Concrete Aspirations 2008 in summary

In April 2008, inspired by Vanessa, I made my own list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2008. Many successes, some fell through the cracks. Here's the list and what happened! Bolded items are completed. I don't feel too bad that I didn't finish all of it, as I didn't start at the beginning of the year.

1. Read all of Jane Austen's books — Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Lady Susan.
2. Attempt all the recipes from mom, at least once. — barbecue meatballs, biko, eclairs, beef brisket.
3. Finish Mere Christianity.
4. Read Velvet Elvis, Soul Cravings, and The Barbarian Way.
5. Decorate my canvas bag. The bag I intended to decorate I ended up not using because I got a couple other free bags. However, I'd still like to decorate it. This will go onto my 2009 list!
6. Finish our wedding thank-yous. — just need to sleuth out 1 more address. The person in question moved, so we're a little stymied. I think that we could consider this one basically completed.
7. Catch up scrapbooking. I failed to order photos, because I don't want to use Wal-Mart, but I want matte finish... Again, this will go onto my 2009 list.
8. Watch all of The Godfather movies with Ian.
9. With Ian, complete, in order written, the Chronicles of Narnia. — finished The Silver Chair. We started C.S. Lewis's space trilogy, so we put Chronicles of Narnia on hold temporarily. I'm hoping to finish both book sets in 2009!
10. Whittle down our collection of stuff.
11. Write Grandma every month.
12. Re-start our potted herb garden when we get back to Kansas in August. — herbs are (hopefully) in winter hibernation! I think, after discovering some information, that they dried out because the air wasn't humid enough, so I think they are dead. But I'm going to try again, for the third year, to find success in container gardening!
13. Finish the process of changing my name at necessary institutions.
14. Attempt to do a folded-book art sculpture.
15. Back up my photos to Picasa or Flickr (decide which one!). My indecisive nature worked against me on this one, and I've discovered that Shutterfly has cool sharing sites for the photos you upload to order from them, so I'm going to do more research as I order photos for scrapbooking.
16. Learn Tagalog. We're going to continue these lessons in 2009 and our trip to the Philippines in the summer will help too!
17. Catch up in my journal.
18. Keep up the habit of weekly meal planning.
19. Clean the apartment at least bi-weekly.
20. Improve my athletic skills (a.k.a. things like play catch with Ian).
21. Exercise at least 3 times a week. — yay for Wii Fit!
22. Get up in time to put on makeup and do my hair for work, if I want to. It's been hit or miss. I'm going to be even more ambitious in 2009 in this department though!
23. Work on my creative writing 2 times a week. — signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month: 50,000 words in November).
24. Finish knitting the scarves/hats I bought yarn to make.
25. Pick out the wedding photos to order/have in an album and relay to Gina. We had to wait until we spent time with family, so they could pick out their images. We'll be ordering in January! (Finished June 2009!)
26. Plan a creative, fun, inexpensive date once a month.
27. Learn a really good bring-to-share homemade side dish recipe and dessert recipe.
28. Hone in our budget and really stick to it. I'd like to note, this happened twice as we had to adjust the budget when Ian went back to school!

Our 2008 Christmas Letter

Because of Ian and Anna’s commitment to environmental stewardship (not the hippie kind), they’ve decided to make their first-ever family Christmas letter a digital version. This has nothing to do with the fact that they are poor newlyweds putting Ian through his final year of grad school, resulting in a lack of funding for the hundreds of stamps required to send an actual paper letter to everyone near and dear to them.

Brit and Joe's wedding weekend

Britni is going to be so happy I'm finally getting to this! It's cold outside, and Ian is off doing his wedding responsibility as best man... i.e. doing the bachelor party thing (don't worry, dinner and an evening of Wii). Which means I'm doing some serious catching up on the blog and Facebooking photos while watching some fun crime scene television. And Britni and Joe's wedding festivities are next in the time line.

The bachelorette party and bridal shower were in August, right after Ian and I got back into town. Quite the whirlwind! But the other bridesmaids were fantastic and helped out so much, that I didn't really have to worry about anything. We started out at Chandra's for dinner and gifts. And I won't divulge the giggles we shared there! After Britni opened all her presents, we headed to della Voce, the new fancy Italian restaurant in town. It was so much fun!

Here's the bride-to-be trying some cannoli.

beautiful party attendees!

We were so glad Lyndsay could make it back!

Several people walked up and congratulated Britni, courtesy of her bachelorette ribbon.

The next afternoon was the bridal shower, complete with 4-pound cake.

Here's all of us bridesmaids with the beautiful bride-to-be!

And me and Britni together! BFFs forever! *wink*

And then, September 19, comes the wedding rehearsal!

They are so excited!

And the actual wedding day, September 20!

Bridesmaids smelling Brit's beautiful bouquet.

The classic bathroom shot.

After tossing the petals.

Me with my moms!

Shiny bridesmaids.

Best friends, now both married!

Brit and Joe, we love you both. Congratulations again!

Christmas Thankful List

Australian strawberry licorice. I learned at Chocolate that Americans don't really know how to make good licorice/gummi candies.
the end of the semester.
running into friends and family randomly while shopping.
eating good food with good friends.
package tracking.
my back-ordered present for Ian shipping in time for Christmas!
Christmas lights.
snow.
me not having a wreck on snowy streets.
Ian's fabulous snow-driving skills so I don't have to drive.
fun crafty blogs to inspire me.
soup.
cookies.
bananas.
Bananagrams (the game).
blueberry muffins from Early Edition.
amazing family to spend time with over Christmas.
space heaters.

Tag! I'm it!

I read Gina's (our photographer) blog, and she got tagged. I thought it seemed like great fun, so I was really excited when Sarah tagged me!

So here's how the game works:

• link to the person that tagged you. (check)
• post the rules on your blog (tada! Now just imagine me saying that like Wall-e...)
• write 6 random things about yourself (check)
• tag 6 people at the end of your post (check)
• let the blogger know that he/she has been tagged (check)
• let the tagger know when your entry is up (check)

I really like making lists. Especially on sticky notes. At work last year, Amy left me a sticky note that said "I think you need another sticky note on your desk!" The humor was in the fact that the edge of my computer screen looked like a square sticky note wreath. You'll find sticky note lists all over my desk at work, virtual ones on my beloved mac, and lists on bits of paper all over. I cleaned out my purse tonight and I think I found six. Not counting the lists I actually wrote in my planner...

I attended 5 straight years of K-State football games with perfect attendance. Home games, anyway. I love football.

I'm obsessed with Google. Seriously. From Gmail to Google Docs to Blogger... What's not to love?

I love macaroni and cheese in any shape or form. Fried, baked, Stouffer's out of the microwave...

I have a hard time stopping things once I start. For example, this is the reason why I didn't sleep the night Britni and I purchased Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (at midnight, of course).

I really like vanilla: ice cream (especially Breyers or Cold Stone's cake batter), cake, scents... When Ian's family took us to The Vault Creamery over Thanksgiving, I discovered a new favorite candle smell: "Vanilla Cupcake."

Now step 4. I'm tagging AmyJo, Megan G., Sarah G., Vanessa, Beth, and Ellie Jo (or Mandy or Ben... you can pick who you target on this one... hah!)!