Just Say Julie

1. Serve vegetables nightly with dinner when we cook at home 2. Bake from scratch and actually try some new recipes 3. Blog at least once a month 4. Read at least one book a month 5. Get Jackson ready to start Kindergarten in August 6. Attend Bobbye's Graduation in May 7. Learn to make gumbo like my mom does 8. Finish my community placement in May 9. Buy new living room furniture 10. Finish decorating the house before August 11. Clean out the garage by the end of February 12. Lose 20 pounds (and more if possible) 13. Get Jackson involved in some sort of activity, either more sports or something else he will enjoy 14. Take a vacation that doesn't include visiting family 15. See Alabama play in the Cowboys Classic in September 16. Work on a budget and stick to it 17. Celebrate Jackson's 5th birthday in July 18. Volunteer at VBS 19. Spend a long weekend in Houston with my brother 20. Spend a weekend with Chris's family in Wicitia Falls 21

1. Buy a house. - Done. Contract signed in January. House completed in August. We have been loving it ever since. 2. Finish my JLA Provisional year in May. - Done. I was so happy to end that year. It was a lot of hard work. Rewarding but hard. 3. Start my community placement in the fall. - Done. Although I haven't been very happy with my placement so far. I have a lot of work ahead of me between now and May. 4. Get Jackson involved in some sort of activity. - Done. Two Seasons of T-Ball with Chris coaching one of them 5. Get the boys back into swim lessons. - Done. Although Jackson still isn't too comfortable in the water. Sean was able to take lessons during his summer camp at the Y. Two birds. One stone. 6. Take a vacation. - Disney for Thanksgiving! Done. So much fun. I'm ready to go back. 7. Celebrate our 5th anniversary in June. - Done. We spent the weekend at Sea World in San Antonio although we spent our actual anniversary at the emergency vet sinc

1. What did you do in 2015 that you'd never done before? Had a house built. 2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn't really do resolutions but I did do much better on my to do list than I thought I did. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My coworker, Sarah, and my Sister-in-Law, Jenny 4. Did anyone close to you die? My Aunt Carol 5. What countries did you visit? None and this answer probably won't change anytime soon. 6. What would you like to have in 2016 that you didn't have in 2015? More free time. More money. 7. What dates from 2015 will be etched upon your memory, and why? February 13th and August 5th 8. What was your biggest achievement of this year? Getting our finances in order so we could buy a house 9. What was your biggest failure? My weight as usual. Allowing our credit cards to build back up after we closed on the house. 10. Did you suffer illn

One year ago this morning, I woke up to a text that said, "I'm OK. It's not me." A couple of years earlier after a local officer was shot and I couldn't reach Chris, he agreed to text me if there were any incidents over night to let me know he was OK.  I didn't know what had happened when I woke up on September 18th last year but I knew it wasn't good if I was getting that text. I immediately started scanning Twitter for any news of what might be going on. And then I found it: a car had been swept away in the flood waters overnight and the driver was missing. Based on the location of the incident, I knew his shift had been involved in the search. I just wasn't sure how they were being effected by this. I finally got Chris on the phone about an hour later and what I heard wasn't good. He couldn't tell me what was going on but he was upset. All I was able to get out of him was someone he knew was not OK. The news finally broke on my way to work

Carol was my mom's only sister, younger by two years, and as different from my mom as she could possibly be.  The two drove each other crazy but they would do anything for each other. I was named after her and planned to use my middle name for a little girl if I ever had one.  We lost Carol early Friday morning.  When I was home last April, we knew something was wrong. We were visiting the college my mom, Carol, and I all attended and she was just out of sorts. By June, we had an answer: ALS. This was devastating news to hear especially since my family had dealt with Alzheimer's in my grandmother for nearly 20 years until she died in 2008. We had no idea how long she would survive or what obstacles we would face. My mom and my uncle stepped to start caring for Carol. They were by her side when she passed.  My aunt spent most of her career as a school teacher.  She also graduated from seminary and worked as a children's pastor for several years. She was married for a short p

On his way out the door tonight, Chris apologized for having to work all weekend since that meant we couldn't do anything special for Valentine's Day. I'll admit I'm actually a little bummed about it this year. I'm not really sure why since we aren't normally ones to do anything big for Valentine's Day. I think Chris has had to work every Valentine's Day since we got together so we usually recognize the day but celebrate later. Besides I always hate how hard it is to go to a nice dinner that night because you either need a reservation or have to wait two hours. Our fancy Valentine's dinner is always the Heart Baker pizza from Papa Murphy's (I'm a sucker for a heart shaped pizza). So I don't understand my melancholy this year. I guess the holiday being on Saturday and knowing we could have taken the boys to the Y for Kids' Night makes me sad that we can't actually do anything. Instead we have a play date with a daycare friend and h