Home 2014

New Year's Goal 1: Survive Moving.
The furniture is out, boxes have been packed and moved, utility companies have been called, and I made it out alive with only a bruise the length of half my thigh from dropping a large box of heavy winter coats. Phew! With 20+ moves between my husband and myself in the past 10 years, which not only includes our own personal moves but also helping different friends, two sets of grandparents, and a friend of ours' grandparents, the process of moving always sends us into a rage to purge. As we pack and pack (and continue packing in the case of grandparents who have an entire lifetime's worth of belongings), we start examining our own home and asking ourselves what is "extra," what can we unload because we aren't using it, or we just don't like it any more, or we don't want our kids to go through all of this stuff later on and ask "why did she keep old, used kitchen sponges, broken lamps, and Mormon pamphlets?" When we get like this, the trash bag finds itself full of papers, old bills and receipts and holiday cards that somehow made it to the bottom of the filing cabinet unfiled, and boxes get stuffed with all kinds of things like clothes and those random figurines and plushies that somehow end up lying about even though we don't have kids. But now it's time to get serious, which leads us to goal 2.

Goal 2: Settle Our New Home
Along with moving out of the apartment, we have also collected the last items that were spread among various family member's houses, so finally all of our belongings are consolidated under one roof. Now it's time to go through it all and ask the hard questions. Do we need boxes of every stuffed animal we ever had growing up? Do I need my college graduation memorabilia bears and "2008" balloons? Will my children really want my original Power Ranger and Barney & Friends VHS tapes? These are the hard questions, dear friends. And the truth is simple: "no and probably not." With every move made these past three years we have managed to lessen the load, but as life happens, stuff happens, and with it comes more stuff.

"Home" has weighed heavy on my mind this month; so much change happened in the course of two months, with my husband's great-grandmother moving, working over time, finals, us moving, and school starting up again, things have been in such a state of upheaval that my routine has crumbled. My goals for 2014 simply surround the home and settling in so we can pick up where we were and make it even better!

Goal 3: Develop Our New *Homestead* !
With a backyard and a much larger kitchen than I've had lately, James and I are looking forward to turning this little place into our own sort of urban homestead. We hope to be able to take this lot of earth we have been blessed with and see if we can't turn it into something workable and beautiful.

Goal 4: Keep Blogging!
And with all of these things, I want to keep writing and sharing on this blog our achievements and trials, tests and home runs. My goals are to share more recipes in Kimberly's Kitchen, learn how to take better photographs, and create a new section to chronicle our homesteading venture.

And most importantly,

Goal Always: "and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31 NASB)

I pray that 2014 is another year to continue to follow the Lord's plan for our lives, which is better than any we could ever plan for ourselves, and to grow in our walk of love with Him.  

Always,
Kimberly