New Year's 2014

We are now in the second week of the New Year, so I hope everyone is still going strong with those resolutions. We had a really low key celebration at home. We decided to just eat a lot of the traditional Japanese foods and hang out inside. It was snowing and cold...story of our lives recently....and Ten only had one day off, so we just relaxed. 

Here are some of the pics of what we devoured over the holiday.

New Year's Eve Dinner: mikan, tomato and cucumber salad, fried ham cutlets (trying to get rid of Christmas leftovers), and soba (cold because easier for Mia).

On New Year's Day we had osechi, and you know what...it is not nearly as bad as what Ten said it was. Seriously 90% of it was quite enjoyable.

Ozoni that I made that morning. Mochi, naruto, carrots, spinach, and chicken in a nice broth. This is easily our favorite part of New Year food.

Yum.

Mia unwrapping the osechi.

Lots of really good food...and some that wasn't so good. Mia especially loved the fish eggs. She called them "snacks."

In other news, I've decided that this year I wouldn't be making any specific resolutions. Don't get me wrong. I have a big list of things that I would like to get done by the end of the year, but they aren't necessarily resolutions. They are things like finish Mia's baby book and register our second baby at the Japanese embassy. Things like that.

I have, however, decided to pick a theme word for my year. This seems like a pretty popular thing to do, and I like the idea that you can choose a word that you can use to improve all aspects of your year. 

Anyway, so I was thinking hard and kicking words around like "happiness," "focus," and "self-discipline." However, none of them felt right. They weren't what I exactly wanted to achieve this year. Then while I was up way too late last night, I finally came up with my word.

It is "simplicity." I love the simple life, and I think that that is something that we have gotten away from here. We are gaining clutter, we were eating quite unhealthy, and spending a little bit too much. I mean if I look at Mia's toys alone, she has toys that are basically the same thing but just different versions. If I look in my closet, we have DVDs that we don't watch. We own 5 cutting boards. All of these are symptoms of a life that needs to be simplified.

So, that is what I want to focus on this year. I hope to report back in a few days with the first part of my project to simplify things.

Anyway, Happy New Year!