thoughts about 2013.

2013 was the year i started a nanny job i loved (for a sweet 3.5 month old boy whose birth i attended as birth photographer).

it was also the year i said goodbye to that job. it was a pretty sad day when i rocked him to sleep and laid him down for one of his mid-day naps for my last time. :\

2013 was the year i planned an outdoor wedding, with some special people, to a pretty amazing guy.

2013 was the year i got married. (only 7 months ago.) :)

2013 was the year my hair had grown out almost to my shoulders for our wedding, and i got it cut pixie-short again just a few days after the wedding...2013 was also the year i started growing my hair out (again) in august...and it's going to be for good this time. for a while. i know i love short hair, even two times in a row, and i might go back to it someday (like...when i'm a mom? i don't know.) but i'm so ready to have messy buns and ponytails and braids and length to play with a little. :P i miss it so.

2013 was the year we drove to kentucky to buy a second vehicle with great gas mileage--a cute little car off craigslist (from a really nice, considerate guy), a geo metro in great shape and made the same year i was born.
(hah. hah. hah.)

"I learned some hard lessons about friendships and that some need to be let go, and some you need to fight to the death for."
via michmash: 2013

2013 was the year i moved 6 hours away from my family, and joined my husband to make our home here in southern illinois.

2013 was the year i started running. also, the same year that it got so cold (and icy, and snowy, and hey, i've been sick off and on so heck no to the question "don't you want to persevere and go running anyways?" ...hahah. heck no. i can't wait till the spring though. no promises to myself or anyone else that i'll get back to it on any and every above-freezing day...)

2013 was a super hard, super good year. filled with so much goodness, so much hard stuff, things to grow through and learn from, and quite a bit of bittersweet.

2013 was the year my old blog fell quiet and i started a new one. this one. :) 

december 31, 2013, i got to stand next to my husband and watch the ball drop in new york, along with most of justin's family and a couple friends. we kissed as the first part of north america stepped into the first moment of the new year. (i really like that tradition. a lot. after being "long distance" through the beginning of our friendship, dating, and engagement, i cherish getting to be by his side even moreso.)

i'm looking forward to this new year ahead of us.

time to start writing 2014 at the beginning of my journal entries...