February Goals

Life Goals:

• Start Marvel paintings. I have some fun plans for doing paintings of each of the Avengers. I have a date I’d like them to be done by; hopefully I can make it!

• Document February in my Smashbook. I got a Smashbook from my best friend for Christmas, and I’ve decided to use it to document each month, and any special trips/events that happen throughout the year! You’ll see January’s pages soon!

• Order plant/seed catalogs & plan my garden. I know it’s only February, and spring doesn’t really show up in NH until late April, but I’d like to put some time into planning my garden ahead of time this year, especially my flower beds.

Blog Goals:

• Send out three more emails to artists. I’ve gotten great responses so far to my artist interview requests (two more up this month!) and I want to keep the emails going so I can stay on schedule with those posts.

• Stick to my blog schedule. January ended up being a total crapshoot for all things blog. Being sick kicked it off, and then even once I was healthy I wasn’t keeping to the schedule I had planned for posts. I definitely want to remedy that this month, especially since I’ve got some posts I’m quite excited about!

• Finalize the switch to self-hosted! This is the biggest thing I want to talk about. I have it almost finished, layout wise, then I just need to install a few plugins and it’s good to go. However, my subscription to WordPress Custom Design runs out in TWO DAYS. Since I am so close to the final switch, I’ll be opting not to resign up for that, which means things around here may look a little funky if that expires and I’m not done with the new stuff yet. I’m hoping nothing major will be affected, but if things seem a bit wonky, rest assured they’ll be fixed soon and I can show off my new shiny layout!

Hope you have a great month!

January Goals Wrap Up

January was a pretty 50/50 month. The first half was spent ridiculously sick, and that sucked. But the second half was amazing! Filled with friends, laughter, and all around fun stuff. And despite ‘losing’ half the month to sick time, I still did pretty well with my goals!

Life Goals:

• Put together and order our 2014 Family Yearbook. SUCCESS! It’s in the mail on it’s way to me right now!

• Begin filling in the journal/scrapbooks I got for Christmas. SUCCESS! I’ve been keeping up on the daily question prompt book, and my January Smashbook pages are just about complete! You’ll be seeing the Smashbook pages on the blog; I just haven’t decided if they’ll get their own post, or if I’ll include them for a WIP Wednesday.

• Utilize the IGGPPC website more. FAIL. I follow the blog, but that’s it! In fact, I didn’t even sign up for a penpal this round. I actually don’t even feel too bad about it – at the moment, there are just other things I want to focus on instead.

• Pick a piece of piano music and start learning it. FAIL. This failed goal makes me so sad. I don’t even have an excuse; I just DIDN’T do it. I’ve played maybe twice this month. Ugh. But (staying positive!) I have 11 more months to improve on this goal!

• Relax! SUCCESS! Seriously, I’ve done a TON of relaxing. I’m slightly ashamed at the amount of Netflix I’ve watched this month. But truth be told, it felt great. And I’m still keeping up with other projects, so no regrets!

Blog Goals:

• Join Bookworms In Dresses new link up – Fictional Fridays! SUCCESS! I did two this month (Characters I Love to Hate and Manga) and I can’t wait to do more in February! Now to think of topics – any suggestions?

• Email a few artists about interviews here on the blog. SUCCESS! I even posted my first interview, featuring the beautiful artwork of Rob Ebben. I have February’s all scheduled out already, and I can’t wait to send more emails to get more set up!

• Make a decision about my new blog design. SUCCESS(ish) Obviously, you can see I have a new layout. I’m actually not 100% in love with it, but it’s the gist of what I’m looking for. At the moment, I am currently in the middle of getting my site set up as self-hosted, so the final layout will be up soon! I’m aiming towards the end of February to have the whole transfer complete.

• Promote more. SUCCESS! I’ve been promoting posts on Instagram, and I finally got my Pinterest boards cleaned out and went back to pin some of my posts. It’s definitely something I want to continue doing! As for buying ad space, I opted to save my pennies for now.

 Bring it on February!

Goals for January

I know, another goals post. But hey, it’s January, and my brain is crammed full of ideas for the new year. I covered the long term ones already, so now let’s focus on the short term.

Life Goals:

• Put together and order our 2014 Family Yearbook. Every year since my daughter was born, I put together a yearbook of our family – crammed full of photos, with the occasional story to go with. I take an insane amount of pictures, and this is a great way to document our years together, and so much fun to go back and look through. I do all of this digitally, simply for ease. I find it much more efficient for me. Normally I use Shutterfly, but now that I have Adobe Lightroom, I may try Blurb as it is integrated directly with Lightroom.

• Begin filling in the books pictured below. I received these as gifts for Christmas and am SO EXCITED to start them! I’ve always wanted to try out a Smashbook, but never really wanted to pay for one myself to test it out. Perfect gift! And the Draw Your World book is filled with the most fun little prompts for sketching – something I desperately need to work on doing more of! The Q&A book was something I snagged for myself, just for fun! Each day it gives you a little prompt, and space to fill in an answer with the year next to it. Then, below it, are spaces for four more answers for four different years. So this is a five year journal, in that I’ll answer the same questions each year and see how my answers change from year to year. I love that!

