New Year Project: 365 Days of Love Notes

With this year quickly coming to an end I can't help but think how much has changed in our lives. I am so happy and blessed to be where we are today. I often try to keep a few goals for myself to achieve through the new year, but in one aspect of my life I haven't set any goals and that is with my spiritual life. I feel that there's always room to grow your spiritual life but I just never created a goal there. I recently came across this blog entry from A story of a Rose. She had a wonderful project idea that I want to take part in. That is doing 365 of Love Notes.

In her blog she talks about how it's easy to fall into the complaining mode when you are carrying on with the daily grind (who isn't guilty of that). But instead she wanted to try to focus on all of the blessings and find little things everyday based on the word that she has picked for the year. For example it could be presence as she did, joy, peace, love, patience, gratitude, anything you choose. You pick whatever works for you and keep that in mind each day. In her words,  "I want to find the joy, beauty, and blessings of each day to remember God’s love and grace. These, are going to be my little love notes from God." I think this is a beautiful project idea and I want to take on this challenge. If you want to read more about this project and what she has done, you can find her blog here. I'm excited for this, and I hope that it inspires you to do the same.

Sold My Car

After 11 years with my 2003 Corolla, I finally sold it. We wanted to sell it while it still had some value left that way we could use the money towards a new car. Josh laughs at me on how attached I was to this car. It took a lot of convincing for me to finally say yes. I told him, it's like peeling off a ban-daid. "Okay! Just do it!" I said it just like that in a pained voice, and my eyes closed. LoL!

There was never going to be a good time to do it. No time like the present right? I couldn't argue and say, when the car dies we'll get a new one. If you've done your research you know Toyota's last forever. I guess I had that attachment because it was my very first car I bought on my own and paid off. I got that car my senior year in high school and it got me through college and more. She was barely broken in when we sold her at 120,503 miles to be exact. The people who bought her were a very deserving young couple who had another Corolla too. They were adding my car to their fleet, so it made me feel a little better about it. I was able to get very close to my asking price. Did I mention it sold in 4 hours? Yes, 4 hours!! It was a very good car and I will miss it. 

So long to the BEST CAR EVER!

Ugly Sweater Party was a success

Yesterday we finally had our cousins Ugly Sweater Party. Every so often I like to get together with all of my first cousins. We are lucky in that way that we all still live relatively close. It's nice to catch up with each other and just have some plain old fun without the parents. There was lot's of laughing and rowdyness which we do best.

That's one thing I cherish the most about my cousins, that we can all be silly and laugh at ourselves afterwards with no judgement. I had such a nice time visiting that I even forgot to take a group picture of everyone who came. But believe me, we were a full house! I did do a little DIY project and set up a photo booth. That was a lot of fun that I think everyone enjoyed. I'm so glad that we are able to do things like this around the holidays. It makes for great memories!

I even was able to get Josh to join in some of the photo fun. (even though he refused to wear an ugly sweater)