For the last week, I've been back on the East Coast with family. 

It's been a year since I've been home to Virginia, and longer since I've seen grandparents and other relatives. 

In that time, I've lost an uncle and a grandfather. 

In that time, I've moved across the country, changed jobs, bought a house, raised chickens, survived a Montana winter, installed flooring, started growing my own food, kayaked, explored, made new friends and became interested in farming. 

In that time, things at home have changed. There have been deaths, weddings, births, job changes, renovations, move, engagements, development and road construction. 

During the first few days of this visit, I was thinking how different everything was and feeling a bit like the outsider.

Then I realized how much I had changed. 

Returning to the place I call home, the place I went to school, learned to drive, had my first real jobs and internships, the place that formed the foundation of who I am today, has always been a reality check for me. It's like a baseline standard that I always look at to see how far I've come, how much I've grown, how many of my childhood dreams I've accomplished, goals I've reached. 

What I've noticed is that crowded stores, beaches, roads and towns no longer seem normal to me, they feel oppressive. There's no room to think or to breathe. 

For awhile, I loved that busy bee feeling in D.C., and I do still love the district, but on the summertime Jersey shore, in traffic on I-95 and on the busy gravel street during tourist season in Colonial Williamsburg, I found myself craving the wide open spaces and big sky of Montana. 

At my grandmothers, I kept expecting to see grandpa walk in and sit in his chair. The same chair he sat in for all of my childhood memories. But he didn't. 

Seeing photos of him and my uncle around the house had me struggling to keep my tears at bay. 

I'd always known he liked cows and had some farm experience, but I never really took the time to take it in until this last week. 

My other grandfather also had an agricultural background and likes to hear stories about our chickens. 

I can't help but wonder if I was meant to live this life all along and spent those in between years trying all the things that led me here. 

Coming home was different this time. Most of my hometown friends have moved away. Most are married and most have or are having kids. I'm off in the great white tundra, knocking down walls, chasing chickens and trying to figure out how to manage some acreage. 

I worry about the bunnies taking up residence under our porch and eating my plants. I worry about owls and coyotes and badgers getting to the chickens. I worry about Grover finding a snake and having his curiosity get him into trouble. I worry about snow drifts on the way to work and garden flattening wind. 

It's been a week of family, fun and largely ignoring work emails. Of unplugging and kicking my feet up. Of running on the boardwalk at the Jersey shore, going wild at the outlet mall, catching up with old friends.

But it's also been a week of emotions. Of feeling a bit like a stranger in my home land. 

I will always love this place. It's a place that shaped and molded me. It's a place that holds so many memories and is full of people I love and learned from. 

But it will never be as it was when I was here making those memories. That place has changed. And while I can always come home, it will likely feel a bit more foreign to me each time. 

As I was worrying about feeling like the outsider, a beautiful thing happened. 

I went to church Sunday morning. At the church I grew up in. The church where I was confirmed and sang in the choir every week from 8th grade until I moved away for jobs. Whenever I come home, I try to go to mass and jump in with my old choir. 

This morning, I walked in and there is really no other place where people look so surprised and happy to see me. I love that look of surprise and so I rarely give them a head's up that I'll be back.

The year since I'd been back was probably the longest I've gone without setting foot in that church since I was 14. 

It was a place where I knew everyone and everyone knew me, as the redheaded choir girl if they didn't know me personally. I did church retreats, taught Sunday school and was involved in all kinds of activities. 

Growing up, it was just fun and something I liked to do. 

It's a church on a military base, so the people change regularly, but some have stayed the same. 

And this morning, when one by one those same people walked in and welcomed me home so warmly I realized that in all those years, I'd done more than have fun and practice faith. 

I'd created, and become part of, community. 

This place that I call home may have changed, and so have I, but pieces of my heart will always be firmly planted in these places, with these people. And I will forever be grateful to come home.

Do you carry home with you wherever you go? How do you create a sense of home if you've moved away?

It’s highly unlikely that anyone would ever call me a mushy-gushy, lovey dovey romantic. 

Fancy chocolates and expensive flowers are not my thing. I’d rather grow my own flowers, or buy some at the farmers market to brighten up the house. 

