15 for 2015: Final Recap

Happy New Year's Eve! It's crazy to think that 2015 is almost over. This past year Nate and I traveled, spent a lot of time with family and friends, both transitioned to newish jobs (well, I went back to my old job, but it was a new team so I'm counting it!) and announced that our little family will be growing by one. I'd say 2015 was a great year, and I'm looking forward to the challenges and promise that 2016 brings. I didn't check off everything on my list, but overall I'm satisfied with how keeping myself accountable meant that I got some stuff accomplished that I don't think I would have otherwise. Here's how I did on my 15 for 2015 list:

1. Try 6 new recipes that aren't desserts (and post the review/recipe on here).Done! The final list is below. My favorites from the list are definitely the baked chicken parm and the creamy chicken buttermilk dumplings. The chicken parm is soooo easy to make, healthy and delish. The chicken and buttermilk dumpling recipe is definitely more involved, but was well worth the labor and the one recipe where both Nathan and I were fighting over the last leftover. 
1.  Zucchini Lasagna
2.  Baked Chicken Parm 
3. Cheeseburger Casserole,
4. Bangin' Good Shrimp,
5. Creamy Chicken Buttermilk Dumplings. 
6. Roasted Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Pizza
2. Read 5 new books. Read 10 new books. So I met my original goal of 5, but came 3 books short of 10. I think averaging a little over a book every two months was a good pace, and I definitely read more this year than I have any other so I'm still counting this a win. 
1. Bossypants by Tina Fey
2. Is Everyone Hanging Out With Me? by Mindy Kaling
3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (seriously, SO good!)
4. First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen
5. The Vacationers by Emma Staub
6. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
7. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult 
3. Try something that takes me out of my comfort zone. Done, well....almost :). I guess having a baby technically is something that's going to come in 2016, but deciding to start a family was a big step. 
1. Having a baby
2. Pushing myself skiing (hello black diamond runs!)
3. Flying 8 (yes, freaking 8) times over the 6 day trip for work to Puerto Rico, Barbados and Trinidad. 
4. Take pictures for at least 4 family functions. I was just one shy of making my goal, but a nasty cold and being exhausted meant I was in no mood to take pictures this Christmas. 
1. Family Ski Vacation - Colorado
2. Little Brother's Graduation
3. Ashton's first birthday party
5. Hang pictures of family/friends on the walls (this sounds simple, but our home has had nearly bare walls...for almost 2 years). Complete! 
   
6. Send a birthday card in the mail to 3 6 friends/family members. Met my original goal of 3, but didn't step up to do 6. 
7. Do an act of kindness. I think this is halfway done. I paid for a stranger's coffee, and Nate and I adopted a family from our local community shelter. Nathan was the one to really dive into the adopt-a-family by offering us to help, so I can't take most of the credit, but it was nice to be able to help out a family in need. 
8. Visit 3 places I've never been before. Complete!
1. Trinidad
2. Barbados
3. Puerto Rico
4. North Carolina
5. Atlanta
9. Follow a clean eating or whole 30 plan for a week (hopefully longer, but baby steps, right?) Yea, this definitely didn't happen. Could it have? Yes. This will definitely be on my list for 2016. 
10. Work back up to running a 5k again, straight through. Completed on the treadmill in July, but never got to it outside. Right now running seems downright laughable, but once baby comes I'm looking forward to getting back into it. 
11. Blog at least 24 times. Done! 
12. Clean out/organize all of the closets in our house. I'd say this was about 80% complete. Before our little guy gets here I'm planning on doing an overhaul on our basement/closets (baby stuff takes up a lot of space!) so we can donate/purge everything we don't use or need.
13. Surprise my husband in some way. Surprised N with tickets to Modest Mouse in September. 
14. Do a house project.  Complete! Painted the house and put on new shutters, and then in early November we replaced our kitchen back splash with tile in lieu of tin. 
15. Go visit a friend that lives in another state. Done! Visited our friends in Atlanta over Labor day weekend. 

-A