~My Word!~

No, something has not offended me! I'm talking about my word "Achieve" that I've designated for 2008. I'm trying to keep it alive throughout my months and thought that I should designate a post to it once a month.

So for February I/We achieved:

- making a meal plan and following it for 2 weeks of the month
- completion of my word layout for the year and created a few other layouts of our trip to Mexico
- a whole month with NO scrapbook purchases aside from my monthly kit!!!
- a whole month with NO purchases other then food and personal necessities!
- having a beautiful dinner party for our friends and also cleaning up after it, the same night!!!
- a closer relationship with our baby through talking to him/her, and sharing kicks and movements with Randy.
- getting our taxes done
- talking more to my sister Mary
- called my friend Melissa and got caught up on their life
- took time for myself and read a few books
- stuck more money in savings and are feeling good about the amount we have saved for when baby comes
- we made a plan for how things will play out as far as moving, Randy's work, where to live etc

February flew by so quickly, I can't believe it's gone. As I'm sure everyone knows in March we will be moving to GP and I'll be going on maternity leave. So this month we are working on socking away as much money into savings as possible and curbing our spending because who knows how long it will take to get my ROE to file for EI benefits. So I'm hoping to scrap a bit more, keep life simple, and just get through the time that Randy and I will be apart quickly.

My word! Achieve, there is so much for me to strive for! I'm getting there too!

Scrapping Sunday!!!

Guess what I'm doing today? Scrapbooking! Woo-hoo! So here are a couple of LO's that I completed today. My 'Word' Layout has been sitting on my scrapping desk since the first of January waiting for me to finish it. I finally got the urge to do it today and Voila! It's complete! The other layout is for our Mexico trip album, we spent almost two months there so I have a boatload of pictures to scrap. I Love my scrapping kit (as I mentioned the other day) and the papers and some of the embellishments came from the last two months of kits. So here you go, my scrapping success so far!

~Brrr Cold WInter Update!~

This has been the coldest week I have been through in years! This has been how it has been here for the last 5 days every morning, this is a view from our Patio. The temps have been hovering in the -40C mark, we thankfully only had one day with wind and it was ridiculously cold that day, somewhere around -60C! We did have this beautiful ice fog that covered the town every day making driving nearly impossible. In the second picture there is actually a truck, with its headlights on the road right in front of our house, you can hardly see it!

We are having a much needed relaxing weekend around here. We watched movies all day yesterday at home, then went for dinner and a movie last night. We saw the new National Treasure Movie (I know, it's been released everywhere else forever but we just got it here!) it was really good! Our dinner sucked though, we went for Chinese to a new place that just opened up and it was awful! Randy didn't even eat his combo plate, just ate the appetizers. I had War Wonton Soup for supper and it was okay but we won't be returning there, the service was terrible and it was so cold in there I had to wear my coat the whole meal!

So today we are having another fun day. Randy is playing his game now and going to make some French Toast and coffee for us for lunch. Then this afternoon he is going over to Brents for one last time to watch the Super Bowl. They all leave tomorrow. As for me, I'm blogging and playing online and this afternoon I'm headed into my new scrapping room to play! I FINALLY got my scrapping stuff moved over here!!! There are a couple of things still there that I need to pick up but I have the essential items here. So once it's unpacked and set up how I like it again I'm hoping to finish my 'Word' layout that I have been working on for my word for this year of Achieve. I'm using my Feb scrapbook kit that I get from Sweet Pea Scraps and so far it is turning into one of my favorite LO's ever!!! So once I finish it I will post it on here.

Since this is now the first weekend on Feb it is time to do and update on how we are doing in terms of our goals for 2008.

Short Term Goals

1. Have a Healthy Pregnancy: So far so good. I am at the 25th week and so far no problems with my blood pressure at all. I've been monitoring it at home and it has been staying really constant. Suprising given all the stress I've been under! I've been having TERRIBLE heartburn that is keeping me up all night. Last night was the worst night as I woke myself up coughing up acid that I had aspirated. Not good. So I'm going to re-evaluate my diet and make some necessary changes to help prevent the acid, more so then I already have! Baby is kicking up a storm and letting us know she/he is there, I'm enjoying it so much right now and am just getting the hang of talking to the baby throughout the day and it feeling natural. Randy still hasn't been able to feel the baby kick despite his patient waiting with his hand on my tummy! They are getting stronger so I don't think it will be long. All in all, things are going well and I'm starting to definitely show now as you can see!!!

2. Enjoy our Hobbies: Well so far Randy has been enjoying his more then I have because my scrapping stuff hasn't been here. But I've been active at the library and have read more this month then I have in years!!! I just wish that my requested books would be turned in so I can read them! I'm still unsure how I want to go about doing my recipe collection book so I haven't even started yet...It will be a HUGE undertaking as I have recipes written down everywhere!!! We have called to get cable connected so that we have another thing to do. It is only costing us $20 more to have it because they bundle it with our internet and we get some savings. I just hope they come soon because we aren't here for that much longer and it's almost pointless!

Long Term Goals

1. Pay off $30,000 in debt this year: Well this will not likely be happening given that we are going to be moving from here at the end of March and will be paying rent and housing costs again. We are concerned about having the ability to go out and do things in GP, like eat out, go to movies, shop, etc. We just don't have that option here. But we have started on some good habits that we are committed to keeping and I think we will experience a minor bump in the road when we first get there because we will be able to do alot of things but I think we will right ourselves back onto our path. We have been very good since the beginning of the year and have put most of our money towards debt and have lived pretty frugally. We have not made a single credit card purchase that was not pre-paid with cash for the last two months. That is something that we can be proud of!!!

2. Save $14,000 this year: Again, may not happen to this degree. But we have got a nice emergency fund set up that makes life less stressful and we are adding to it monthly. We are still doing our tax savings though because we know that it is inevitable that Randy will have a tax bill next year. Also, we have enough stashed in our baby savings to make all the initial purchases that we will need for baby! I love that!!!

As for our other goals, they are not something that we are working on yet as they are far away and require some thing to be done first before we can go at them. But they are still goals and we are doing small things to move forward on them.

So upon review of January I really feel that I am giving my all to my word of the year 'Achieve' as we have achieved success on our path to goals! How are YOU doing with your goals for this year???

~Achieve ~

On the message board that I chat on daily the ladies have posted a challenge to develop one word that encapsulates what you want for 2008. After spending a lot of time thinking about what would be appropriate for me given all the changes and goals we have in store for 2008 I decided on 'Achieve' I LOVE this word. It's positive and a huge component of one of my all time favorite quotes/mottos:


"Dream It, Believe It, and Achieve It"

We've laid out the groundwork for our goals for 2008, we believe we can achieve them, now the work for this year is achieving them!

What is your word for 2008? Leave me a comment if you have one! I'm interested to hear what everyone else has in their plans!