It’s a year, which means my blog reader is filled with posts about goals and hopes and resolutions for 2012. I love talking about goals, so I’m excited about it! But, I’m still of a monthly goal kinda girl, since a year makes me lose focus and flail about aimlessly, forgetting what I had wanted to do.
Goals focus me and push me in the right direction. A friend asked, “Well, do you keep those goals up after the month is up?” And, no, not perfectly. But, I usually don’t do it perfectly during the month, either. A month is the perfect amount of time to help myself learn something new – like that going to bed earlier makes me happier, or I should mop my kitchen floor once a week. It becomes a part of me and I notice when I’m not doing things like I want to. It feels…wrong.
[December Goals Revisited]
Do the 30 Day Shred | Biggest fail ever. I did it ONCE. Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.
Finish a big custom order | Finished. And they turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself:
(They are wine totes for two bottles of wine.)
Intentionally spend lots of time with Gabe and Mike | Mike had four weeks off school and I had two. It was lovely. We had fun. We watched Parks and Rec. We cooked. We danced. We butterfly-kissed.
Earn our rent through design, Etsy, and advertising | Yep! I did it. And even had $30 to spare. Moneybags, right here. It’s such a motivation to have a concrete goal like this. In fact, it’s my goal for every month this year. Exciting!
Sign up for the Nashville Half Marathon | Done! And I even ran five miles – I am not sure what to do about a training plan, since I usually only get a chance to run once a week between watching Gabe and it getting dark so early. My very technical plan is to just run longer gradually. Don’t be intimidated by my Type A planning.
[January Goals]
Fix all 500 broken links and reorganize my blog | It’s going to be a long, slow process. This page is a hot mess. I want to make things easier to navigate overall, as well.
Move all Disqus comments over | I have years and years of comments lost when I came to WordPress. I try not to care, but it’s a little heartbreaking, since there were some posts with really fantastic, moving comments. I mean, there are worse things. But I’m determined to figure it out this month! (Pro tip: don’t get Disqus if you think you might someday move to WordPress and use the WordPress commenting system.)
Figure out how to pay taxes for my business | If the IRS is reading my blog, kindly ignore this sentence.
Buy nothing this month | I’ve done this in the past with great results. I’m excited to start the year off with a bit of a money fast – after spending lots of money in December, we’re going to spend no money aside from bills this month. Of course, gift cards are fair game. Helloooo, $125 worth of Starbucks gift cards I got for Christmas…
I hope your year is starting out wonderfully. Happy 2012!
I love reading about everyone’s goals and intentions at this time of year- but it’s so sad to see that you lost all your comments! Is there no way to import them? I thought you could export the comments directly from disqus and then import them into WordPress. I don’t like 3rd party commenting systems in general, but this makes me like them even less! I hope you find a way to grab them!
Happy New Year! Great goals for January – and those custom wine totes are awesome!!!!
I really want to sign up for the Nashville half marathon, but I’m not sure I’ll have enough time to train this year. (I’m literally busy from 4:15 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday until May–work + school. My only days off are Friday through Sunday, so I’m not sure if that’s enough time to train for a half marathon? Maybe it is?) Nashville is only a couple hours from me, though!
I think it’s so awesome that you earn your rent through your business.
I’m only running on the weekends to train, actually! :) Mostly because of childcare, though!
Good luck! These goals sound a tad too ambitious for my schedule. I’m going more for “try to fold laundry at least once a month” and “be on time to work when your boss is going to be there.” Somewhere in the future, though, I hope to add half marathons and crafting success to the list!
We do a buy nothing month every year in what we call Frugal February – it’s amazing how much money we save, and just as amazing how quickly we always seem to go back to spending like crazy people in March!
I love your idea of not buying anything in January. December is always a crazy spending month for us too and taking a step back would be good for the heart and the bank account! So glad I came across your blog today (found ya through Your Wishcake!)
It’s such a great exercise to help you realize how much you spend and how much is unnecessary!
Happy 2012 to you too! That is awesome that you are earning your rent. Congrats!
Congrats on signing up for a half marathon! You won’t regret it!
