them next year and know that I made progress towards having a healthier and happier house and life.