Happy 2024! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a restorative start to the new year! As with every year, I enjoy thinking ahead about what’s to come, reflecting on changes I’d like to implement, goals I’d like to achieve, and places I’d like visit. “Resolutions” have gotten a bad rap recently with their overly ambitious connotations, so let’s just call this my annual list of goals. That doesn’t seem nearly as daunting!

GET ORGANIZED

I never did achieve my 2023 goal of organizing the basement. It’s just such a large, daunting task that feels impossible to get started on. This year, however, is all about getting organized and allowing myself to let go of items that no longer serve a purpose. This extends well beyond the basement, too. Our garage needs some TLC, the kitchen cupboards have miscellaneous food that we need to either consume or toss, and I’m sure there are plenty of things in our closets that could find a new home. I know everyone feels this way at the dawn of a new year, but I finally feel motivated to do something about it. It probably has something to do with aging, too. I turned 40 last year and I don’t need to hold on to things like mugs I had from my first apartment. I want to surround myself with things I truly love or serve a purpose. Things shoved in boxes aren’t exactly doing that.

TRAVEL SOMEWHERE NEW

You know my favorite annual goal is coming back for 2024! There’s nothing on the books yet — just like how Switzerland wasn’t on my travel radar at this time last year — which makes it all the more exciting to daydream about where we’ll find ourselves.

ESTABLISH NEW ROUTINES

I downloaded the Streaks app to help motivate me into establishing a few key habits in the new year: drink a glass of water before my first cup of coffee in the morning; exercise at least twice per week; read two books a month; and go to the pottery studio once a week. I’ve been successful learning French each day with Duolingo’s reminders (I’m on day 1,007!), so I’m hopeful that Streaks will keep me accountable for the other habits.

MAKE PROGRESS ON HOME PROJECTS

We renovated our bathrooms in 2022, so last year wasn’t ambitious on the home-project front as we sought to beef up our home savings account again. Instead, we worked on refreshing our bedroom by way of a new bed, new lamps, and new paint. While I still need to select and hang curtains, the bedroom has become a room that I really enjoy and it feels so much more adultlike! This year, I’d like to make progress in either our office or guest room (maybe both!) as the rooms have become uninspiring dumping grounds for clutter. I’d also like to start a mood board for the sunroom and — possibly — get quotes on the project so we can start planning what’s feasible in the space to add more livable square footage to our home. I feel like this won’t be anywhere near as extensive as the bathroom renovations were, so my guess is that the price tag won’t be astronomical. I guess we’ll find out!

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I hope your new year is off to a wonderful and stress-free start! We celebrated the dawn of 2022 with a few of our close friends (all vaxxed and boosted, of course) who came over to play games and share in entirely too much bubbly with us. It was the perfect way to ring in the new year, and we followed it with a weekend of much-needed R&R — and a deep clean of the house. (Never mind the errant pine needles that’ll pop up over the next few months!)

If the last two years has taught us anything, it’s that even the best laid plans will have to pivot and adapt to uncertainty. I’m sure 2022 will be no different, but I’m still a fan of outlining a set of goals to keep us on track for the new year. Here’s what I hope to accomplish this year:

1 | TRAVEL SOMEWHERE NEW (MUNICH!)

Traveling to a new destination is a perennial goal of ours and one that we’re always happy to check off our to-do list. Assuming the pandemic eases up this year, we’re planning to visit Munich for Oktoberfest this year. We already have our hotel reserved and are researching the other place(s) we’d like to visit while we’re abroad. It feels a bit surreal to be planning an international escape after the last two years, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to travel safely and responsibly later this year. And, if not, well, the hotel is refundable.

2 | SHARE MORE HOME CONTENT WITH YOU + HERE’S WHAT’S ON DECK

Our bathroom renovations are scheduled to begin on Feb. 15 and I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am to see our vision come together for the spaces — and to bring you along for the ride! In addition to that huge project, here’s what else I’d like to accomplish this year: repaint our main bedroom’s accent wall (I’m no longer in love with its current color), hang curtains in our bedroom, finish the guest room, continue honing my budding green thumb with more plants and flowers in our yard this spring, find the perfect armchair for our upstairs office space, finally organize the basement and workbench, and close up the inoperable door to the original porch of our home (you can see the door on the right of the opening image in this post).