• Utilize the IGGPPC website more. I joined in August or September of 2014, and signed up for a penpal, but that was it. Granted, my penpal never responded past one email, but there is still so many fun things to do on the site! I’d like to participate a bit more, most especially in the form of their 30 Day Photo Challenges. I love photo challenges, even though I completely suck at keeping up with them.

• Pick a piece of piano music and start learning it. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I know what piece I’m going to pick, but I may switch it. Playing piano again is a massive 2015 goal for me, and I intend to get started right away. I’m aiming for an absolute minimum of 15 minutes a day. I know that sounds like such a small bit, but it’s enough to get me into a habit, and then I can up it further in the year.

• Relax! For the first time since what feels like October, I have ZERO plans for projects. I get to do WHATEVER I WANT!! Which means I plan on catching up on my Netflix shows, and focusing on some art that is just for me!

Blog Goals:

• Join Bookworms In Dresses new link up – Fictional Fridays! For a couple months I’ve been doing 5 Fandom Fridays, and I’m getting a bit burnt. I was looking for a change and one just happened to fall into my lap, and from one of my favorite bloggers no less! I’m not committing to every Friday (at least not ’til I get in the groove of it), but I want to do at least two this month, especially since January has five Fridays.

• Email a few artists about interviews here on the blog. I have the drafts ready, and the interview questions prepped if they agree. I need to just send the emails. The worst people can say is no, and that’s not the end of the world. And (unless I blog about it) no one will no except me. So there, self, just hit the send button!!

• Make a decision about my new blog design. By which I mean figure out if I’m designing it myself, or hiring someone. Trust me, just because I”m artsy does NOT mean I have design skills. I don’t. And I know it. OR, if I do decide to do it myself, nail down a design, at least in Photoshop form.

• Promote more. I want to work on promoting my posts more. I feel I am truly comfortable in my blog skin now, and I’d like to start sharing my work around! This will mean more work, with designing images to pin and post on IG, but I feel it’s worth it. Also, if I can work it into our budget, I’d like to buy some space on other blogs to advertise. This would be a double whammy of promoting and supporting the awesome bloggers I love!

Onward to 2015!

While I thoroughly enjoyed the holidays, I am actually really excited for them to be over! It’s such a hectic time, and it is a blast while it’s happening, but at the end of it I am so ready to get back to our regular life schedule. I always feel like it takes me a week or so to fully recover from the craziness that is the Christmas season  and it is really nice to have an entirely fresh new year beckoning, ready to be filled with ideas and plans!

That being said, I actually don’t have too many massive plans for 2015. When I was sitting down making my list, I was scribbling down all these ideas and thoughts and had the realization that I needed to take a step back. I don’t want to start my new year off overburdening myself with ideas, as I know it will lead me to get disheartened. So I’m taking a simpler approach. I focused on major goals, that I can make sure I get done for the year! I will still also be making monthly goals, which is where the little things will come into play.

Life Goals for 2015:

• Get my anxiety under control. I’ve touched on this a bit here on my blog, but lately I’ve been having a serious battle with anxiety, and in way more cases than I’d like – it’s winning. I’m ready to write about it, and there will be a post on it in January, but this is pretty much my top goal of 2015. Find a way to deal with my anxiety so I can start feeling like myself again.
• Start reading and buying zines. This was a goal I made for 2014 and failed utterly at. I didn’t buy or read a single one! Luckily, I follow the ever awesome blog of Sonya Cheney, and not only does she write zines she has some amazing resources for them too. In fact, stay tuned for a post from me about one in January – I backed my first zine thanks to a post she had!
• Pay off our credit card balance. It’s not actually that big, but we’ve kind of been dragging it out and the interest is killer. We need to just suck it up, and start paying it off in big chunks to get it done.
• Keep the 1AM Promise for the entire year. I’m pretty sure I did this for 2014, but I’m not entirely sure as (for some reason) I didn’t write down my purchases each month! So in 2015 I’ll actually keep a record so I’m accountable each month. The best part is, this will tie right into zine buying!
• Give my art a direction. I put a huge focus on my art in 2014, and it was amazing. It felt wonderful, it’s a big confidence booster, and I am so glad I chose to dedicate the majority of my free time to art. But in 2015, I’d like to give it a bit more focus in terms of what I’m doing with it. I’d like to open an online shop, push commissions a bit more, and really promote my art more in general.
• Begin playing piano again. It is a point of personal shame that I haven’t really touched my piano in close to two years. That NEEDS to change. Even if it’s just for ten minutes a day, I need to be making time for it. Music is so incredibly therapeutic, and I need piano playing back in my life.
• Read 35 books. This is just my new minimum. I had a goal of 30 books for this year, and I killed it – reading a total of 49 books (though that includes graphic novels). I actually just looked it up and that’s WAY more than I thought I read so yay!! Anywho, 35 will be my minimum for next year.

