looking ahead

I love a fresh start, a new calendar with blank pages, a do-over. That's how I always feel at the beginning of a new year.

For us, 2012 was another good year. Since the beginning of our relationship (2008), we have been transient and constantly expecting/planning/executing/finishing a move. We lived in four different places in four years. FOUR. And for someone that likes to be home, have a routine, needs order - ME - that was a lot of change and constant never-quite-settledness. A-ha! But now we can finally take a deep breath and know we're not moving for a long time.

The purchase of our house was definitely the highlight of our year. Since moving in, we've focused on getting unpacked and really making it our home. 2013 is the Year of the Yard. We have some major projects that need to be tackled: pave the driveway, have the remaining dying/dead trees professionally removed, till the yard and start fresh. The tilling of the yard is probably the most unwieldy project on our list but it desperately needs to be done. The entire yard has layers and layers of roots and vines under the surface and there's no way we'd be able to remove them by hand successfully - or in a timely fashion. Given the state of the yard when we moved in, and how happy our neighbors have been over the teeny tiny work we've done so far, we figure we've got a while before they start to get antsy about the lack of real progress, but I don't want to press our luck. We're one of the first houses you pass as you enter the neighborhood and we really do want to make a good impression. All the projects must wait a little longer, however, because the weather here in Alexandria is wonky at best.