Happy new year!

I bet there are about a million people that have officially started blogging this morning, and they probably have the same title. We all want to start a fresh page and it's OCD enlightening to do it on the first day of the first month of the new year. This year, I am not making any resolutions. I break them. Easily. Instead I was perusing on Facebook and came across the oneword365.com and chose to do that instead. We chose a word as a family. So, for my household, our word is "improvement". It's broad but it fits what we want to achieve this year. We do want improvements. We want to fix ourselves financially, as individuals, as a new family. Today I already started the improvements that I really have been holding off.
I re-did some caulking in the bathroom as well as painted the trim along one wall and the front door frame. Granted, I did all this after the baby went to sleep so I don't want to do too much indoor painting that will end up hot boxing the entire house. Maybe tomorrow I'll do another door frame and another set of trim. I haven't decided which way to go but I'm thinking I'll do the walls with less stuff in the way first and then just use a weekend to move things around. If my husband is going to be traveling less, it means I will be able to have a bit more help on the crazy-hair-up-my-ass ideas I get when he's not here and I'm being an insomniac.
I also painted two jars that we saved from sauce or whatever else they were in their past lives. They are now pretty jars that will hold two things. One of them is the 52 challenge, and the other is our compliment jar. Last year sometime we started writing little notes of what we love or loved at that moment about the other. We then put it in the jar and when we felt low or really we were supposed to check the at the end of the year, we would see all the nice things written. We didn't so many but it was enough to give each other the fuzzies. I hope to use the compliment jar as a way to improve my attitude and esteem. I want my husband to know when I appreciate him but I have to learn to be better at my words. I shouldn't rely on just writing them down. The 52 challenge is saving X amount of dollars for the week you are in. Since it's week one, the jar should end up with a dollar from each of us by Friday night, and then two each next Friday, etc...I'm hoping it starts a really nice nest egg for us. We will see! The point is to stay focused and excited about it!