Valentine’s Day is really not my thing. 

A single day is not enough for all the love in the world. There truly is a lot of love to go around and I just wish we all spent a little more time sharing that love, myself included. 

Even though it’s not even a top 5 holiday in my book, love deserves a mention. And since it’s been a year and one month since I moved to Montana to live with M, just over two years since we started dating again and it's Grover's 4th birthday, I suppose now is as good a time as any. 

 14 Things I Love

+ This verse. My aunt read it during my uncle’s wedding and I can’t say I truly understood all of it until Grover came into my life and then even deeper still when M reappeared in my life.

+ M. I am not especially patient, or always kind. Neither is he. But somehow we’ve formed a team that can handle house buying, garden planning, chicken raising, job changing, adventure seeking, renovating and more. A friend once wrote about marriage and advised to “never go to be angry.” I won’t say I’m always successful with that, but I never walk out the door or go to sleep without saying “I love you.” He often brings out the best in me, challenges me and at the end of every day, says "I love you."

+ Grover. It might sound silly but I honestly think this dog showed me my capacity to love. He infuriates me some times, but I feel like part of me is missing when I'm away from him for very long. I become nothing less than a sloppy mess of tears when he's hurt or when he decides it's a good idea to run away for awhile. He's my running buddy, my guard dog, my best bud and the sweetest bundle of love that I get to come home to every night.

+ Family. The people you fight with and can't wait to get away from when you're a kid and as soon as you move away, you can't wait to get back. We're spread all over the country, mostly thanks to military life, but we're never really far apart.

+ Friends. The very best people. There for you at your worst and will celebrate your best. A girl's true treasures are her friends. Little bits of my heart are with friends all over the globe. They help you become you are. 

+ Travel. My view on life and the world is hugely influenced by my time spent abroad. It gives you a chance to explore other cultures, places and ways of life. It also lets you lose yourself and find yourself. You become stronger, smarter, bolder and yet more aware of yourself and you learn to get by come what may. Travel changes you, usually for the better.

+ Work. Finding a pursuit worthy of your passions and skills is no small feat and greater still when you can give back through your work. As a journalist, I get to meet amazing people, learn how government works, connect people and resources, welcome home heroes and learn something about everything. Plus, I get to have inside jokes with governors and generals and have a chat with an astronaut played by Tom Hanks in the movie. Journalism isn't a job, it's a way of life and I love it.

+ These songs. A small compilation of some of my favorites on going big and loving deeply. Plus, some of them get me dancing like a lunatic around the house.

+ Skating. There's something about gliding across ice at full speed, jumping, spinning and feeling incredibly free. The sport has changed during my years off the ice, but the feeling of lacing on the skates and stepping onto the ice is the same.

+ Blogging friends. It's amazing how the internet can bring some lovely people into your life. They inspire, motivate, encourage and make you think. They give you awesome playlists, recipes, organization tricks and just make the world feel like a nice place. A few of my favorites: Alicia, Eileen, Erika, Kate, Jamie, Melyssa, Megan, Sarah, Emily, Rachel, Jessica, Christina, Julie and Stacey. In just a month, I'll be #shufflin through an 8K with Alicia and Eileen and I am stoked. 

+ Peppermint. Without fail, peppermint anything (okay, almost anything) lifts my spirits and science says peppermint is a genuine mood booster.

+ Montana. This place is gorgeous. I will forever love my mighty, mighty Commonwealth (aka Virginia) but Montana, you really are something.

+ Our house. It's a work in progress, but most days I love the house that we are turning into a home. 

+ Books. I have too many really, but a good book goes a long way to improving my writing, my day and sometimes my world view. I finally made it into the local library and I love it.

Who/what do you love? Do you do anything special for Valentine's Day?

The new year rang in full of promise and potential. Then January dropped like a ton of bricks. 

January wasn't bad necessarily, but it was heavy. 

The first month of the year has long been my least favorite month. Maybe because it's cold and dreary, though in Montana, skies stay blue more days than not. Maybe it's coming down from the holiday high or realizing just how much you have to accomplish in the coming year. 

This January solidified its place in my month rankings.

Fresh off the holidays, lots of bad news started coming out of the Air Force base I report on. It hasn't stopped. 

