Hi friends,
I hope you had a wonderful New Year’s Eve and are excited about 2014! My 2013 was definitely one for the books! Here’s a rundown of the high points:
1. I married my best friend. What a ride 7 months of marriage has been! All the love, laughter, nagging, bickering, laundry-ing, and dog-walking has been such a humbling gift from God. We had a blast two-stepping into 2014 as Mr. and Mrs.!
2. I accepted an ambiguous invitation to go on an adventure and joined Jon Acuff’s Start Experiment. This Facebook group (and those formed after it) changed my life. It’s hard to imagine my life the friends I’ve made from it! They give encouragement, support, truth, love, and allow me to pour the same back into them. They even sent me to not one, but TWO amazing conferences this year: START Conference and Love Does Austin. I can’t wait to see what this year brings to the groups!
3. I paid off my personal debt. I actually surprised myself by listing this as #3. It was my #1 goal for about 3 years. After lots of sacrifices I finally paid off $20,000 in personal debt 3 months before getting married. Doing so gave me grace and lifted an amazing amount of stress off my shoulders during the final planning months of our wedding. What a wonderfully timed accomplishment!
4. I lost my job. I wasn’t 100% happy with my position so I knew it was coming. The people where I previously worked are wonderful and the president gave me a great letter of recommendation. My final conversation with him was spent laughing and accepting any help he offered. This is on my list because I’m very grateful for everything I learned while I was there and I’m very excited about what God has next for me!
5. I signed up for and completed my first graphic design class! I learned InDesign and Illustrator and used my skills to design our Christmas cards for cheap. I’ve always wanted to learn the creative side of the industry and this was a great start! Once I have a new job, I’ll sign up for the next one. I also made a friend from the class and am having lunch with her next week!
6. We successfully removed cancer from our dog, Dawn. It was discovered after I lost my job, but, thanks to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, we remained calm, shopped around for the best price and had that little pesky tumor removed!! It was scary because she’s been my little girl for 6 1/2 years, but having an emergency fund helped me work through the emotions (expect the unexpected!). She recovered fine and was very excited to be free from the cone of shame!
Those are my highlights for the year! What are yours? What are you looking forward to the most in 2014?
shades of may 
Sounds like you had an amazing, crazy year! Isn’t it awesome to sit back and look at what God has done? I need to do that right now I think. It keeps our focus on how awesome He is and how He truly does work all things together for our good!
Enjoying reading your blog! =) Hope you’re having a great 2014!
Oh! Did you guys reach your debt-free by Christmas goal? We are in the process of trying to get on the same page and make a goal like that. It’s so hard! Thanks for the inspiration!
Hi Tiffany! Wow, what a nice surprise to see your sweet comments on my blog!! I had no idea anyone was still listening! :) We did become debt free , but not by Christmas, and your comments have inspired me to write a post about that! I’ve been on hiatus ever since I got my new job, but you’ve inspired me to start writing again! Thank you!! :)
Sorry I didn’t find this till now! Yaaaaaay to being debt-free! Do you mean CC/school debt free or total – as in no car or house payments? Either way, so exciting! I can’t wait to be there myself (with my hubby lol)! What is your new job? Yay for inspiring you to write again! I’m just starting out with my blog, and I know it can be discouraging when it feels like you’re writing for no one! Lol but whether they see it when you write it, or are encouraged and inspired months or years down the road – it’s worth it! :) Thanks for sharing tidbits of your life with us! ;-)
We are 100% debt-free! We live in a small apartment, so no mortgage. We are student loan, medical bills, credit card and car loan free! :) Thanks for the encouragement! What is your blog URL?
Talk about freedom!! Lol, that’s amazing. Good for you! :-) Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you want to buy a house? And my blog is: wholesomehousewife.com :-) Thanks for asking! Hope you have a great day. It’s finally in the 70’s here! Perfection I say! Lol
Hey Tiffany! As for a house, our plan is to put 100% down! How about you guys? :)