2015's Goals: Where are they now?

2015 has come & gone and man, what a year it was! Remember when I made some goals for myself for 2015? (Probably not.) Well, here they are with some updates... Just wanted to give MYSELF an update & also remind any readers that it's okay to not fulfill every promise to yourself. Did I set myself up for failure? Probably NOT, but, I definitely needed to be reminded more often of my goals in order to maintain them. I think I did okay! I'm not beating myself up at all and you shouldn't either.

Here's what I plan to do in 2015... Wish me luck!

• I want to have technology-free evenings with my husband. At least one a week. Doesn't happen. Don't even know if I brought this up to him. Maybe I should? 

• I want to stick with Weight Watchers and lose at least 25 pounds to start with. I worked my butt off with my gal pal Whitney & only lost 10 lbs. Then I lost another 5 lbs during my first trimester (gotta love morning sickness!) Either way, I did lose some weight, which I was thankful for when I started packing on the pregnancy pounds. 

• I want to sew/hem all my clothes that need it, and get really good at doing it so that maybe I can hem for others in the future. Okay, I don't foresee me doing much for others, considering I currently have a growing stack of to-hem clothes. Seriously every pair of bottoms I buy (pajamas included) need hemming and it is so annoying! I promise I'm getting around to that. 

• I want to get rid of all my clothes that are really too small. Some things I envision fitting back into in the near future, but some stuff I just need to kiss goodbye and donate to someone in need. Done and done. I am so not a packrat. 

• I want to keep growing my hair out. This will be a challenge, as I get easily annoyed & tend to just chop it off on whims. I have not cut the front of my hair at all this year!! The back grows so much faster than the front. Am I the only one whose hair does this? I think it has to do with me wanting the front more perfect, and using heat, etc. more on the front. I did chop like 4" off the back to make it a longer angled bob. The back caught up to the front.... the cycle continues. 

• Keep my new car clean. Inside & out. Not a chance. I am who I am. 

• Find a way to organize all my jewelry laying around. I did but I'm not loving my system, and it has currently failed me at the moment. Or maybe I failed it? Either way, I need to find a better home for my jewelry. 

• Create a 2014 photo book on Snapfish. Forget scrapbooking. I ultimately want to make photo books for every year and occasion I can. That'll have to be a summer project. Didn't happen. Still want to do this. 

• 100% housetrain Chloe. She is good most of the time but if it ain't 100%, we need to work on it. Sometimes we take her out in the mornings & she won't go, but then she's stuck inside all day while we work, and of course she goes inside then. Ugh! Somebody just come take & train my dog & bring her back all obedient and well-mannered. Chloe's good 99% of the time. If she messes up, it's typically our fault. She's great, really. :) 

• GO TO NEW YORK CITY. FOR THE LOVE! YES YES AND YES! I did it! FINALLY! I've only been talking about it for 10 years! I'd like to say I'll blog about it, but I think I know myself better by now. I'd still like to though! To sum it up: I had a wonderful time with my gal pal Elizabeth & her sister, Emily. It was 3 days of awesome. 

• Go on a fun beach trip. HAHA!! So, I totally went to the beach. While I was about 7 weeks pregnant, and SO sick. Worst idea ever. Remind me to never do that again. Alex can leave my butt at home next time. Wait though.... we DID go on a cruise to the Bahamas this year for our anniversary!! That's a fun beach trip!!!! I totally didn't forget about that. I just hear "beach" and think of all the yuckiness from this summer. Sorry, Bahamas! 

Cruise to the Bahamas in April 2015

• Do more couples devotions and praying with my husband. While we have improved in this area, we have a long way to go. 

You win some, you lose some. With a baby on the way, the amount of things I'm trying to improve is seriously so overwhelming. I am just trying to take life one day at a time and hope for the best!

Until next time, readers... here's a pic for the road!

Christmas 2015 & 30 weeks along with Baby Mullen

Wishing you all a very happy & healthy 2016!

♥,
Nicole

I Think I'm Back

Every so often, I try to give this blog thing another go'round! Well, here I am again. It's not really that I haven't wanted to blog, but that I've really wanted to give my blog a major makeover, and just never did it. I spent some time this winter going through this blog. I really do a horrible job at consistently blogging but this blog is an interesting "journal," if you will, documenting my life since 2005, my senior year of high school. And for that, I am thankful. I am super into nostalgia and reminiscing, if you didn't know. :)

I don't know what all purposes this blog has served. It looks like in the beginning I just copied & pasted some blog posts from my MySpace since that was becoming a thing from the past. Then I used it as a place to store quotes I found online that I liked. Then I would update about life (procrastination and grad school mostly).

I ended up going through all my posts and cleaning up the tags, deleting pointless posts, and deleting posts of videos that you could no longer access. (Stupid, YouTube.)  It was all fun and games until I got to the year 2010, when I guess I really started blogging. I had 156 posts that year. So that took a(nother) backseat. I'm still not 100% done cleaning up the place, but I did give her a little plastic surgery. I am growing as a woman and sometimes just crave the simplicity. My blog was stimulus overload and it was time she looked her age.

Funny story: I think I attempted a blog post 1/31/2015 and it just never got published. Just found it in Drafts, actually so... just for kicks... this is what it said:

I literally have so many things I'd love to blog about. But-- I'll be realistic, and maybe skip all that I wanted to say I'd been thinking or up to, and say this:
2015 is here and  technically, at this point we're are 1/12th of the way done with it already! SERIOUSLY! 

I saw a blog post that listed goals for the year & then at the end of the year, relisted those goals & stated where the blogger was in meeting those goals. Seems a bit far-fetched for me to think I'm going to remember to revisit this in a year, but why not try? Amiright?! 

Here's what I plan to do in 2015... Wish me luck! 

• I want to have technology-free evenings with my husband. At least one a week.

• I want to stick with Weight Watchers and lose at least 25 pounds to start with. 

• I want to sew/hem all my clothes that need it, and get really good at doing it so that maybe I can hem for others in the future. 
• I want to get rid of all my clothes that are really too small. Some things I envision fitting back into in the near future, but some stuff I just need to kiss goodbye and donate to someone in need. 
• I want to keep growing my hair out. This will be a challenge, as I get easily annoyed & tend to just chop it off on whims. 
• Keep my new car clean. Inside & out. 
• Find a way to organize all my jewelry laying around. 
• Create a 2014 photo book on Snapfish. Forget scrapbooking. I ultimately want to make photo books for every year and occasion I can. That'll have to be a summer project. 
• 100% housetrain Chloe. She is good most of the time but if it ain't 100%, we need to work on it. Sometimes we take her out in the mornings & she won't go, but then she's stuck inside all day while we work, and of course she goes inside then. Ugh! Somebody just come take & train my dog & bring her back all obedient and well-mannered. 
• GO TO NEW YORK CITY. FOR THE LOVE! 
• Go on a fun beach trip.
• Do more couples devotions and praying with my husband.

Maybe we'll talk more about that later? Again, not making any promises! Haha! But, life is taking a major turn and I have been having the urge to document again. I hope I stick with it. I find it stress-relieving and always love looking back at where I was mentally, physically, and spiritually during certain points in my past.

Stay tuned...