Family

2013 Year in Review

December 31, 2013

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Wow, what a year 2013 has been. There have been some years I have just been glad to see go, but this year is different. We were intentional about the things we cared about, and even though we did some things differently than we had planned, I’m still glad we made the choices that we did.

2012 was a hard year. It left us worn out and ready for change, and for a short while, we really thought that change would be making a big leap and moving back to Colorado. That didn’t last long – we never even started serious job or house hunting. Instead, Chris took a job as an in-house designer for a start-up, and I started looking for other opportunities in Nashville. I started working as a software developer at NASBA in March and have been so grateful for that opportunity.

We felt like we needed to make a decision and stop wavering, so we decided to plant our feet in Nashville. If I had three words to describe how we approached the year, it would be focused, grounded, and steady.

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We started house hunting and zeroed in on East Nashville. I tried to get our house organized, we simplified our schedule, and we tried to have a healthier, more sustainable relationship with food. We saved, saved, saved, and got to take an awesome vacation to celebrate our ten-year wedding anniversary. We started For the Love of Peaches, too.

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This year with Mackenzie was… Amazing. We must be really, really lucky. Mackenzie the Three Year Old is brilliant and tough as nails and has a will made out of steel, but you should be so lucky as to be invited into her world of pretend and princesses and treehouse castles. We have art-making marathons and dance parties and music trains. Raising her is the toughest challenge, but having her is the best thing we’ve ever done. She is the best gift.

This year as a whole was really great. The fall was tough, though. Chris changed jobs due to a big upheaval in start-up land, we looked at house after house and lost seven different offers, and we had a miscarriage in October. There were months that nothing seemed to be going well, and every answer seemed to be no. To that, to be honest, I am ready to bid farewell.

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January promises a fresh start, and boy are we ready. We have a contract on a house in East Nashville (yay!), and we finally got all of the details worked out with the the seller so we can finally exhale and celebrate, and say, “Yes, it’s official – we’re moving!” Work is good for both of us, Mackenzie is thriving. The move is a risk, but it feels good to step out in faith, plant our feet, and feel a little something solid there.

I think 2014 is going to be a really, really good year.

So that’s our 2013 year in review. Are you reflecting on the past year, too? What three words would you use to describe it?

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2 Comments

  • Reply Mom/Wanda January 1, 2014 at 12:34 am

    Wow…

    [Reply]

  • Reply Hope January 8, 2014 at 7:44 pm

    Here’s to fresh starts!

    I would say that 2013 was challenging, rewarding and (ultimately) successful.

    [Reply]

  • Leave a Reply to Hope Cancel Reply