I hope your new year is off to a wonderful start. We had something fun planned for the first weekend of the year, and its a story that deserves a bit of background.
I first moved to Texas when I was 17 and a freshman at Baylor University. I’ve been here ever since – nearly 17 years later. For awhile, I was the only one in my family to live in Texas. But, two years ago over Christmas dinner, my aunt and uncle decided they wanted to move to Texas. And, my grandma decided to come with them.
So, early last year, my aunt and uncle bought some land in Brownsboro, Texas: a tiny town outside of Tyler, Texas. My grandma moved last October and built a real, life tiny house on their property. We waited a bit to visit when they first moved to give everyone a chance to get settled. Then, coronavirus arrived and turned everyone’s world upside down. I was chatting with them a few weeks ago, and I really missed seeing my side of the family this year. So, Aaron and I decided to make the trip to go see them on the first day of 2021. There was not better way to kick off a new year, then to spend it with family.
We left Houston early Friday morning, and the drive took us about three hours. Their property is rural, but gorgeous. And the tiny house is just as neat as they all look on tv. My grandma had 9 kids, so the “McNulty” side of my family is pretty big. I just love hearing her tell all of her stories from years past.
My aunt and uncle have really embraced living in such a rural area, and it was so exciting to see them thriving in their new chapter of life. They have 23 chickens, and Aaron and I had the pleasure of meeting them all.
I so enjoyed our visit, and it made me feel good to know that my grandma is settled and happy. It’s only three hours away from Houston, so I’m already plotting our next trip. There was no other way I would have wanted to spend the first day of 2021.
My grandma had been holding a cabinet for me also, so we brought that back to Houston with us, and it completes my office. I need to clear out those plastic containers in that corner, and put away that Christmas tree, but other than that, my office is complete.
Chairs: Similar ones here
Rug: Bashian “Blake” rug (I have the 5×7)
Gold overly cabinet: Dustin cabinet
Foot massager (you need one of these): This is my exact model
Painting: Deann Hebert
New Year’s Eve
Aaron and I celebrate a chilly New Year’s Eve in Downtown Houston on a rooftop. We spent the evening counting down to the New Year with some friends of ours. We made it to midnight and headed home to get to sleep. Quarantine Kira is not used to staying up so late 🙂
Saturday
This new year I’ve decided to be more intentional when it comes to friendships. To make more of a conscious effort to find ways to see our friends creatively. We still need to be safe because the ‘Rona isn’t over, but I do want to see our people more frequently than we did last year. So, we ordered in some dinner and invited two of our best friends over to see the new house and catch up. Our friends are the two on the right in the photo above.
Sunday
And we finished off the weekend by watching virtual church, and the message was on really and truly dedicating your life to God. It was a message that I really needed to hear, and Aaron and I plan to get ourselves back to attending church in person in the very near future. We also would like to join a married couples group at some point this year.
I had every intention of putting up my Christmas decor, and I made some progress in taking some of my things down. But, the weather was so great today – in the mid-60s – so Aaron and I decided to go for a walk. We ended up going 6-miles. Aaron recently purchased a stabilizing stick to take videos for his business (he is a wholesale auto dealer and takes tons of videos and photos of his cars. He bought the stick to up his video game), and he wanted to try it out on the trails.
Here is one more photo because it was so pretty out today.
Here is the stabilizing stick that Aaron bought.
And I’m finishing off my weekend by reading We Met in December.
Goals to Accomplish this Coming Week
This week I hope to get the rest of my Christmas decorations down and packed away. I also hope to close all three of my rings on my Apple Watch Monday-Friday to get a special award for January. Hope you have a wonderful start to 2021!!!