What makes it harder, is my beat has been thrust into the national spotlight and I'm legitimately competing with the Pentagon press corps. It's a pace I'm used to after living in D.C., but it's still a bizarre feeling to have the national attention turn to the place you write about every day.

+ The whole situation has reminded me how hard work matters, how knowing the subject you write about and treating those people with respect all the time pays huge dividends when things go sideways. 

Winter itself is constant struggle for me. I finally ordered snow boots and have somewhat adjusted to the cold, but driving through the snow and sheets of ice that covered our roads the last week sends me into high stress mode. I've walked into the house actually sharing from the stress and fear that I'm going to slide off the road into a ditch or frozen river and lose my wits. As much as I want to go home at the end of what have been long and exhausting work days, I get to the car and dread the 15 or so miles of road.

+ Be patient with yourself. I am not, by any means, an awesome winter driver, but I've improved over the last year. M tells me not to worry, it's all fine, but I have come to a place where I can recognize my fear, accept it and determine whether it's the kind of fear to power through or the kind of fear to take seriously and make M pick me up (something I have not yet had to do, but I'm not above it). I have always been the girl to mind over matter my way through things, even when it might have been a tad reckless, in retrospect, but winter in Montana is teaching me that nature always wins. Just accept it.

And there was loss. My uncle and a dear friend. That's life I suppose and though I cried more than I care to admit these last few weeks, those kinds of losses always remind you just how precious life is and to cherish those you love. 

Though January is still my least favorite month and was so heavy, there were great moments too. 

Projects are in motion, I was asked out of the blue to do a freelance assignment for my favorite travel magazine, chickens are coming soon, seed starting and garden prep is underway and the closet purge has begun in earnest. I started running again and working out focused on strengthening my skating legs and prepping for a jog through Chi-town with Alicia and Eileen.

+ Even when life is heavy, keep going. Excellence is a habit that can be cultivated during the good times and the mediocre times to get you through the hard times. This month was hard for me, but in all honestly, I have a great life and was dealt a card no harder than a stranger I might pass on the street. Accept the bad things, allow yourself a good cry and steer yourself back toward all the good things in life. 

Knowing that January is never my favorite helps me get through since I already know it always gets better. The month was blow after blow, but I'm still here and it's February now. When all else fails, laugh whenever possible and just breathe. 

I always love hearing from you and though I'm behind on responding to comments, your kind words, encouragement and support these past few weeks meant more than I can say. 

Do you suffer the winter blues? How do you beat them?

Good morning and Happy Monday lovely readers! 

After a productive weekend and lots of love from family and friends, I'm feeling a bit more ready to take on this week. 

As sad as the last week was, it came with many valuable reminders. Cherish the time with loved ones and the memories created. Make time for friends and family. Always say "I love you." Make time for life, it goes so much faster than we think.

We spent the weekend laying the ground work for some projects. We measured parts of the backyard since he's planning to build a raised wooden walkway from the back porch to the shop so we won't have to trudge through snow and muddy messes like we did on Saturday. 

We made our first chicken related purchases too, though we have more to do on that front.

I spent most of Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and our Rocky Mountain veggie gardening book. We've got a long list now of seeds to pick up to get some of the veggies started indoors, like the onions, tomatoes and peppers. We're going to make a planting calendar so that this year we do better with planting things at the right time and hopefully have healthy plants and more veggies to eat. 

We spent Sunday afternoon for drinks and snacks at a friends house. There was plenty of work we could have been doing at the house, but after last week, it was pretty nice to enjoy a snowy day with friends and laughter. 

And with that, I present Five Things. This is how I start the week, thinking of five things from the last week that made me smile, or what I'm looking forward to in the coming week.

1. Grover thought it would be cool to run off and run across the 70 mph road in front of the house. Thankfully, no cars were out around that time while we found him and got him back in the house. Crazy dog. 

2. Came across an old study abroad friend through Twitter. Small world, eh?

3. Made it out for another run while M grocery shopped. Then carried five 40-pound bags of wood pellets downstairs to the basement. My arms still hurt.

4. Getting the garden plan going. I'm stoked to get things started indoors this week and hopefully pick up some fruit plants soon. 

