Life Right Now [January]

Happy New Year! There is something so exciting about a new year. I don’t know what it is about new beginnings but there is something incredibly energizing about them. A new year is no different.

So in this post I will be sharing my 2024 New Year Resolutions (and would love to hear yours in exchange). I will be providing an update on our infertility journey and maybe throw in a book recommendation or two at the end.

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2024 New Year Resolutions

When setting new year resolutions, there isn’t any rhyme or reason as to what areas I choose to focus on. Typically I just think about the areas of my life I would like to improve or goals I would specifically like to accomplish. For this new year this is what I hope to work on:

Complete Auto to Awesome: Last year I bought a great online photography class to help me learn how to use my fancy camera. Six months later I have not yet made it past the first lesson in module one. It’s not that the content isn’t engaging, I just can’t seem to find time to focus on it. My main motivation for getting through the course is two fold. First, Dustin and I will be going to Switzerland and I would like to take some amazing pictures and second, I would like to be able to take awesome pictures of the mom retreats I host to share with the participants. This goal is currently slotted for Q1 so I will try and report back on how it is going.

Increase my Financial Literacy: While I wouldn’t say that Dustin and I are completely financially illiterate, I feel like we could do better at making our money work for us. To help with this I plan to read a variety of financial books and take some free financial courses I found online. The main thing we are interested in, is investing in money making assets. We will probably start small with stock and bonds, but hope to eventually move up to bigger assets that interest us.

Family History: This last year I have been on a big family history kick, specifically documenting our immediate family history. My family history projects for 2024 are:

• Make and print Madic’s 2-5 years book
• Make and print EOY 2023 book (this is pretty much done but I am going to wait to print it until Mixbook has it’s Black Friday sale)
• Make family video compilations for each year of our marriage
• Make and print Wedding + Honeymoon book

Emergency Preparedness: If there is one thing I have to thank Covid for is an increased paranoia of national disasters, pandemics, and pretty much any horrible thing that can happen to uproot your life. While I don’t necessarily appreciate Covid for this gift, I am grateful it has given me motivation to focus on emergency preparedness. For this goal I want to achieve the following two things:

• Buy one food item each week for our food storage
• Make 72 hour grab and go bags for each family member of non-food items (e.g. clothing, simple games and books, tooth brushes, etc.)

Mind, Body, Soul Time: Mind, body, soul time is a term coined by Positive Parenting Solutions and means spending more quality time with your kids. For this goal I am working spending 20 minutes with each child every day – which, with only two kids is pretty feasible. During this time we do whatever the child wants to do and it is spent distraction free (no screens, cell phones, multitasking, etc.). So far the kids and I are LOVING it. I spend so much of my time with them multi-tasking – and honestly that is where most of my stress comes from (e.g. trying to make a phone call while they are needing help in the bathroom). It is nice to have time to just focus on them and it really fills both of our cups.

Hawaii: We would like to go to Kauai, Hawaii with my brother and sister-in-law in 2025. Since we plan to do this trip on points we have to be prepared to book our hotel reservations 13 months in advance. So far I have loved researching all the amazing things there are to do and I am already getting super excited to go. If you have been to Kauai or Maui please share all your must see or do activities!

So there you have it. Those are my 2024 New Year Resolutions. What items are on your New Year Resolution list?

Infertility Journey Update

For those of you that haven’t followed along on Dustin and my infertility journey, here is a quick recap. Dustin and I have been trying to have a third child since January 2022. We experienced two miscarriages during 2022, one being a blighted ovum, another at 16 weeks. After religiously tracking my temperature and taking 4 rounds of Clomid we decided to see a fertility specialist toward the end of 2023. We did a round of IUI in November with no luck and recently did another round of IUI on December 18th. At the end of that appointment they told us to wait until January 1st to take a pregnancy test, since the Orivdel drug I had taken can create a false positive on a pregnancy test.

After waiting a long two weeks, Dustin and I celebrated the new year by taking pregnancy test shortly after 12 am on January 1st and the result was POSITIVE!

At first I wasn’t sure what to think. Obviously I am happy, but having had two miscarriages I am afraid of getting too excited. It has taken a few weeks for it to sink in and given that so far the pregnancy feels as it should I am starting to get more hopeful.

I had a viability ultrasound on Monday and it showed that everything looks good and there is only one baby. While in a way it would be nice to have twins I am relieved there is only one. I think being pregnant with twins would be so hard physically and mentally. I will take just one baby, thank you very much!

So the good news is (hopefully) we are going to finally complete our family. The bad news is that with a due date of September 11th I will need to cancel the Cannon Beach Mom Retreat since it is schedule a week before I am due. But don’t dismay. This retreat will definitely be hosting in the future.

Book Recommendations

And a life update post wouldn’t be complete without a book recommendation. These are two books that I would highly recommend.

The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth

At the beginning of the month I finished The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I am anxious to read more of Sally Hepworth books. Please be aware that it does say the F word, I believe twice. Other than that, it is very clean and engaging. I would definitely recommend reading or listening to it.

Lovely War by Julie Berry

I am still in the process of listening to this book, but so far I am loving it. When starting the book the only thing I knew about it, was that it was about World War I. I must admit there the author put a twist in the story that I wasn’t expecting, but it has been a fun surprise. This is another book I would recommend adding to your reading list.

Until February!

Other than trying to ski every week, and enjoying some big snow storms not much else has been going on in our neck of the woods. I hope you are all having a wonderful new year and I look forward to hearing all about your 2024 goals and aspirations. Until next time, happy adventuring!

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