Farewell 2013

I know, I know...I'm a little late to the show on this look back, but things got a little thrown off schedule with the move and lack of computer access. So please forgive my belated 2013 retrospective :-)

2013 was a good year - one of new beginnings (the arrival of baby Elijah) and the end of an era (where I finally accepted that Michigan is no longer home for me).

I can't wait to see what 2014 has in store for us!

Belated Birthdays

Before we left Michigan, we had a big birthday bash for Isaiah, Caitlyn, and Grandma (their birthdays are all within a couple of days of one another in January). It was such a nice farewell party. Oh my goodness I miss these people sooooo much already!

Ally made this cat for Isaiah - so sweet of her!!

The Birthday Crew

Right Now

Right now I am...

• Packing and packing and packing: Last weekend we had a big moving sale and sold most of our furniture and now I'm packing all of our remaining possessions and making Goodwill runs on a nearly daily basis. By the way, isn't it amazing how much extra stuff we accumulate? I'm going to try to live a more simple life once we get settled and buy only what I need/love.

• Reading: The Bone People by Keri Hulme. So far it seems beautifully written and I'm really liking it, but I'm only about a hundred pages in. It won the Booker Prize, though, and I am usually a big fan of books that win that award. Another digression: I think I need to make subcategories to my Book Recommendations page to differentiate between books that I absolutely love and those that were just pretty good. I'll get on that one of these days.  (Follow-up on this book: I wholeheartedly DO NOT recommend this book. I liked the stylistic writing, but did not care for the content at all). 

• Looking forward to: Warmth! And non-terrifying driving conditions! Noah has his first ever snow day today. We had a big ice/snow storm yesterday and, even before that, we've spent the last week slipping and sliding along the roads. Poor Isaiah has been telling a story about how we were "sliding and sliding and sliding down the hill (by our house) and a nice lady stopped to help us" to anyone who will listen. He keeps saying how the roads make him "a little bit nervous" and he wants to go to California. A boy after my own heart :-) 

• Considering: We're thinking of buying a truck. We have a U-haul truck reserved to move our remaining belongings and haul our car, but we may buy a truck instead and haul a trailer out. I am a huge Craigslist addict, so it may be useful for us when we get out to Cali too because then we'll be able to haul my furniture finds back to the new house. I am in love with vintage trucks and have dreamed of buying one for years, so this may be my chance to get a little bit close to that dream :-) 

• Planning: I've been checking out my Pinterest pages for decorating ideas for the new house. We could tell pretty early on that this was not going to be our long-term home so we really never settled in. In fact, we never really fully unpacked or decorated. I want our new home to feel like "home" and so I am going to put in a real effort to decorate and get settled this time.

Life Lately