New Year's Resolutions

One of my favorite parts of starting a new year is thinking about goals or projects that I hope to accomplish over the next 12 months. This year, I tried to really think about what I could do to make our life simpler, easier, and more manageable. Here's what I came up with:

1) Emergency Preparedness: 

Here in Georgia we seem to get some of our worst weather (in terms of storms) in the spring. Last year we had our first tornado warning just a few weeks after moving in, and to be honest we were caught quite unprepared. So, my first goal is to get our family better prepped to deal with whatever emergency situations may come our way...I'll keep you posted on what I come up with! So far, I've bought a large Rubbermaid tub to corral our supplies and a case of water. Clearly I have a ways to go ;)

2) Organize our family photos. Finally!

I have a plan...now I just need to get started. For Christmas Evan got me a new laptop, which means all of my photos from our 2 previous computers are together in one place, on iPhoto. This is a start. I also now have my computer automatically backing up to an external hard drive, which helps ease my fears about losing all of our photos if my computer were to die or get stolen. So the next step is to spend some (perhaps a lot?) of time organizing things on iPhoto: deleting duplicate photos and organizing files by month and year. Then, I'm planning to print things 1 month at a time at Costco and put those pics into albums. I think I have a good system going so hopefully at this time next year I'll have a stash of completed family albums...fingers crossed.

3) Organize our crazy mess of a bike/storage room.

We have this great little room off our garage that we want to use for storing tools, car wash supplies, and the kids bikes and outdoor gear. Unfortunately, it's currently a jumbled mess of all that stuff plus a whole lot of other junk that needs dealing with. A lot of things got "set" there when we moved in and now it's time to find them a permanent home. I really want this space to be well organized and functional by spring when we spend a lot of time outdoors. My plan involves clearing everything out, painting (it's just dirty and marked up looking), pitching a bunch of junk, and organizing what's left. I can't wait to pull out a soccer ball or scooter without clearing 9 other things out of the way first!

Cheers to a busy new year!

P.S. That's apple juice mixed with Perrier :)