This time of year always gets me thinking about the future…
December is already such a chipper time of year, with all the decorations and pretty lights. But I’ve found that for me, I walk around feeling like there’s magic in the air because a bright and shiny new year is just around the corner. It’s like the hope of a new day, made bigger by the thought that 365 of them are on their way!
So, what are my goals for 2014? Well, here is my list!
14 Things for 2014:
1. Blog more. I really love to do it, and I really have been missing it. I blog every week for Sugarplum Paperie, but I feel like I never say anything that’s very interesting. It’s all shop news. I want to talk about other things, too!
2. Dive in to my One Little Word: PEACE. I want to start a new art journal just for this year’s OLW. Thankfully I have some moleskin notebooks laying around the house! I don’t remember if I ever did chose a word for 2013, but I know that I did in 2012. If there was a word for last year, it was ENOUGH… as in “I am enough; I don’t have to put on a show for anyone.” This year I want to really dig in to the word PEACE and let it transform me.
3. Find my own painting style. I want to make time at least once a week to just paint and play around in my art journal until I know what my own art journaling voice is. Sure, I can copy things that I like that I see. But I feel like I don’t know what my own style is yet. It’s still evolving.
4. Count a thousand gifts. I’ve been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and I own the accompanying devotional book, but I haven’t cracked it open yet. It’s something I want to chew on and go through slowly, so I’d like to purposefully do that this year.
5. Knit more! I want to make Travis another pair of socks (after I finish my own!). Also would like to make something small for the girls, like a shrug or little sweater.
6. Craft playthings for the kids. lately on Pinterest, I’ve been seeing a ton of adorable handmade toys for children! For Christmas, Katie and I sewed cookie ornaments for the tree that were made out of felt. It was super easy and a lot of fun. The next day during Penny’s nap time, she sewed a new mattress for Penny’s dollhouse—all by herself! Since then, I’ve been pinning and daydreaming about all sorts of things that I could create for the kids to play with made out of felt or yarn (because, you know, I need another hobby!). I’m even knitting a little rug for Penny’s dollhouse out of leftover sock yarn right now. (Here’s are my two new boards on Pinterest if you want to be killed by cuteness: Embroidery, Felt & Stitches and Dolls & Gnomes.)
7. Project Life 2014! It’s time once again to begin planning for next year’s book! This is my third year doing Project Life. In 2012, I did paper (and tried to blog all about it here). In 2013, I went hybrid (and tried to blog all about it here). I’m still working on my pages for both albums. I’m a little nervous about the new year that is quickly approaching. Eep! It certainly is a “project.” But it’s one that I really, really love.
8. Own a matching set of dinnerware. This has only been bothering me for about 11 1/2 years now! We never did receive all our dishes for our wedding. So, after the reception, I bought a set of blue and white dinner and salad plates. Amazingly, 6 of the original 8 have survived! Two years ago, I got all geared up to fix this problem and I bought a set of 4 & 4 again, but this time in a light tan. When I went back to buy more a week later, they were gone forever… Enough is enough! I am finding a set that I love this year and I am ordering 12 plates for our 12th anniversary so I can be done being upset about this forever. It’s about time!
9. Eat whole foods. Speaking of eating off plates… I know what I need to do. I just need to do it!
10. Lose 30 pounds. And, if I do stick to eating nothing but whole foods, I don’t see this being a problem. I’m tired of the girl in my head not matching the girl in the mirror at all! And it’s not about age… it’s about those pounds of “baby fat” that I can’t seem to get rid of (because I like chocolate covered things waaaaaaay too much).
11. Celebrate the Seasons. For the first time in about 12 years, I went shopping at Pier 1 for ornaments. Although, I just might have come home with a little more than that… I’ve always had fun pulling out my Christmas decorations, but this year I’m thinking it would be so much fun to celebrate each season a little more with a few decorative crafts and a fake flower or two around the house!
12. Stop the yelling. All day long, I hear my youngest son (who will be three in two weeks now) yell and scream at his siblings. All. Day. Long. He yells when they are eating at the table. He yells during playtime. He yells almost as his default way of talking! He feels like no one is ever listening to him and so he raises the volume in order to make sure that he is heard. Sadly, I think I’ve adopted the same bad habit when I talk to my kids. It is a challenge and a half to try to manage four small people in a room all at once. When I’m trying to talk one-on-one with someone, there are two other people who just have to tell me something right now. Or maybe I’ve just walked in to a situation and some of them are starting to wander away while I’m still talking. So, it’s easy to get frustrated. But I realize that I’ve reverted to the tactics of a two year old. Awesome. Going back to my OLW for the new year, peace in this home begins with me.
13. Organize, organize, organize. I want to make more time for cleaning and decluttering. Actually, I’ve been doing okay with the cleaning part. The kitchen floor was recently mopped. Laundry was folded and put away just yesterday. But I have limited closet space (and no garage, either), so there are a number of things hiding in the closets that have to go. Most of these things are baby items we won’t need again, which means I need to make phone calls and schedule pick-ups or drop-offs. You can see why I’ve been putting this off! I just need to do it, and the sooner the better. January sounds nice.
14. Try my own 7 Experiment. I’ve been leading a book study on 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess and we have one last meeting in January. I want to pick one of the months from the book and purposefully implement it in my life. I’m not sure which one is most on my heart. I’m really open to anything. But I do know that it’s something I really want to do in the new year.
How about you? Would you like to make your own list? Well, I created a little printable that I hope you will find helpful!
I’ve saved this file as a .pdf that you can simply open and print at home! There are two copies of this list on one page. That way, you can make one quick and messy list and one nice and neat one. Or have one copy and home and another at work. (By the way, I used papers from my December Joys : Collection on the preview here.)
I hope you enjoy using this list to make your own resolutions for the new year. And if you want to blog along with me, be sure to come back and let me know!
Here’s to a wonderful 2014!
