Here's To 2013

As we welcome in 2013 (with friends and remnants of last night's fun littered all over our house), it seems impossible not to log on to the sorely forgotten Cows, Corn & Country Girls and reminisce on a really great, nearly perfect 2012.

We were blessed. 

There are no other words that do 2012 justice.

We are blessed to have each other and our families who drive us to do better and love deeper. We are blessed to have friends that are there to celebrate our greatest accomplishments and build us back up when we need their support. We are lucky to have jobs that remind us that life requires work and dedication, but also provide us with the means to try new things, splurge every once and while and live comfortably. We are blessed to have a happy little home that afforded us the opportunity to explore a new community, find a dive of a bar that we love and enjoy Sunday morning coffee shops and quirky dinner dates. And we were blessed to have a year that allowed us to fall in love with each other and life even more than we thought possible.

{love him}

And I fully expect 2013 to be even better.

Hopefully it will bring a vacation of a lifetime so we can finally check that honeymoon off our to-do list and if we all cross our fingers (are you crossing them?!), maybe by early summer I will be looking out our window at cows on pasture and be spending my nights checking for heat and weeding the garden. (Doesn't that sound amazing!?) Oh and another potential game changer will be a legitimate craft room where I can maybe finish a quilt or two.

2013 will likely bring a lot of cattle shows and road trips to watch our little brothers and family accomplish big things and we will spend a lot of Saturdays celebrating the weddings of our friends. We will hopefully babysit our niece and nephew a little more, have more nights relaxing with our families and find reasons to laugh until we cry. And hopefully, in between the adventures, we finally find our purposes professionally and continue to grow in our careers.

There is no doubt that there will be challenges. I hope and pray that everyone I love and everyone that they love stays safe, happy and healthy, but I know that won't always be the case, so hopefully Mark and I can find trust in God and find peace in even the most heart-breaking moments. 

2012 ended with some unnecessary tragedies. My heart hurt for my friends, family and even complete strangers too many times in December. If nothing else it reminded me to love each and every person in my life to the fullest, to wear my seatbelt and stay focused on the road and cherish the life I have. Every moment is a gift.

Like every year, I hope to read a few more books, make a few new friends, reconnect with old friends, continue blogging and get high-school skinny again. Those resolutions are oldies but goodies and somehow make the list every year. Hopefully I can actually accomplish a few in 2013 (especially the high-school skinny & blogging...). But I also have a few big dreams for the year ahead. Big, scary ones. And I can't wait.

So here's to you, 2013. Let's make it a good one. I plan to love every minute.

XoXo,