5. My new coffee grinder. The grinder at the grocery store was broken again and my favorite Montana Coffee Traders blend only comes in whole beans so it was a predicament. M, being the problem solver that he is, went home and researched grinders and had one ordered by days end. Now I have even fresher coffee every morning.

What are you looking forward to this week? How do you keep enjoying life as time feels like it's speeding up?

This week was five days up before the sunrise and many of them working well past sunset. 

It started with sadness and has ended with more sadness. A dear friend from a previous job was in a terrible car accident last week and she fought for her life for awhile, but heard the news this morning that she didn't pull through. So early in the year and so much loss. 

Throughout the week, I felt unmotivated, uninspired and had trouble focusing. Major national news is still happening on my military beat and the city kept me busy. As much as I wanted to curl up and cuddle with Grover to hide from the world and cry, I couldn't. 

I won't say I was at my best this week, but despite all the sadness, heartache and frustrations, the job got done. Some things haven't been tackled yet, but I am still moving forward. And I'm glad for #inspiremefriday with Eileen, Alicia, Stacey, Megan and Julie. 

When I saw this quote, I instantly recognized it as truth. 

I won't claim excellence, but I will say that what got me through this week was likely more habit. The mental conditioning of always powering through that I've imposed on myself for so many years. The getting up and doing what needs doing no matter the exhaustion or heartache or distraction. There are times when rest is required and grief must run it's course, but there is comfort in the doing. 

There's no mistaking that when I'm inspired and motivated, I perform at peak levels. I imagine that's true for most people. In those moments, I push well beyond what a normal person would reasonably expect to accomplish in a single day or week. I know that those moments don't last forever, so I work to take advantage of that extra burst of energy so that when it's not there, I've already set in motion a series of events that will require tasks even when I'm not at my best. 

For the times that feel like I'm just going through the motions, I know that it still contributes to the habit of excellent versus the singular moment of getting it right. 

2014 continues to pack a real punch for my life, but I know that life continues on and the spark will return.

While we're talking about habit, have you entered Erika's giveaway for a copy of The Power of Habit? No, you get a few entries just for following me so head on over! 

For my adult life, my parents only call when there's bad news, or they need directions in D.C. I talk to them a few times a week, but they let me call them since Mom says she doesn't know my schedule or worries that she'll be interrupting.

When my Dad left a message yesterday asking me to call back, I had a sinking feeling that something was wrong. But for some reason, I hadn't expected what my Dad told me a few hours later. 

My sweet uncle lost a long battle with cancer Saturday night.

I hadn't talked to him in too long and the last time I saw him was my sister's wedding almost two years ago. As a kid, I always thought he was so cool and loved spending time with him whenever we visited my grandparents in New York.

So today, I'm still heartbroken as it all sinks in, but my last memory of my uncle was dancing the night away with my uncle and his girlfriend. Laughing and smiling and forgetting that he was sick and celebrating love with the family that means everything to me. 

This year so far is full of so much promise and yet has already been packed with harsh realities and heartache. I'll allow myself to be sad for a bit but then focus on all the good memories and take solace that my uncle won't feel anymore pain.

Part of my wants to skip five things today, but knowing how short and precious life is, the other part of me feels foolish to let a moment pass not appreciating the good things. 

1. Moxie had a strange foot injury over the weekend and the vet had us a bit worried about a possible knee problem. Turns out, she's fine and the vet bill was less than anticipated. 

2. The weather was good for my first training run for the upcoming Shamrock Shuffle 8K in Chi-town with Alicia and Eileen. 

3. My favorite travel magazine contacted me out of the blue offering a freelance assignment. 

4. In working on a skating event idea, I reached out to a former Olympian and he wrote back within the hour to tell me he'd be happy to help. 

5. Found two 1890-1910 era Ball mason jars and a few other treasures during a winter sale at The Barn, my favorite antique/second hand shop in town. Krtistie and I came home with some great finds and also treated ourselves to new earrings and I found a great scarf on sale at another downtown shop. It had been a heavy week even before my Dad called so it was nice to have some girl time to let some of that load go. 

How do you deal with loss? What made you appreciate your life in the last week?

