Happy New Year!

It is hard to believe that we are already in a new calendar year, but I'm pretty thrilled. We are finally in the year that I will graduate from grad school. I cannot adequately express how happy I am to realize that in just about 4 months, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm not much for resolutions with the start of a new year, but I do like to assess where I am and where I want to be. I like to set goals, which you may argue are the same as resolutions, but I disagree. It is a good time to do some forward-thinking and plan for the upcoming months. We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to look forward to.

I spent a few hours yesterday searching for decently priced shelving for our garage and bins to store some items in. I found some good deals and after having a healthy breakfast, I turned some music on and began organizing. I took everything out of our extra bedroom closet (our main storage closet), grouped like-items together, and after a few hours, we can actually access all of our things! I love organizing...I tend to neglect it when I am overly busy or highly stressed, but a messy household can also cause stress!! Next on my list is my bedroom closet. I'm too short to reach the top shelf, but I store sweaters up there, so they usually wind up in a jumbled mess when I try to throw them up there. I also hope to organize the files on my computer within the next couple of days. I like to start a new semester on a good, organized foot!

Top: Only SOME of the mess.
Middle: We DO have a floor!
Bottom: It feels so good to be organized!!

Now is also a good time to purge our fridge of all of the delicious vegan goodies we accumulated over the holidays. We have enjoyed the treats, but now it's time to get back on track. Neither of us likes to waste food, but with how many goodies we have, they are becoming a bit of an annoyance. Ugh, we still have how many peanut butter presents and thumbprint cookies? Alright, fine, I'll have one...or two. I'm almost sick of sweets!

Just a FEW of the vegan goodies we have around the house.
Chocolate chip, pumpkin molasses, snickerdoodle.
Not pictured: cinnamon rolls, peanut butter presents,
thumbprints, cheerio bars, ribbon candy,
movie theater candy, ginger chews...OVERLOAD.

Xavier and I have been talking about our vegan adventure a lot the last couple of days. No, we don't sit around and dwell upon it day in and day out :) We have had a lot of people asking how long we're doing this and when we plan to quit. Aside from having a tummy ache from too many sweets, we feel so much better mentally and physically by eliminating animal products from our diet. At this time in our lives, we are happy with being vegan and we do not plan to set an end-date. That kind of thinking reminds me of a smoker setting a quit date, and what we are doing isn't harming anyone. But we do appreciate that people care enough to ask us how things are going :)

That's all for now! I have a couple other posts to publish and some more cleaning to do.

Take care, friends!
Xoxo.