Hello 2015!

In past years, most of my goals have focused around establishing my career (finishing school, finding a job), getting our finances in check (paying off debt, buying a house, cars, etc.), and balancing family life (including growing our family). Now that I've accomplished a lot of those goals, I can definitely pull back on efforts in those areas and refocus on other areas of life that haven't had as much attention.  This year, most of my goals are focused on myself but I hope that by working on myself, the positivity will radiate out into other areas. My goals for 2015 are:

Nurture my marriage.

Now that we're getting past the first exhausting year of babyhood with Noah and nearing having two school aged children this September, I feel like we can really focus a little more on our relationship as a couple. I have so much admiration and respect for couples who don't seem to let other priorities like kids and work get in the way. It can be so tough. This year I'd like to start prioritizing time together without the kids, pursuing collective and individual interests (we used to be fun people and we used to do fun things together and apart and it made for good conversations!), and pay more attention to physical appearance. I notice a huge boost in my confidence when I feel good about my appearance. Good fitting clothing, a nice haircut, and feeling up on personal grooming, I think, will have a positive impact on my marriage as well as likely have other benefits like feeling more professional at work. This will involve spending some time and a bit of money.

Getting back to myself.

Since I started skating again, I began to think about all of the other things I used to enjoy doing growing up and into university that over the years had been put on the back burner as I started to have more responsibilities. I used to love reading, watching movies, rollerblading, riding my bike, going to the ski hill with friends, going to interesting lectures or talks (for fun!), playing frisbee on the beach in the summer with friends, and the list goes on! This year I'm going to try to find ways to work these things back into my life. They may look a bit different now - for instance, I can start re-reading the books I loved as a child with B at night and my love of interesting lectures and talks might be more limited to seizing professional development/continuous learning opportunities but it's definitely a start. I'll also need to simplify things at home as much as I can to allow for time for these things in my life.

Focus on making emotional and physical health a priority.  

We're incredibly lucky to have health benefits through both of our work places. I can also take paid time off work to attend medical appointments etc. but we've never taken full advantage of these benefits. This year I want to prioritize health by booking and attending regular medical appointments, eating and drinking better, getting more sleep, more time to myself to relax, and staying physically active. Low weight has been something that I've struggled with for the past 5 years and I want to deal with it this year. While I am "skinny", I don't feel strong or healthy. Getting back into skating last year really made a huge difference in how I felt and I actually felt much stronger.

Make our house a home. 

Yep...still on here. I saw this 52 week complete home organization schedule floating around and I thought this was perfect for helping me to stay focused on this goal and to also tackle some of the home decor stuff at the same time as the organization.

Continue to pay off debt but not let it become stressful.

Ideally, I'd like to automate debt repayment and be able to forget about it this year. Paying off debt while having expenses like daycare still is difficult. I'd like to check in with our budget periodically to see where we can make improvements and reinstitute spending money into our budget to help cover the financial implications of some of my other goals like skating fees, dates, and new clothes.