Beta No More

Well Google finally forced me to switch from the old Blogger to the new Blogger. I do admit that so far the new Blogger seems nicer and easier to use, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything switches without any problems!

New Year, New Goals

I never make New Year’s Resolutions, but I don’t think it hurts to reflect on the past year and make a few new goals for the new year.
Health:
	2006 –	I did succeed in eating out less and cooking more low-fat meals from the Healthy Families Cookbook.
	2007 –	I want to exercise on a more consistent basis.
Communication:
	2006 –	I was successful at maintaining this blog!
	2007 –	Who doesn’t love to get real mail (not bills or junk), so I plan on trying to be a little old-fashioned by sending letters and cards to all family and friends via the US Postal Service.
Financial:
	2006 –	I have been slowly saving for 4 years to pay off my student loan when I finished school so I wouldn’t accrue any interest, and I was able to write a check for the complete amount when the first payment was due!
	2007 –	The unfortunate side of paying off all debt is that my savings account isn’t quite where I want it to be, so I plan to save as I have in the past to allow myself a nice full savings account again. Plus I want to roughly follow the 60% Solution where I will be starting a Roth IRA as my current retirement savings.
House:
	2006 –	The living room was completely re-done.
	2007 –	My personal goal for the house is to paint the dining room and kitchen as well as find nice, inexpensive furniture for the living and dining rooms.
Check back with me in 2008!

Ice Skating Anyone?

With all of this freezing weather, our pool has frozen over with 3-inch thick ice! I'm disappointed I forgot my ice skates when I was home for Christmas, it would have been great to practice my figure eights on my own private rink.

It's Freezing!

The last three nights the low temperature here in Paso Robles has been in the teens (17, 12, and 14 degrees) and it is expected to be 16 degrees tonight, which makes for a chilly house even before you don't have a heater! We are surviving with space heaters in the living room and bedroom which does do a good job of keeping everything warm, but our electric bill is going to be scary. It is all quite of change from this.

Date Night

With Ben's traveling on hold for the immediate future, we are able to enjoy traditional couple weekend activities again...so enter Date Night! We were able to meet up with friends for yummy sushi Thursday night, but last night I was thinking I wanted to see a movie. The lack of options at the theatre in town helped us quickly reach the decision of a rental and homemade snack. I quickly made a bowl of Puppy Chow when I got home and Ben picked up some movies on his way home. We settled in to a quiet night with Mission Impossible III. It definitely wasn't great (as Ben said "Tom Cruise is no Jason Bourne") but it was partially located in Shanghai so we got to re-live part of our China adventure! Nothing in the movie took place in the hotel where we stayed, but the action was in the same area so it was familiar and we could see our tower in the background. I am looking forward to Monday when we have Movie Date Night Part II with All the Kings Men.

Happy New Year!!!

I had a great time ringing in 2007 Colorado-style - on the slopes at Durango Mountain Resort with Ben, Jesse, and Meghan!Ben really perfected his skiing, but this picture represents how I spent a good portion of the time while I was learning to snowboard. I walked away from the weekend with a good number of bruises to document my learning curve! I can't wait to practice a little more so I can beat Ben in a race down the mountain!!!