A letter to 2013

A few years back I quit making New Year's Resolutions and started writing letters to each incoming year.  They're mostly streams of consciousness: things I want to achieve, mindsets I want to embrace, places I want to travel, and a means for me to look back and reflect from time to time about progress.  It's not about accountability so much as it is a way to see growth and to derive pleasure from simple joys throughout the year.  So here we go...

2013, you will be a year in which I:

• Finish growing Mango and become a mom.  Learn what that means.  Pay attention to the experience. Savor the precious times, and allow myself to truly feel the frustrations, the challenges, and the headaches that are sure to result.  Learn.  Love.  Have so, so very much fun.  Laugh.  Laugh so very, very much and so very, very often. 
• Slow down.  Do less of the stuff that doesn't matter, and instead spend my precious minutes embracing what does. 
• Hug my family.  A lot.  All of them.  Even if they're not huggers.
• Build a coop and...
• Raise chickens!  And cook Sunday morning breakfasts with fresh eggs gathered hours before.
• Finally purchase a decent camera AND teach myself to use it.
• Join a CSA. 
• Travel to North Dakota or South Carolina, the only two remaining in my quest to visit all 50 States.  Mango will join me.  We'll take nice photos using our new camera and camera skills.  Chris can come too if he behaves.  Maybe we'll take the Vanagon to ND to celebrate our one year anniversary?  Road trip.
• Learn to drive a stick.  FINALLY.  It will happen.
• Camp with a baby.  Toss the kid in a backpack (with airholes) and hike a mountain.  Sit by a campfire to snuggle said baby for a bit before putting the peanut to bed and pausing for a minute to reflect with Christopher about where this magical world has taken us.   
• Convince the parents to travel with us.  Somewhere, anywhere.  But get away for at least a weekend, at least three generations in tow (we get bonus points if Mimi's in the loop and adds a fourth generation for us)
• Bake bread.  Real bread with yeast and kneading and deliciously crusty crust. 
• Live it up.  More often than not.  And never regret a second.

So there you have it, a letter to 2013.  If the only thing I accomplish in the coming year is the first bullet point (and the third! and maybe the last too), the year will be considered a success.  That said, I have a feeling we can knock a few more items off the list if we put our minds to it. 

On that note, here's to making it happen, one step at a time.