The merry year is born
Like a bright berry from a naked thorn
– Hartley Coleridge

I’m very excited to see what 2011 brings for us. We have plenty of house and yard projects to keep us busy; I am working on some other personal and physical goals and I’m just ready for another year of adventures, achievements and blessing. Last night Aaron and I were saying that it seems like we have had many difficult and some awful experiences, but we are in such a better place as individuals and a couple than last year. We’re anticipating another year of wonderful growth … hopefully it will come from good things and not just challenges! TS Eliot says “to make an end is to make a beginning” and that is exactly how I feel about entering this year.

The big thing to start this year is our plan to avoid spending any unnecessary money for the next 3 months to see how much we can save. The best way I can think of doing this is to eat ourselves out of house and home: eating the food from our freezer cupboards before buying anything else from the store. I’ve been stocking up during sales and Aaron has had great hunting successes, so this might take a while. We’re planning to remodel our kitchen starting at the end of January, so we need to keep saving pennies for that, and it will be easier to handle the heavy construction without random canned goods and cereals all around. Even if they were on a HUGE sale last year.  It seems so very elementary (save on your grocery bills by using what you already have at home) but I am excited about this challenge. Obviously we’ll need produce, dairy products and some lunchmeat, but I am excited to see how long it will take to get through it all – and how low the grocery bills will go.

So here we are! The morning started off with bacon (from our freezer) and eggs (fridge) and now we’re enjoying coffee by the fire. An idyllic New Years day… if only we could guarantee the rest of the year would be as relaxing and rejuvenating! I’ll write about how I’m doing on the more specific goals later. Also, just in case you were wondering, I feel that I am under no compulsion to remove my Christmas decor until Fat Tuesday. FYI. We are very much into the baby Jesus here at the Hummel house.