No matter how soon before Christmas I begin to consider it, I never seem to hammer out my resolutions until at least the end of the first week of January. With Christmas decorations on top of the usual mess to clean up and New Year’s Eve and Day plans with travel, I don’t quite have the sanity to envision the next 365 358 351 days. I’m okay with being a few days late, with the right intentions, rather than not following through consistently with my goals.

This year, though, it was even harder. Not because I’m complacent. Far from that. But since I stopped working from home, the person I am becoming, the habits I want to manifest, and the goals I want to achieve have been on my mind so often that I couldn’t think of anything new to manifest in the upcoming year.

In fact, when looking for a notebook, I stumbled upon a note that I wrote at the beginning of December.

Which, if you (excusably) can’t read my writing, says,

Goals…

• Get organized
• Learn hand lettering [As you may notice, I need help. Thankfully I’ve already bought this hand lettering book.]
• Build out website
• Get paid for blogging (again) [I used to work in digital marketing.]
• Finish an Ironman
• Read a book a week
• Get a DSLR and learn photography
• Become a yoga teacher
• Study successful writers
• learn Photoshop skills

Practice, Practice, PRACTICE!

be consistent.

That’s definitely more than a single year’s worth of goals, probably two years ;). Though I may not become an Ironman this year, I’m working toward doing Yoga teacher training this fall. It’s been a goal of mine for a LONG time, and I am so thrilled! All in all, I know that I’ll be taking small steps toward achieving all of these things.

In addition to that, and of course “being a YES!,” a couple of other things came up during these two weeks since the year began. Firstly, I read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.

With my messiest room in the background, for emphasis

The book was lovely. It was translated from Japanese, so there were a few really endearing discrepancies with the language, and her method (and perhaps, I’m sorry, some of her habits and background) can get to be a bit alien, but it makes sense! I highly recommend this book to anyone who has seen a mess in their house and thought, “I can’t live like this anymore!” (I’m not the only one who says this before going on every cleaning binge, am I?)

Another thing that came up for me within these first few weeks of the new year was FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY finishing the announcements for my Palm Springs/Joshua Tree elopement (A HUGE thank you to my great friend, Tina!). I’m particular about a few things in life, and good designed paper goods is definitely one. (Blame my minor in Digital Media, which I may have hated at the time but fully appreciate as alumni.) I’ll write a whole blog post about those tomorrow, but for now I just want to say that I was so inspired! I loved the act of sending out something personal, and I especially love the idea of others getting something other than bills and grocery store ads in their mailbox while adding a little extra brightness to their day!

So, without further ado…

For real, though. Card from A Beautiful Mess.

New Year’s Resolutions

1. Send more mail!
2. “Tidy” up my house via the KonMari Method. This to be completed by July.
3. Study Photography, and max out capabilities with my Nokia Lumia photography
4. Increase my photo editing skills using Photoshop and Lightroom.
5. Create something daily: a fab meal, a blog post, a kid craft, a home DIY, art, whatever!
6. Complete another 70.3 Triathlon. But much better.
7. Transfer over to my owned domain name (I already own it! I just need to figure out how to move what I already written have over.) and develop the site to better suit me.
8. Take Yoga Teacher Empowerment Program at Big Yoga in the Fall.

Let’s do this!