Happy new year! I think there might not be a much better way to spend New Year’s Eve than with family (especially church family) and friends. We went to two parties this year, and got to spend time with a bonus friend – Evelyn!

Meet Evelyn, Bethany’s cousin; she’s vogue-ing with Bethany and me:

New Year’s is my birthday (I’m 28 this year).  I always forget because it’s so quiet after New Year’s Eve.  So I’m always surprised when I get tons of phone calls from family and friends – especially when, like this year, I’m working or busy instead of staying home like most folks.  It’s nice that my loved ones remember – even when I don’t – that this isn’t just another day.  It’s the one day in the year I don’t mind talking incessantly on the phone.  =)

There are always a million things I want to do with myself when a new year dawns – many resolutions I’ll never follow through on. (How about THAT grammar, Leah?)  This year, I decided to write out the list of things I’d like to do but will never accomplish, so you can all be as disappointed in me as I will be in myself.  =)  Here’s what I’m not going to resolve to do, but will nonetheless eagerly attempt (at least for the next few days):

• Stop biting my nails.  (FYI: I’ve been resolving on and failing this since I was 10.)
• Lose weight.  (Again, every year, I say “THIS is the year.”)
• Exercise.  (Directly related to the above, and the main reason I never acheive that goal.)
• Spend regular and significant time with my sisters.  (We’ve drifted as we’ve been far apart geographically.)
• Read my Bible every day.  (That’s EVERY day.  No sick or tired or no-time days.)
• Take more pictures, and more meaningful pictures, with my awesome camera.
• Do something with my pictures – scrapbook, post, frame and hang, etc.
• Keep my house clean – not just clean, but Lorene Woodrum clean.
• Keep a plant alive for a full year.  (I keep a dead-for-three-years poinsettia around to remind me not to attempt this.)
• Think less about myself and more about the people around me – that means being a better wife, a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend.
• Keep in touch better with people I love (to the tune of at least emailing, if not sending cards and real letters).
• Remember and acknowledge birthdays.
• Start learning to play the flute and the guitar.  (I have both – I just need to actually learn to play.)