My Hopes and Dreams for 2014...

It is a new year and a new beginning to this crazy thing we call life.  I am on Chapter 25 this year of my book and I am planning on making it the best one yet.

I have a few hopes and dreams for this chapter and I feel as though writing them down will help me accomplish them.  I don't feel as though they are unattainable - but will require some extra work on my part.

1.  Buy a house and make it a HOME.

The hubs and I are tired of renting.  We pay more in rent than we would on a mortgage.  It has never been the right time for us to purchase until now.  We have never been entirely certain where we would be with the economy.  Talk of going Active Duty is always on the back burner as a last resort.  I would go wherever he leads me, but at this time we are secure and happy with where we are.  With that we want to establish a solid ground.  This starts with a HOME.  We currently live in a house and although I have done my best to make it a home it is missing something.  That something where you know that it is all yours and it won't change anytime in the near future.  Our lease is up in April on our current residence and we are hoping to be in our very first HOME by then.  I am so excited to start this journey and see where it takes us.  We have a lot of things that we want in our house and I think that will be the biggest challenge.  The other will be finding a house that our loan will approve.  We will be taking advantage of Ryan's VA loan that he is eligible for after serving our beautiful country.  Let the house hunting begin! :)

2.  Become parents

Ryan and I got married in 2012 right before he was going to deploy.  We decided that it was the best decision to wait until after he got back to start a family.  As badly as we both wanted to start right away we didn't want me to be pregnant and alone for 9 months.  Now that he is back we had our big wedding and honeymoon to the Bahamas.  We have been having a blast these past 6 months of him being home but we are now ready for the littles.  Ryan was meant to be a daddy and, of course, I believe that I was meant to be a mommy.  We strategically want our first little not to be born in the winter.  As much as I love winter and snuggling on the couch with the pup pups and fuzzy socks we both have winter birthdays and they suck!  Ryan's birthday is 22 days before Christmas and mine is 7 days after.  We do not want our littles to experience that at all like we have.  So here is to hoping that we plan it out just right to have littles in the Spring, Summer or Fall :)

3.  Save, Save, Save

So some of you may know that I am a bit of a cheap-o frugal gal.  I refuse to pay full price for any items of clothing and I fully support coupons and secret codes for discounts.  I hate transferring money out of savings and into checking and completely get disgusted when we don't transfer from checking into savings.  While Ryan was deployed I handled the finances - I still do - and got all of our credit paid off.  I built up a beautiful savings account and was so excited for our future.  Well with life being how it is, we have not been able to save as much since he came home as I would have liked.  Now we are in no definition of the word poor or hard off.  We live a very comfortable life and I am completely happy with that, I just would like a little more buffer in case something happens.  So my plan for this year is to save at least $400 per month! :)

4.  Be a better...

I love my husband, family and friends so much.  I don't think anyone has ever doubted that I am all in when it comes to my relationships.  I know that I have high expectations of people and that sometimes when they don't meet those "expectations" I get annoyed and turned off from them.  I am going to try this year, this chapter, to be a better person in every aspect.  I want to be a better wife to Ryan.  I want to go on more dates and be more spontaneous in our marriage.  I want to be a better daughter, sister, niece and aunt.  I want my family to know that I am 100% in.  No questions or concerns.  I am all there.  I want to be a better friend.  Friendships don't come easy to me - and why I don't really know.  I am the girl who has friends for a while and then they slowly - or quickly at times - disappear.  I want to work on the friendships that I currently have and build them to be strong and sturdy.  Just like the solid ground that I want in our home, I also want that in my life.  So here is to being better! :)

5.  Learn to cook

My poor husband...  I am in no way, shape or form a cook.  I am a baker.  Always have been and probably always will be.  But this year, I want to change that for him and me.  I want to learn how to cook good food.  Now this doesn't mean that for the past 4.5 years that Ryan has been starving.  I make a mean frozen pizza and fish sticks.  I can make pasta and tacos just like everybody else.  But I want to make more fancy food.  Food that takes planning and preparation.  I want to dive into a cookbook and get excited.  I have slowly started learning recipes from my mom and make those for him and he loves them.  I just want to do more home cooking for him and make him excited for our dinners at home. :)  So here is to cookbooks entering our house and making me a cook!

6.  Be healthier

I want this year to be the year that everything changes.  I am now 25 ::mid-twenties crises?::  and am tired of being unhappy with my body and things on the outside as they appear.  This year the hubs and I will go on more walks, exercise more and eat more veggies!  Now we are not some big lazy bums that eat fast food everyday at all.  I, actually, can't tell you the last time that I ate fast food.  But we do not eat as many veggies and fruit as we should.  That is the goal for this year.  Get in the best shape ever and be happy about it.  I have cut out all caffeine and alcohol -GASP- and continue to keep it this way.  This hope and dream will go hand in hand with number 5 and my want to learn to cook.  So here is to the healthiest Hughes family! :)

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I don't think that any of these hopes and dreams are completely out of reach.  In fact, I think that they are each going to come ::hopefully:: easy to us.  I can't wait to see how this chapter turns out and hope that you stick around with me as well :)

Here's to you and your new chapter as well!

XO