In just the first week, I'm loving Melyssa's Weekly Wishes series at the Nectar Collective.

Last week, my wishes were to +develop and organizational system and +pick and purchase the floor tile for the mudroom.

I am proud to say, done and done. Okay, well for organization, I bought a planner (for half off!), still working on the larger system. But, we did decide on the tile and find the kind we wanted in the longer 3-foot version at a local flooring store. They have to ship it in and even though the tile itself costs more than online, the shipping was slashed (from $200 to $65 or less) and we'll get it quicker from people we can actually talk to. 

This week, Melyssa's genius idea was to focus on what we accomplished in 2013. It was an epic year for me and as much as I worry about the things left undone, when I really thinking about it, 2013 rocked.

Here's a quick look at what went down:

+Moved to Montana to live with M. 
+Started a new job at a new newspaper. 
+Bought a house.
+Started home renovations.
+Went home to Virginia to celebrate a dear friend's wedding and spend time with friends and family.
+Ran a canyon relay with friends.
+Redesigned and relaunched this blog with a new name, logo and plan.
+Turned 30. 
+Started skating and coaching again. 
+Snowshoed, kayaked, hiked and explored our way around Montana. Among other adventures.
+Started a garden with plans for much more next year. 
+Learned to drive through a snowdrift. Sort of.
+Took over the state chapter of a professional journalism organization. 
+Got the ball rolling on a Montana bloggers group. 
+Made mega progress in simplifying and become the person I want to be.

What were your major accomplishments of 2013? Are you looking forward to keeping the momentum going into 2014?

When Emily started a linkup on what Christmas means and our holiday traditions, I couldn't think of many. Our family has always been, and still is, scattered all over the country. As kids, the adults usually picked a house and we all converged on that relative for the week. But, as we all grew up, got married, had kids, sailed around the world and moved to Montana, that has become harder to do each year.

We used to joke that it wasn't a Rowell-Jamieson if someone wasn't laid up on the couch with some sickness or a trip to the hospital, or broken down cars while watching the reenactment of Washington crossing the Delaware. Truth be told, I'm glad that one didn't stick.

But as I decorate my fake, pre-lit, store bought tree I've had since college the other day, I realized we did have a tradition. I'd finally given up my plan of wandering the snowy Montana woods and cutting our own fresh tree. Next year. 

We dug through stacks of boxes and Rubbermaid bins to find my box of ornaments and decorations.

Almost every one of them came from a friend, or family, or has a story. Most of them came from my dad's parents. Each year, they sent my sisters and I an ornament. It was something we came to expect each year, but as I decorated my tree over the weekend, I realized how special each one was. 

As I unpacked each one and found the perfect spot to hang it on the tree, it hit me how well they knew me growing up. Some ornaments were the silly dated one to mark the year, but most of them were representative of me. There's the ballet dancer, the stack of books, the mailbox, the carolers. There's also the cotton angel from a friend that reminds me of our time in Alabama.

I know the annual ornament gifts won't go on forever. But, the memories will. And that will always be the true keepsake.

Holiday gifts have always been something I put considerable thought into. In high school, I made personalized ornaments and/or cookies for all my friends. For a small group of people, I made baskets full of things and special gifts.

I prefer to give something that is useful, something the person wants, or has some special meaning in some way. Whenever I travel abroad, I bring back a handful of gifts for my close friends.

But, as life gets busy and my gift giving budget shrinks, I've turned to writing and mailing mountains of cards instead of trying to send gifts to everyone. The gift list is considerably smaller this year since we bought a house and will have to ship all gifts and it's just not financially feasible to go all out this year. 

Many of our gifts will be things we picked up throughout the year, with the intention of gifting. Like honey from Glacier County Honey, wine from Ten Spoon or other Montana wineries, coffee from Montana Coffee Traders, something huckleberry and our photo collections packaged into calendars.

If I'm not buying local for gifts, I look for those that contribute to charity or other programs I consider worthwhile. 

One of my favorites is Fresh Words Market. I love her prints and for each one sold, Rebecca gives 10 percent of its proceeds to women and children focused initiatives around the world.

Some of her prints will be coming your way shortly in the form of an awesome giveaway. Here's a preview!

