looking back and looking forward

It is a new year here for us. We have been here for one year (actually 14 months!). It saddens me and excites me at the same time. I am sad to realize how quickly time does pass in seminary. I am excited that we are no longer new here. We know people. We know places. We are almost kind of settled. It's a new school year and we kind of know what we are doing. It is still summer, so I am not done with my "summer to do list," but looking at it, all I can do is laugh. We had someone else pick blueberries for us. (Does that count or just make us the saddest couple ever?) I went through one of those phases where I felt like I deserved a gold star just getting out of bed (anyone else have those or am I just crazy?) and on top of that I had an upper respitory infection for a month. Andy worked every Saturday so we didn't do random fun things like go to the farmer's market. We still are not moved. I don't think we saved any money this summer (and we're both pretty extreme savers). But we've had fun and went to Disney with Andy's family (the happiest place on earth and I got to feel like a six year old for a week!) and enjoyed beautiful weather and ate some amazing food and found a lot of things we needed for free or pretty close to free. For this last part of summer I want to look forward and focus on big picture things. I want to:

1. be creative and complete this self-portrait challenge
2. read. we are here to learn and lately that is all I want to do. i have a growing spreadsheet of over 100 books I want to read. i think if I focused I could read 1 (or more if they're small!) book a week.
3. be a friend

So, friends, happy new year! May the rest of your summer days be like a warm hug, as they have been to us.