welcome, 2013!

Well hello, there!

Hope everyone had a fabulous and refreshing New Year's experience.  Jules and I celebrated with some friends at a small dinner involving lots of champagne and lots of food.  As it is also our 3rd anniversary (we got together on New Year's Day, 2010!), there was a lot of celebrating.

Let me forewarn you - this is going to be a lengthy, and more personal, entry than usual!  Ready?  Read on.

Like most people, I started off 2013 thinking about these darn resolutions.  Every year, I feel like I make the same list of things I need to do.  Logical lifestyle changes that include going to bed earlier and exercising more, practically identical to the list in the photo, actually.  Vague resolutions like "be more organized".  And they don't stick.  But this morning, I came across this article from Good Morning America, and it got me thinking about how to make these resolutions, including making very specific goals and focusing on the process of getting there.  Something to think about!  Here are my goals for 2013:

• Save money for a trip to France and moving to a new house.  Jules and I have been wanting to cut our expenses, which is one reason we moved in together, yet we haven't managed to save as much as I thought we would in our first two months for various reasons.  Instead of saving, we ended up shuffling around where we were spending our money (and for some reason, my shoe collection hasn't gotten any smaller).  With this goal of a trip to visit Jules' family and moving to a bigger home, we have a very real measuring stick of our progress.  To save money, I also would like to:
• Eat more vegetables and less meat, and make sure to make lunch every day instead of buying lunch at work.  (This is also an excuse for me to cook more and post more photos of food.)
• Buy only things that are necessary, but buy the highest quality we can afford - this way we won't be spending small amounts of money all over the place and then wondering what happened to our bank accounts at the end of the month.  This applies to EVERYTHING.  Food, clothing, housewares, etc.
• Attend at least one yoga and one cycling class a week (and one or two Zumba classes for me), AND put some weight training in there.  That's pretty specific, don't you think?  Jules is not a gym person (not many French people are) but I am!  Well, was.  We both complain about being tired and out of shape, but if we can at least attend one of each of these per week, plus weight training, that's a small step in the right direction!  Jules' doctor told him he should get on a bike soon to rehab his healing broken foot, so I've got that in my favor to convince him to get to the gym.  I don't have high hopes for dragging him to Zumba.  Not. At. All.
• Drink more water.  Specific, and simple.  I can DO THIS.
• Say "yes" to more social events and get out more in SF while we're still living here.  It took a little bit of pleading on my part to get Jules to agree to this, but I would like to enjoy as much of San Francisco and my city-dwelling peeps before we pack up and move to the burbs.  I've put a few things on my list such as:
• More museum time, including the Academy of Sciences.  I still haven't gone!
• Playing tourist.  I've never been on a cable car in the 12 years I've lived in San Francisco.  EVER.
• Day browsing in the Mission and North Beach, two neighborhoods I don't really hang out in much these days.
• Having lunch or dinner at the smaller hole-in-the-wall neighborhood restaurants that I've been wanting to go to (i.e. in Nob Hill).
• Going to some top notch bars.  (Before we get too old to be going to bars.)
• Spend more time with loved ones.  Friends and family, you have been warned.  We are making time for hanging out!  

Those are the big ones for me this year.  What is important to you for 2013?