Our word for 2014: LIVE

MAN, 2013 was a doozy. It started out pretty well. Lots of snuggling with a new baby. Matt started a new, much more demanding job. I went down to part-time at work. We decided to house hunt in March and then things got off course. We found a house, got into a bidding war, and then slowly entered the nightmare that would be the next six months of dealing with actually getting into the house. We spent weeks preparing our house to put on the market and it sold within days to lovely people. Moved in with my parents for four weeks, which turned into about four months. My sister had a baby. We finally moved. The Gala I work on came quickly after that and I was consumed with work. We raised $3.7 million. We hosted Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and then my sister's baby shower in the span of two weeks.

I'm sure I'm missing lots of things in there... A started walking. B started eating... sometimes. We decided to keep W in preschool because of his late birthday. We got new tires on our SUV and a new bed for our room. We spent time in Michigan and Wisconsin. B took a bad fall, that resulted in a concussion and stitches. W had a million cavities filled (poor thing has my teeth). B started preschool. We were gifted an awesome swing set and Matt took it apart and put it back together. My grandpa died. I started contributing to Chicago Parent.

What I'm trying to say is it was always something and we kind of just put our heads down and hunched our shoulders waiting for the next thing to fall on us. After March we didn't have any real time to just BE. We made a lot of quick decisions that resulted in major changes. Our family was in a domino effect... Things just started going and we were running from place to place, making decision after decision. Our life completely changed in 2013. Like COMPLETELY. We went through some very stressful times. A lot that I didn't share here... As I posted half of the number of times that I had in previous years.

So, in 2014... We're going to focus on the word: LIVE. We need to be in every moment, focus on the things that will just allow us to live our lives every day in the best way. It might sound silly, I'm sure. But, we're really trying to live our lives in 2014 and get out from the changes that were so consuming in 2013 when we spent a lot of time with our heads down, trying to run from one thing to the next or weighed down by the stress of our day to day lives. And piece by piece we'll bring our home renovations to light for all of you... And then you'll see what we were dealing with!

Do you have a word for 2014?