This year I will...

via Pinterest

Or I guess the title of this post should say, "This year I will attempt to", since I'm not too big into hating on myself for not keeping up resolutions. You do what you can, and life continues. Either way, here are the things I'll try and work on.

1. Be sure to turn out all the lights when going from room to room. Why is this so hard? Am I a 3rd grader?
2. Call my out of town friends more often, a duty at which I admittedly suck. Sorry, friends.
3. Bake more to share with others. You're welcome co-workers and those who work with my husband.
4. Try different food preparations regularly. I tend to roast or saute everything.
5. Take more home videos. I do video production for my day job, time to do it for my family.
6. Before taking on one new thing, remove myself from something in which I already participate.
7. Read more. For fun and not for work.
8. Judge others less. I'm happily imperfect and we're all in this together anyways.
9. Go out to the movies more often. I have seen roughly a dozen movies in a theater in the last ten years. Eight of them were Harry Potter.
10. Start with what I have before looking to acquire more. This applies to a few different areas.

So, there it is. Ten things I'm going to try and work on. Anything on your end?

My Resolution

I might be a few days late, but I think I've finally come up with my New Year's resolution for 2011. As I look around our house and think about all the projects I'd like to do and spaces I'd like to spruce up I can't help but also see dollar signs.Which falls under one of the most popular resolutions I've heard--spending less. Mine isn't to necessarily spend less, it's to start at home (hopefully, the former follows).

As I get the mid-winter jitters to re-organize and re-design every room I'm trying to think about how I can use what I already have. And honestly, we have more than we need. One of the first things I did to ease some nervous creative energy was rearrange our bedroom. Turns out it not only made more sense for our room, it made me feel less bored with the things we already had.

Over the weekend I worked on a couple more projects to change things up using stuff from around our house. The first project was to give my mantle some TLC. After Christmas it just looked so bare! Instead of rushing out to Home Goods for some new accessories (which is what I usually do), I grabbed some vintage books from our bookshelf, and added a pop of color to the "B & E" letters we used at our wedding.

The letters actually originated from our engagement party decor back in 2008, then we used them in the wedding and now they are on our mantle with a fresh coat of paint from the craft room. Voila!

 {the original use of B&E as engagement party decor}

{then two years later on our escort card table}

 {now at home on our mantle}

I worked on a couple other things over the weekend to create new looks for the house with items I already had so-stay tuned!