'Bye Decade! Hello 2010!

This decade was stated as the worst decade in history by Time Magazine.  For me it has been pretty amazing.  This was the decade that I met Dan, began my professional career, completed undergrad, completed a master's degree, became a wife, "raised" two puppies, moved to Chicago with what I could fit into a vehicle (twice), moved to Colorado, lived in 4 Chicago neighborhoods and 2 suburbs, ran a half-marathon, travelled internationally for the first time, went on "real" vacations, experienced two recessions as an adult, and had a million both amazing and incredibly challenging moments.  It has been a decade of personal growth.  

2009 was a challenging year for sure.  But we made the most of it and when I look back it is the little moments, like spending an afternoon in the park with our dogs and laughing like crazy at our camping trip, that made it a pretty awesome year too.

I started this post on January 1st but abandoned it with the intent to finish it when I have more time.  But as Dan likes to say lately, time is in hot demand.  We are over a month into 2010 and thus far it has been an incredibly busy year (um, we have already moved in 2010- so yeah, busy).  I better get my resolutions up here now...

I have always been a fan of resolutions.  I like to set goals at every "turning point" and assess where I am headed.  For 2010 my primary resolution is to declutter.  Life can quickly become cluttered up with things that aren't even close to being relevant to your values.  So I want to declutter the things that are soaking up my time and focus so that what is truly important to me is actually upfront in how I live my life.  Nothing is too small to get subjected to the litmus test of what is clutter.  Television shows, movies, errant files on my laptop, books.  I resolve to declutter my physical surroundings as well as how I spend my time. 

As for goals, those include running a marathon, doing a roadtrip, completing a photography 365 project, making homemade smores for our next camping trip, completing a few sewing projects, and getting our photo albums list completed... and to wear skirts & dresses more often. 

We kicked off the year by having friends over for brunch, decluttering our storage boxes, and spending the afternoon playing scrabble... it was a perfect first day to the year.