Let the New Year Baby ring it all in!

Crunchy Husband and I, Christmas 2012

I trust everyone had a Merry Christmas and is having a Happy New Year.  I want to apologize for being so out of the loop, especially when so many  of you were beginning to read on a regular basis.  So much has happened in the last year.  So much so, that I have been kind of sparse on the postings.  Some of those that may read this blog may know why as they know me in person, but for the others, I will fill you in with my previous post, where we remember the events that lead to the loss of our Little Owl.

So my New Year's Resolution this year is to (1) Keep myself healthy by eating right and continuing to regularly exercise.  (2) To stay motivated to get through my PhD and begin looking for a real job after graduation.  (3) To continue looking for a house to buy (we're almost there!). (4) To continue to do a great job in saving money. (5) To try to have another baby, while also remembering our Little Owl and grieving healthily over our loss. To learn from our miscarriage, share our knowledge with others, and try hard not to let ourselves worry too much if we are able to conceive again.

Although my goals are almost the same as last years, I'll tell you how far I've come.

My New Year 2013 Resolution Wordle

Resolution 1:  Eat, Live, and Be Healthy!  Crunchy Husband and I have been making a big effort to eat more healthy, whole foods over the last couple of years.  This year, we both wanted to lose some pounds and cut out some junk.  I am happy to say, that before our pregnancy with Little Owl, I had lost almost 15 lbs from cutting down on soda, eating more veggies instead of starchy or junk foods, and by trying to exercise more.  I went from being almost 175 lbs to 161 lbs over the course of several months.  Although I cut out any type of cardio or dieting while pregnant, I still kept several pounds off by continuing to walk A LOT, drinking lots of water, and making sure I am not snacking on junk.  After the pregnancy and over the holidays, I had gained a few pounds back.  Right now, I weigh 167 lbs, which is borderline obese.  Of course, BMI does not take into account body build, and I am a very curvy girl with a true hourglass shape.  Therefore, I do not look as heavy as I actually am (thank goodness)!  In my opinion, I have still made progress, and although I still have a long way to go to reach my goal weight of 135 lbs, I am getting there, even if it is by "baby" steps.

To keep my reproductive health, I will not be dieting heavily, but will make sure I eat a better variety of colorful vegetables and cut down on my fatty meat consumption.  Jimmy John's sandwiches are a guilty pleasure of mine!

A new goal for this year is to recycle more.  CH and I used to recycle almost EVERYTHING until they got rid of our nearby drop off point.  Now, we are lazy and don't want to drive the extra few miles to the next drop off point, so we've gotten a little lax in our recycling.  This year, we'll break that trashy habit and help save the earth, one plastic bottle, cardboard box, and glass jar at a time!

Resolution 2:  Get that PhD!  I qualified on my written PhD candidacy exam, and now, all I have to do to become a "PhD candidate" is to pass an oral qualification, also known as a proposal defense.  Although I had written a grant proposal that was submitted to the NIH and received favorable reviews, I will be reworking the proposal to include more feasible experiments for the estimated time I should have left in my program.  I will be meeting with my committee next month to see if they have any other recommendations, and then in March, I will be defending my proposal!  So nervous...  After that, all I have to do is complete the research, write my dissertation, and pass my dissertation defense!  So close, I can taste it.

I have also been looking for jobs in the area.  CH has a good, full-time job in the area, and we want to stay close to our parents, especially given their health and finances, so we plan to stay in the Morgantown area for a little while longer.  This all leads into....

Resolution 3:  Buy a House!  We put in an offer on a couple of homes.  The first one would have needed some work because it was a foreclosure, but we were up to the challenge.  The offer was probably going to be accepted until some sneaky real estate mogul snatched it out from under us by offering $20,000 more... IN CASH.  Blast you, rich slumlords!  The second one, we really like and put an offer in just this last week.  We have negotiated some with the seller, but he refuses to budge another $5000 based on the fact that he owes more on the house than it's actually worth.  We essentially came to an impasse on price, as we refuse to pay more for the house than its worth, and that $5000 makes the difference on whether we'll be approved for the loan or have to sink another $5000 of our own money all at once, so we told him to give us a call when the house has been on the market for ANOTHER 200 days and he has sunk another couple grand in a mortgage for a house he's not living in.  We have another couple of houses in mind, as well as building our own on some land we've been eyeing, so we'll see how it goes!  All will happen in God's time.

Resolution 4:  Save Mo' Money!  When CH and I started the New Year in 2012, we weren't making too much money and had a very modest emergency savings of $5000.  We also had a lot of credit card debt, although all of it has been in good standing and we have excellent credit scores.  CH got a nice-paying job in April, and so we made the goal to save a total of $12,000 over the next 8 months (by Jan 2013) and to pay down those nasty credit cards.  To our surprise, we did BEAT OUR GOAL and have saved a total of over $13,000 over the last 8 months!  Over $1000 a month!  Resolution number 3, here we come!  Next year, I hope to have at least $20,000 in savings, to continue to pay down our debt (getting rid of ALL credit card debt and including our two relatively new vehicles), and to start my own IRA and to start adding more to CH's IRA.  It's a big goal, but it will be worth it and a lot easier when we aren't sinking over $1000/month in rent and building some EQUITY!

Resolution 5:  Rainbow Baby!  CH and I are now well on our way to TTC again.  In fact, CH seems to think we may make 4 or 5 by accident.  :)  There is a lot Little Owl taught us, even if he or she is not able to be with us.  Our faith in God lets us know that He will not give us more than we can bear and one day, in HIS timing, we will have a beautiful, bouncing, baby boy or girl.  And we can't wait!

Most New Year's Resolutions follow the same lines as my 5 New Year's Resolutions above.  What were your goals last year in 2012?  Did you complete them?  Come close?  Make even the tiniest dent? (That's progress, too!)  What are your goals for 2013, and are they influenced by last year's?  If you had to do 2012 over, what's the number one thing you would change if you could?   Let me know in the comments!