3 | SPEND LESS, SAVE MORE — AND PARE DOWN IN THE PROCESS

First off, I should be able to pay off my student loans this year! That loan felt insurmountable post-graduation and I can barely believe that I’m in the homestretch! Additionally, I have a target number to increase my savings account by this year. It’ll essentially have me saving twice as much each month as I did in 2021. It doesn’t seem unrealistic, but it is going to require that I actually make a budget and stick to it. I think this will be good and will help me continue to strive for fewer better things. I want to be mindful of my purchases and ensure that each one is something that I’ll either use regularly or that will spark joy. Along those lines, I need to do a real purge around the house. We have boxes in our basement that we haven’t opened since moving in four years ago. Some are old photo albums and will stay, along with the prettiest Kate Spade dessert plates and cake stand I just don’t have a home for in our kitchen. (I resolve to bring out the cake plate for special occasions this year!) Other boxes are full of miscellaneous things that don’t have a place in our lifestyle. I have a difficult time letting go of material items because I feel so guilty for having spent the money in the first place, but it’s not doing us any good in a box.

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I love the start of a new year, especially the fresh slate and sense of optimism that comes with it! But as I was reflecting on the past year and thinking about some of my goals for 2019, I realized that I seem to forget what were my priorities midway through the year! This year, I’m looking at things in six-month increments. It’s enough time to actually work toward some of my goals, but having a midyear check in will help keep me accountable and allow me to reflect back on what’s not working and why.

TRAVEL SOMEWHERE NEW

If you’ve been a longtime reader, you’ll know that this is a perennial goal of mine. I think it’s important to continuously expand your horizons and see new parts of the country and world. For me, travel is inspiring, fuels my creativity, and honestly travel makes me feel like a better and more interesting person. We traveled a lot last year, visiting London, Austin, Portland, Seattle, New York City, and Chicago. The latter was the only city I had already been to (and numerous times at that; it’s only a couple of hours from Madison, so we get there at least once a year). This month, we’ll be traveling to Florida’s Gulf coast to visit Dave’s parents who rented a condo for the month. We have Sweden on the radar for this spring (assuming work schedules and travel costs allow), and we’ll add on a to-be-determined destination abroad during that trip. It’s tempting to go back to our beloved Brussels or visit Copenhagen again because one week in that gorgeous city wasn’t nearly enough time.

GO WITH THE FLOW

I’m not the most chill person and I may have a tendency to overreact and be a bit dramatic. This year, I’m going to do my best to be more understanding and relaxed whenever an unexpected curveball is thrown my way. Along with this, I need to stop taking as many things personally.

TAKE SELF CARE SERIOUSLY

No, I’m not talking about doing face masks and soaking in the tub. I’m talking about being more active, drinking more water, reading more often, and eating better. My 46-year-old uncle died rather unexpectedly on Thanksgiving and it was an eyeopener to me that at age 35, I really need to start taking steps to take care of myself so that I don’t find myself with a slew of health problems ten years from now. I do need to lose weight. I lost 15 pounds in 2018 … and then gained it all back during our hectic travel months and the holidays. While discouraging, if I could do it last year, I can easily make it happen again with a little willpower! I’ve also been making sure I drink at least 64 ounces of water daily (but aiming for 100 ounces each day). This is such a small thing, but it’s made me feel more energetic and keeps me from mindlessly snacking when I’m really just thirsty.

AROUND THE HOUSE

I had a lofty list of goals for the house last year and didn’t accomplish as many as I naively thought possible. That said, we did find the perfect dining room table and chairs, painted our upstairs hallway, made significant progress on painting the doors and removing old paint from the hardware, purchased light fixtures for five rooms, and had four dying trees removed. We probably should have done more, but it’s such a balancing act with time and money. Here’s my must-do list for the first six months of 2019:

• First of all, share more home-related content! I’d love to give you a better idea of where I’m spending my time and some of the things I’ve learned improving a fixer upper.
• Finish installing our living room sconces. We bought sconces months ago and only installed one. It was such an annoying process that we got discouraged and put it off. I’d actually like this done before the end of January.
• Paint the remaining three doors, strip the paint from the hardware, and hang them.
• Hire someone to fill in the unnecessary doorway between our bedroom and guest room. (Long story short, the house was a two-flat at some point. Our upstairs guest room was a kitchen and our master was a living room. Instead of having the tenants go into the small hallway to access each room from the original doorways, a previous owner cut a doorway between the two rooms … and did a shoddy job at that. In fact, the “trim” is plywood. It’s a more difficult job than just drywalling each side, which we could do ourselves, so we’ll need to hire someone. I’ll share photos and talk about it more soon!)
• Hire a painter to tackle our stairwell. I’d like to do wallpaper eventually, but I don’t want to live with the ugly yellowish paint that’s on the wall until I have money saved up. I’d rather have it painted white (or maybe an accent color) so it’s less of an eyesore for the time being.
• Replace the storm door at the front of the house. It’s in such poor shape and incredibly ugly. (I have no idea how to install a door, so that’ll be an adventurous weekend!)
• Add a screen door to our back deck, if the existing door and frame allows.
• Add an exterior motion-sensor light to the garage.
• Paint or stain the deck and front porch.
• Figure out our gutter situation so the rain doesn’t just dump directly from the roof onto the deck. (I’m not sure if they simply need to be cleaned out or if we need more gutters.)
• Buy curtains for the dining room. Our house is close to the neighbor’s property, so we’d like to do sheers or linen curtains for privacy, but also to allow light to come in.

