happy new year + january wishes.

i know im a little late here, seeing as its already the sixth and weve had the hardest time crawling out of christmas vacation mode, but i want to say it anyway:

happy new year!

hope everyone had a fantastic time celebrating, we spent the evening hanging out with friends and watching THE cutest, tiniest all girl punk band form:

and then heading home before 11 and promptly falling asleep (fun fact: james and i have never stayed up on new years eve, were no fun at all). 

now ive noticed that a lot of bloggers out there have declared their goals and resolutions and (my favorite) themes for the new year (amber of mr thomas and me really went fantasically above and beyond with hers), and as much as i REALLY want to participate, im just not able to commit to that kind of long term thinking right now. also i made that big list of goals on my birthday so maybe adding new long term goals isnt a good idea right now. 

so instead of picking a theme for the entire year, i think ill just pick a theme for each month (actually last year i made monthly resolutions and it seemed to work really well until about may when my health problems got worse), and talk about it when monthly wishes rolls around (also melyssa is absolutely brilliant for coming up with this one). 

januarys theme?

fresh. 

why? because the past couple months have been really difficult and stressful and exhausting and draining. also theres been a lot of holidays and junk food and getting sick and general being thrown off our regular routines.

as a result, just about everything in the meyers household has been feeling really dull, stale, unhappy, and like its about to fall apart any second. and i dont like it. so im going to be making a few changes around here to give 2014 fresh new start. heres what i plan on working on this month:

1. fresh foods. no more soda in the house, more fruits and veggies, as little processed/fast food as possible, and we are getting back on the meal planning/weekly shopping wagon if its the last thing i do. 

2. fresh attitude. lately ive noticed ive had a really bad attitude. i havent been a very kind, loving, or patient wife/mom/friend/sister/coworker, and that is NOT ok. this is probably going to be the hardest goal for this month, but it is so so important that i fix this.

3. fresh product in the shop. so, the whole writing knitting patterns thing turned out to be a not very productive distraction and i havent had new product in the shop in what feels like forever. i really want to spend some quality time sewing this month. 

and

4. fresh blog content. this is actually the main thing i wanted to talk about today. you know how the content here on poverty luxe has been sucking lately? looking at my stats im pretty sure you have. and so have i. im really, really sorry. 

see, what happened was, as i was learning more about blogging and wanting to grow my blog ive maybe been trying too hard to do too many "bloggy" things that really dont fit with the my original vision for poverty luxe (which was, because i think we all forgot for a while, to be a crafts and lifestyle blog to complement my etsy business with a focus on learning to live well on very little). january is going to be all about getting back to those roots. 

so what will this look like? well, ive been doing a LOT of brainstorming about 2014s blog content and heres what youre going to be seeing a lot more of: crafts, outfits, money saving tips, in-depth posts about running the shop, and just more about our life in general. 

and all those link-ups and giveaways and product reviews and general "filler" posts? no more. if i dont love it, if im not super excited to put it out here for you guys, its not going up. period. 

so far, im really excited to make major progress in these areas this month (and since its already the sixth, i kind of already have). what are you working on this month?