I ran in college and still run now (I have a marathon coming up in April!) and I always found reading about running is helpful. Try Runner’s World (it’s pretty cheap and they have articles on-line!), or a book by a female distance runner like Joan Samuelson. She has great tips for first timers and seasoned runners alike. She even has a section on being a mom and running (Her book is on Amazon for a few bucks!! GOOD LUCK!
Thanks for the tips! That’s usually helped my motivation in the past – reading books about running.
We are doing no-spending January as well. It’s already been a challenge, as we live in a cute downtown area and like to frequent the local shops, eat out and grab fro yo from time to time. But, it feels good to save a little extra too. Here’s to a happy 2012!
Oh, fun! Good luck. :)
Bahaha. I love the IRS line.
I love this update. It’s filled with successes and failures and REAL LIFE. Imagine that! Personally, I detest Disquis as a blog reader almost as much as I detested the Blogger commenting system when my blog was hosted over there. Anything that REQUIRES you to sign up in order to make things easier is a big no no for personal blogs, IMHO. =)
Blogger commenting is just SO limited. Ugh. I wish they would change!
Oh god, good luck with the Disqus thing! You’re right — I’d highly recommend AGAINST it if you’re ever ever ever moving to WP.
Second — there’s a WP plugin for broken links, if you don’t have it, it’s called Broken Link Checker, and you get emails when broken links are found. Awesome way to keep up with that, update blogs who’ve moved, etc. Also, my goal is to make rent with Etsy + Advertising this month (and all months!) as well. Guess that means I should get my shop launched, finally… ha. Happy New Year!
Yeah, I installed the Broken Link Checker! That’s how I know how many broken links I have. If only there was a non-manual way to fix all the links. :-/
Definitely let me know if you figure out the Disqus thing!
Ugh. Will do. Good luck!
like you i’m trying to figure out the whole blog/taxes thing..or rather, Ryan is…bless his heart! good luck!
I love, love, love those wine bags! You are so creative. Good luck with your goals and happy 2012! Oh, and Gabe’s shirt…adorable!
Aw, thanks!
first of all, gabe’s shirt/onesie (?) kills me. it is too freaking cute.
secondly. love your goals. i really need to adopt the buy nothing for a month one. but i swear something always pops up. or i just get suckered into things, haha. but good luck with your january goals. love it.
signing up for a marathon is one of my lofty goals – but I’m so scared by the idea! also, disqus? totally confused about how to set it up on my blog. since I’m a Blogger blogger (heh!), I do understand that people find it annoying to have an account in order to leave a comment, so I’m trying to keep my options open for other commenting platforms.
I don’t know if I’ll ever run a marathon – but a half is perfect for me! :)
It makes me laugh that I was the custom order you were talking about in your blog…I wasn’t in any rush, but I love love love love love the new wine bags and so do the recipients!! Also, I enjoy your recaps…just thought you should know :)
Yay! I enjoy you.
You are now the third person I know who’s set a goal of running a half-marathon and who’s running it in April. I’m the first person :-) Good luck. It’ll get lighter soon…
Good luck!! :)
Great list! My advice? Get a CPA. Seriously. Ours is worth every single penny and then some. He saves us WAY more than we pay for him…it’s a HUGE relief to have someone ELSE in charge of all that stuff. Just my $0.02. ;)
Those wine totes are ADORABLE. I love the fabrics you chose! I’m going to need some bridesmaids gifts this year, maybe I should do a custom gift like that! And making them for two bottles of wine is genius :)
I LOVE Gabe’s festive onesie!!! He is so stinkin cute!
Also, those wine totes turned out so good, I love the fabrics, they look so pretty all lined up together :)
Gabe’s outfit is the bomb. i’m still bummed that I haven’t seen you in 2 years… even though I’m happy to be alive and well. We should talk on the phone. OR you should just come visit! Texas is fun. You could buy plane tickets on Feb. 1. Speaking of, what exactly do you mean by “buy nothing?” No shaving cream? No refills of cleaning stuff or food or q-tips? What is nothing? No matter what the answer is to that, you are more disciplined than I could ever dream to be and I want you to make me a life plan that saves me tons of money.
Congratulations on earning your rent through creative endeavors! That’s a wonderful thing!