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FEWER, BETTER THINGS

I know this is the Cuyana tagline, but it makes so much sense for where we are in our lives. We have a lot of possessions — which became evident when we moved — and the last thing we really need is more stuff. I’m trying to get out of the habit of impulse purchasing or feeling like I need something new to scratch an itch, or in terms of our home, feeling like we need a transitional piece that acts like a placeholder while we hunt for “the one.” I have a few lofty items that I’d love to own this year, namely the Gucci bag I’ve been saving for, wallpaper for our stairway, light fixtures for the entire house, and a dining room table and chairs. Having clearly defined purchases makes it easier to pass up the impulse items. I’ve also thought about limiting myself to just one or two sartorial pieces each month. It’d be an interesting challenge to whittle down a wish list to just a couple of purchases, but I could see it sucking a lot of joy out of fashion. Maybe worth trying for a few months, though!

TRAVEL SOMEPLACE NEW

This perennial resolution is my favorite. I think it’s important to expand my horizons and see a different part of the country or world. Plus, it’s so much fun to experience a new location! Last year we only took one vacation, and fortunately it was to a new-to-us location: New Orleans. It was difficult to justify additional travel when we just purchased a house and were feeling financially stressed as we adjusted to a new budget. Hopefully we’ll have more travel flexibility this year. We already have London on the books for April (with the flight and hotel already paid for, so that’s taken care of!), and have toyed the idea of going to Iceland for a week in the summer. I’m not sure if Iceland is realistic, so we have a couple of domestic ideas in mind. (After last night’s subzero temperatures, I wouldn’t mind ringing in 2019 somewhere with a beach!) And, while this is more than a year away, I promised Dave that we could go to Japan in 2019 or 2020. (Maybe if I write it down here, I’ll feel accountable for making it happen?)

MOVE MORE

Challenging myself to lose a certain amount of weight or commit to an ambitious workout schedule isn’t going to happen. However, I am looking to make healthier changes to my lifestyle in 2018. (Gone are the days that I could reliably lose weight just by reducing my calorie intake!) I’m starting an exercise regime that I can accomplish at home (twice a week sounds realistic to start) and once the weather gets nicer, I’m committing to at least one bike ride a weekend to get out an enjoy our neighborhood, Madison’s parks, and the surrounding lakes.

AROUND THE HOUSE

When we purchased this house, we knew there’d be a lot of work to do to make it our own. It was largely abandoned and hadn’t been taken care of or updated over the years. We’ve made impressive strides in the first six months of ownership, but there’s still a long list of things to do! We keep a shared list on the “Notes” app that allows us to jot down every project that comes to mind so that we can prioritize them. I won’t get into all of the projects, but some that I’d like to do tackle this year include:

• Finish painting the trim and doors.
• Finish painting the hallway and ceiling. (We’ll need a professional painter for part of the wall and ceiling that we can’t reach over the stairs.)
• Repaint the guest room since we hate the grey we originally picked.
• Replace the storm door at the front of the house. It’s in such poor shape and incredibly ugly.
• Replace the remaining light fixtures … for seven rooms.
• Buy a dining room table and chairs.
• Purchase a living room rug, preferably vintage.
• Add a screen door to our back deck.
• Have a contractor come in to give us quotes on renovating the bathroom, closing off the opening between the master bedroom and guest room, and renovating our front porch/sun room. (It was originally a porch, but had been closed in at some point. We’d like to add more windows and give it an interior face lift so it’s a space that we’ll use.)
• Get quotes on wallpaper installation for the stairway. (I’d love to make wallpapering a priority for 2018, but it all comes down to money.)
• Get quotes on skim coating the kitchen to get rid of the awful textured walls.
• Have an electrician install exterior outlets.
• Resurface the driveway and add a parking pad to the side of the one-car garage.
• Add exterior lights to our side entrance and the garage.
• Paint or stain our deck and front porch.
• Figure out window coverings. We’re likely going with roller shades because they fit the period of the house and they’re affordable.

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