In observance of Cyber Monday, here's a few more nifty gift ideas that donate to charity or give back in some way.

Gift Cards 
GlobalGiving, Benevolent and Universal Giving gift cards can be used to support lots of different projects worldwide. And some of the cards are biodegradable. 

Women for Women International lets you support agriculture, education, job skills training and more through their Gifts that Give Back as a gift to friends and family. Choose your gift and personalize a card to the recipient. 

Jewelry

Bravelets let you support all kinds of causes, groups and other programs by donating $10 of each purchase to the associated cause. 

The Brave Collection is jewelry handmade in Cambodia by artists who come from underprivileged backgrounds or suffer from disabilities. Each piece is made my hand and proceeds go to fight human trafficking, sustaining the work of fair-trade artisans and supporters join "a global community of dreamers and change-makers."

Same Sky provides jobs for women around the world who are living in poverty. Same Sky trains them as artisans and the woman can then earn 15 to 20 times the average wage in Sub Saharan Africa. Proceeds are reinvested in the program. 

WeWood makes super cool watches from scrap wood and for each one sold, plants a tree.

Environment/Animals

The National Resources Defense Council has a collection of green gifts to support animals, marine life, plant a tree and more.

The World Wildlife Fund lets you adopt animal for someone or donate to specific programs. You can opt for the gift that goes with the donation, or to put the entire donation into WWF programs. I have to admit, I really love their plush pandas and other animals. Have I ever mentioned how much I love pandas? (Seriously. I once wrote to then President Clinton instructing him to do more to save the pandas. When I was about 10. I always go big.)

This one is super cool. Pangea Organics makes all these great beauty products and their bar soaps are made with palm oil grown on Organic and Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and the carton is made from 100 percent post-consumer newspaper, so it's biodegradable, compostable or plantable. The cartons are embedded with Blue Spruce tree seeds. How cool is that?

Adorable cards and stationary from Hooray for the Underdog support all kinds of animal welfare groups and shelters nationwide. How cute are those pups?

My dear friend Ally is going to love this one. Lush has a special line of products and for each sold, 100 percent of the proceeds go to groups that support the environment, animal welfare and human rights. Soft hands and save the world? Heck yes.

Hunger

There's a bunch of iPhone cases you can buy that give back to charity. I have this one that supports World Hunger Relief. There's also ones like this, that support charity: water. 

***

And if none of that works for you, head over to Ebay Green to find all kinds of products that are made sustainably and/or give back with the proceeds.

What will you be gifting this holiday season? What are your favorite gifts? Do you have favorite gifts that give back?

On Monday, I posted about being grateful year-round, but I do love a day dedicated to giving thanks. 

This is the first Thanksgiving living together for M and I, though it's not the first spent miles and miles away from family for either one of us. 

We may be far from home and I have no interest in tackling a turkey for the fist time by myself this year, but the day is meant for gratitude.

All year long, I'm grateful for these people and things, but once a year I list them out to share. 

Family. It took until I was in my mid-20s before I truly understood how wonderful my family is and how lucky I am to have them all. My parents continue to show me what love and a successful marriage look like as they celebrated 33 years together back in September. Little sister got married last year and is building her own life now. Now that we're into farming and things like that, her and I have a lot more to talk about and I hope I'll get to see her and her husband more this year. Littlest sister is still off sailing around the world. She left Cape Town, South Africa recently and I think is on her way to Australia. I'm awfully proud of her for taking on the challenge of learning to sail and then actually going on a sailboat across multiple oceans. Her boat is currently in second place in the Clipper Race. She once told me I had no sense of adventure for not wanting to row across the Atlantic with her and I took offense, as the sister who had already been to four continents by myself! But, after seeing the photos and reading the blog posts, she's right. I'd never really want to sail across the ocean. 

I'm especially grateful that I still have all of my grandparents. One grandpa is nearing 90 and his lovely bride is turning 81 this weekend. I don't see any of them nearly enough and one my must-dos for the next year is to be better about calling them all regularly. After watching Walter: The Movie, I realized how incredibly lucky I am to have them all still in my life. They truly are gems.

