2011!

2010 was a rough year for the Sadlers. Needless to say, we're both glad it's 2011. It's a new year, which brings - of course - the resolutions for the year to come. Now I'm not going to kid anyone. I'm not a resolution keeper (ah, 12 days of cooking anyone? although, i did cook most of the recipes, I just haven't blogged about them yet - that will come though!). I know saying "oh, I'm going to blog EVERY DAY!!" is just misleading. That's not going to happen. But I do have a few things I'd like to improve on this year. And, what's even awesome? I've already started on one!

our white Christmas - we got 12 inches of snow!

- be more organized! This is the one I've started. I've started by winding up all my skeins of yarn, taking pictures and uploading them to my Ravelry stash page. This is still in the works, but I've done a good chunk of my yarn. This will help me to remember what all I have, which will help me with my next goal, which is....

- stash busting! 2011 will be the year of knitting with yarn from my stash. The only time I plan on buying yarn is if I need more for a project that I'm working on, or am ordering for a specific project that I am going to start as soon as the yarn arrives.

- continue to experiment with new recipes. I've really enjoyed my 12 days of cooking, even though I haven't done that great of a job documenting it.

- spend more time exploring the beauty of Asheville. Id' like to try and go hiking once a week, but seeing as how right now it's winter and it likes to snow here, I'm just going to say that we're going to do a better job of getting out and spending time outdoors.

- take more pictures! I got a new camera for Christmas, and I'm SO excited to put it to good use.

There are other things I'm sure I'd like to try to improve on, but these are at the top of my list!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year - cheers to a happy and healthy 2011!!

sunset at The Grove Park Inn

life's a little more simple here

Well, we're back in Athens and getting settled in. I'm mentally preparing myself to start back up to work on Monday (yuck - where has this summer gone??!), and Jake's hopped back on the job search train. Our trip was amazing - I'd never been to Vermont, so it was really fun to explore. Vermont is so different - hardly any big box stores (we only saw one wal-mart), lots of local restaurants as opposed to chain and fast food, and in almost every restaurant we ate, we found fresh, local ingredients. A bumper sticker we saw summed it up quite nicely: "Vermont - life's a little more simple here".

And the scenery....well, let's just say I could easily move there next week. It's just beautiful.

We enjoyed a week of relaxing, hiking and exploring the state. We took a day trip down to see the Green Mountain Spinnery - it was so cool!

We stopped by a wildflower farm - it was just amazing! So quiet, peaceful and beautiful.

We took a gondela ride up to the top of the mountain so that we could hike down and enjoy the beautiful scenery surrounding us - it was truly breathtaking.

And we took a day trip to Burlington, which is now my favorite town.

You can see the rest of my pictures on my flickr page!

As far as my knitting is going, I have a fun and exciting project that's going to be revealed in the next few days, so make sure to check back! I have lots of other things I'm working on that aren't ready to be talked about here yet, so there's plenty more to come!