I feel like I have so many personal events to fill you guys in on over here (like our move!) and normally I’m a stickler for sharing things in chronological order. But this just came so out of left field, and I feel like I have to put it on here before I forget all the details!

It all started simply enough. I was scrolling through Facebook, and saw a video of puppies. It reminded me that I like looking at puppies on The Shelter Pet Project. I put in my puppy / location criteria, scrolled through a few pages, and there he was on page 4. This white puppy. I more or less imprinted on his picture, Twilight-style.

The thing was, we weren’t looking to get a dog (we wanted to travel and be in our house for a while first.) But I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I checked the website over and over again over the course of the morning. Finally, I just decided to email the guy to see if he was still available. I mean, he was the cutest puppy on this website- surely someone had scooped him up by now! That way when he said no, I could show the picture to Brian and tell him that’s what I want when where ready.

Well, it didn’t go down like that. The guy emailed me back the next day with an application telling me that he was available. Suddenly I was frantically getting in touch with Brian at work to see what he thought, and we submitted our application that night. After some back and forth, we found out on Easter morning that we were going to be puppy parents!

Emmett came from a shelter in South Carolina, and was driven north as part of this volunteer transport. He was scheduled to arrive in Alexandria Saturday evening. We met in a parking garage and it was pretty much love at first sight- as soon as he was passed to Brian he nuzzled right into his shoulder. Brian sat in the back seat with him on the way home and Emmett gave him kisses all the way. Needless to say, the bonding process didn’t take long.

It’s been so fun introducing him to our family (and to Griffin!) over the last few days. We still can’t believe we have a puppy! Craziness.

And just for fun, here’s a look at my thoughts on puppies from a few years ago. And if you want to see more pics, Instagram will be full of them soon enough!

Edit: after I posted this, the owner of Emmett’s brother shared his DNA test results with us! They believe that one parent was a yellow lab, and the other parent was half Siberian Husky, half Lhasa Apso. We totally see the first two- the third breed was definitely a surprise!

I’m taking this whole January thing pretty slow this year. The cool thing is that it seems like a lot of people in blog world have been in the same boat. But it’s January 28th, and I feel like if I’m gonna talk about goals and 2015, I better get on it.

Last year I wrote a post about a renewed focus on fitness and finances. Rereading that post made me happy because when I think about it, there was a lot of progress made over the last year in those areas. I’m in a much better place attitude-wise when it comes to fitness, and we paid of my student debt last year and (cross your fingers) are hoping to buy a house early this spring.

That actually wasn’t our intention when I wrote that post last year, and how we got there really deserves it’s own post. But either way, things are happening, we did more budgeting last year than we ever had before, and it appears to have paid off somewhat.

I liked picking two themes to focus on and sticking with those. Since these are pretty broad topics, for now I’m just going to paint them with broad strokes.

Relationships

One of the things on my Wishlist for 26 was to creatively nurture relationships. My whole life I’ve watched my mom who is a total extrovert and seems to naturally stoke many relationships over time. She has a keen inner sense of when it’s been too long since she talked with a friend or family member, and then she’ll pick up the phone or text them, or whatever.

I am seemingly not blessed with this skill. By the time I have that intuition that it’s been too long, it’s already, well, been too long. I’ve kind of been a hermit over the past few months, and I’d really like to get better by having some sort of accountability in my relationships other than the natural consequence of losing touch.

Here’s my idea: I want to come up with some kind of goal-oriented system for staying in touch with the people who are important to us. I think it starts with making a list, and then tracking how often we keep in touch. Something simple.

I’d been thinking about this for a while, but was really hesitant because I felt like doing this would be like admitting that I’m some kind of robot or social freak who can’t maintain relationships like a normal person. But while reading EntreLeadership (very slowly but surely) I read that Dave Ramsey and his wife set social goals for themselves each year, like a number of dinners that they’ll schedule with their friends. That sealed the deal for me. If this guy can write about how he does this in his book, then I can at least give it a try.

Wellness

Remember those broad strokes I talked about? I’m not really sure how to define this part. Everything about relationships that I wrote above kind of factors in here, but here are a few habits that I’m trying to instill that go under this category.

Journaling

I started journaling when I was 14 and was religious about it until I went to college. Every night, I would write. It’s something I’ve picked back up in the last month or so, and it’s been really good for me. There’s something comforting about unloading your mind onto paper before you go to sleep.

Reading

I’ve noticed that it’s harder to fall asleep when we watch TV right before bed. I’d really like to start reading before I go to sleep every night, but it’s hard. I’m reading Yes Please right now, which I’m loving, but it’s taking me longer than I’d like to get into the routine.

Waking Up

I’ve started setting my alarm for 7AM and putting it on the dresser across the room. So far, I’ve been pretty successful! I will say that I’ve learned that you can waste time at any hour, and I’ve learned how I don’t want to spend that morning time (it starts with “F” and ends in “book”) but I’m working on it. It’s a process.

Food

Ever since doing Whole30 last spring I’ve been thinking a lot about food and the impact it has on my well being. I’ve been thinking a lot about eating less sugar and crap, for lack of a better word, and decreasing meat and increasing vegetables in my diet. Notice how I said thinking and not doing. I’ve actually made a lot of progress on the vegetables in January (when you compare it to December, it’s hard not to) but I still have a ways to go to achieving the kind of balance that I’d like.

Did you set any goals this year? Or maybe you had a different way of focusing your efforts for 2015? I’d love to hear about it!