M. He's not perfect, but he's perfect for me. After our first year living together, I'm looking forward to spending the next half century or more building our life together. We'll probably spend at least one of those decades renovating this house. We've also go big plans for gardening/farming, raising chickens and goats and maybe mini cattle and I have my heart set on an alpaca. He's the person I come home to every night, and always look forward to that. He's the person I'd never let walk out the door without a kiss and he never lets me leave without an 'I love you.' We're still learning each other and how to occupy the same space, but after a very busy year full of life changing events, I'd say we're doing pretty good. My family and hometown will always be a huge part of my heart, but for the rest of my life, he's the place my heart calls home.

Pups. We're dog people, it's true. I've had Grover for almost 4 years now and M's had Moxie for almost six years. We love our pups. In my case, Grover drives me absolutely bananas sometimes, but he has taught me that I'm capable of a deep, unconditional love. Yes, he's a dog, but seriously. I think our furry friends teach us that. He depends on me for his wellbeing and sometimes when I look at him, I'm amazed that he's so happy and healthy because of me. It's an incredibly wonderful feeling. Plus he's absolutely adorable. Even when he's bad. That pup is my best friend and I am insanely grateful the universe brought us together. 

Health. This year I turned 30 and M turned 35. We're not the most fit or disciplined in our diets, but we're healthy. It's one of those things you take for granted, but as you age start to cherish more and more each year. I worry about developing skin cancer, as a fair skinned redhead who's had far too many sunburns, and a weird jaw popping thing that's becoming more and more painful since apparently my jaw bones are a little too close together. I whine to my mom sometimes that I'm simply falling apart and she reminds me that I've got decades left to go and that I should be a little gentler on myself.

We're getting serious about our food choices and exercise. I've started skating again which has motivated me to get in better shape. We're both doing Insanity now and I went for a run today. In the coming year, I vow to take better care of myself and we're committed to getting in shape and eating better, together. Really, we're healthy with access to good foods, medical care and all the things we need to take care of ourselves for long lives. It's more of a gift than a given in the world.

Home. We bought a house together this year and though I'm sometimes overwhelmed by how big a deal that is and all the work we have left to do in this house, I know how important a thing home ownership is and how lucky we are to be in a place in life that we had such an opportunity.

We've come a long way since moving in full time at the end of June -- both of those walls in the photo no longer exist -- but we have a lot of work ahead of us. It seriously stressed me out sometimes, but knowing we are turning this house into our home is really quite a thrill. We're learning a lot about budgeting, design, renovation and so much more. Plus, we're building it together. 

Work. I love my job and I'm so glad to be back in a newsroom. As crazy, stressful, frustrating, infuriating as it can be some days, I wouldn't trade it. I left journalism for a time and while I'm grateful for all the lessons learned from those other jobs and experiences, I belong in a newsroom. I'm nearing a year at this newspaper and that will be a record for me in the job department since I left my last newspaper job, where I was in Alabama for three years and three months. It's also how M and I met. After I left that paper and moved back to Virginia, I had three jobs in three years and freelanced for three months. Clearly, I'm meant for newspapers. Plus, I'm so lucky to meet wonderful people and be a part of a community in a way that few jobs allow.

Friends. I have an amazing network of friends who are all incredible in their own right. I am better because of them and they will always be huge parts of my life, even when we're far apart. Hometown friends, college friends, intern friends, first job friends, Alabama friends, DC friends, Montana friends, journalism friends, skating friends. I used to be careful to keep my circles of friends separate, but now, few things in life give me more pleasure than bringing friends together for laughs, memories and plain ole good fashioned togetherness. I'm also loving my new circle of blogger friends, a network that's been growing in amazing ways this year. They are inspiring, giving, supporting and encouraging even though we've never met in real life. 

For all of these things and so much more, I am grateful. My life is full of wonderful people, animals and so many joys that I don't know how I got so lucky. There's a line I heard once in a movie, though I think it's a Bible verse, that has always stuck with me: "My cup runneth over." 

I have all I need and so much more. Because of that, on this day, and every day, I give thanks. 

To each and every one of you, Happy Thanksgiving, I hope it is spent with people most dear to you, happiness, love, gratitude and hope that this holiday season and the coming year will be even more wonderful than the years we've already been so lucky to have.