Blog Goals for 2015:

• Move my blog over to being self-hosted. I’ll still use the WordPress features, but being self-hosted gives me way more customization options. I’m actually not too thrilled with what I’m paying for using WP Custom Design.
• Redesign my blog. Nothing major, I’m just ready for a change again. I do like my little header images, so those will probably stick around (in some form), but overall I’d ready for a bit of a new layout. The question is, do I attempt to do it all myself knowing I suck at design, or do I save some money and pay someone who has a clue what they’re doing to do it for me?
• Start artist interviews on my blog! This is something I’ve had planned for ages, and then finally decided to hold off until the new year before I started them. But throughout the year (I’m thinking twice a month?) I’d love to be interviewing artists for my blog.
• Promote a bit more. Whether it’s via button swaps or social media, I need to be a bit more active about sharing my blog work, and ideally garner a few more readers. 2014 was a really big year for me and my blog – I finally feel really comfortable writing posts, and publishing content. I’ve got some awesome readers, and I follow some amazing blogs that have led me to fantastic internet groups and friends! I really hope to continue that trend in 2015!

I hope you have a wonderful (and safe!) New Years! As for us, we’ll be ringing it in at a friends house with some board games, in true geek style. See you all in 2015!

December Goals

December is such a crazy month for me. Readers who have been kicking around for awhile know this, but for those who haven’t been following long here’s why. My husband’s birthday, daughter’s birthday, and Christmas are all a week apart from each other. It’s madness. Literally every weekend in December is filled with a party of some sort. Which is so hectic, but so amazing. My house has a constant flux of friends and family, and that is truly a wonderful thing! I’ve got all the planning done, so this month is full of hang on and enjoy the ride moments!

Life Goals:

• Finish all handmade Christmas presents. I’m down to six, and I’m really not sure I’ll have time for all of them. Which isn’t the end of the world, but I’m going to do my best!
• Keep up with 30 Days of Lists. So far I’m doing great….but we’re only four days in so really that’s not something I’m too proud of yet! XD
• Survive! Ha, just kidding. But really, I’m setting no other goals this month so I can focus on celebrating and enjoying the busy times!

Blog Goals:

• Keep up with my Christmas On A Budget posts. This shouldn’t be too hard as they are all planned and drafted on paper, but I still want to make sure I don’t let it slip through the cracks.
• Push my Holiday Card Exchange! I’d love to get some more people on board to share in some snail mail holiday cheer! I know there are a few bloggers I’d like to send cards to who don’t follow my blog and I need to contact them about that.

Oh, also, I managed to get my Winter/Holiday Header up by December 1st! WOO! This season is one of my absolute favorites. It’s incredibly busy, but so full of joy and love. My header images reflect some of my favorite things about the season!

From left to right:
1. Projects! Between mailing Christmas cards, art gift projects, #30Lists, and my end of year photo projects I am never wanting for something to work on!
2. I tried out a hand lettering image this time, and I like it! I see so many family and friends this month, and I truly relish it. I am a pretty lucky gal to have so many amazing people in my life.
3. My little family. As busy as this month is, I love the days it’s just the three of us out and about playing in the snow. And yes, my little miss ADORES eating snow. It is her favorite part of winter.
4. CHRISTMAS!! I just love Christmas. We put the tree up December 1st, and I love spending each night with the lights on. And yes, I am absolutely one of those crazies who puts the ‘fire’ on their TV as I don’t have a fireplace! Fake ambiance counts right? Right.

What are your December goals?

November Goals Wrap Up

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving! I myself still have one more tomorrow, and then it’s time to get decorating for Christmas. I can’t WAIT!

Today is supposed to be 5 Fandom Friday, but the subject was Black Friday Purchases I Would Sacrifice Sleep For and honestly? There aren’t any. I am really disenchanted with Black Friday and what it’s turned into, so while there are some really great deals out there, it just isn’t worth it to me. I’ll stick with Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, thanks!

Anywho, I set the bar pretty low for myself in November. I’ve (still) been dealing with lots of anxiety lately, and so I am really glad that I didn’t have too many goals this month. It let me focus on the day to day, and just keep trucking.

Life:

• Finish three Christmas presents. SUCCESS!  I actually did more than three, yay! Though none of them were the oil paintings, which was my longshot goal. I am a sloooow painter.
• Mail out invites to my daughter’s birthday party. SUCCESS! All done! Even on time by the date I put on the calender haha.

Blog:

• POST. MY. BLOG. BUTTONS. SUCCESS! WOO!!!! Finally got some up. There is one on my sidebar, and then a few more on my Behind The Scenes page.
• Begin my ‘Christmas On A Budget’ series. SUCCESS! I think this is the goal I’m most proud of doing because it took the most work. While I still have a few more things to do for each post, the entire series is planned out on paper, which makes writing the actual posts so much quicker and less stressful.

I feel good about completing my few goals for the month. They were small, but I did them, and that’s what counts. Bring it on December!