I hope you all had a great New Year’s! We actually went out on NYE, which is really, really unusual for us. It was kind of last minute and we decided to walk downtown and hit up one of our favorite spots.
We only stayed until 11:30 or so because it was kind of loud and I am not a crowd lover at all. So, we walked home and got there just before midnight. It was fun to do something different for a change!
Now with a sparkly new year, it’s time to think about what will be going on in 2016. I love setting goals and projects to do. I know some people don’t like them, which is fine, but I don’t put pressure on myself with goals. I know that I tend to work hard just as part of my personality and that if I don’t finish a goal, there is a reason for it. The only goal I don’t really set for myself is to lose a certain amount of weight in a specific time period. That always backfires, so there’s no point in that.
Here is a list of things I would like to accomplish over the course of 2016.
- Take better care of myself. I’m not just talking about eating right and exercising. This is getting all health appointments in and not putting anything off. Making sure my health is what it can be. Both John and I are doing this one.
- Better balance between work and play time. It’s no secret that I work really hard. I work very hard for my company and I also picked up another side job of transcription (general, not medical). I don’t really need to work quite so hard and there are days where I am typing for so many hours that I just have no energy at the end of the day. So, I need to set a limit on each day and stick to that. I have been trying unsuccessfully to do this for the last couple months. I just have to figure out a way to make it happen.
- Finish the wallpaper removal in the house. We have the hallway, stairwell and the third bedroom left and that’s it. Then no more wallpaper! At least the hallway/stairwell appears to be just one layer. This has to be done by spring since then it’s time for outdoor projects.
- Read 30 books. I do love to read. I didn’t read as much last year and there are plenty of great books out there, classics and new stuff. I did a Good Reads challenge for 30 books.
- Build something. I love my trunk and repurposing projects. Love them! But, I also have wanted to build something from scratch for a while. I think it will be a storage cabinet. This will push my skills a little bit.
- Create and maintain a master cleaning list for the house. John and I are both working on this one. One day a week will be a super deep clean of a single room. With both of us doing that, it won’t take too long. We tend to do all the normal stuff, but things like cleaning baseboards and dusting ceiling fixtures doesn’t seem to happen since our house is kind of big. That means a room will get deep cleaned probably every 5-6 weeks.
- Keep building my soap business. I will be trying to secure more wholesale accounts this year so I don’t have to do a lot of shows. Also working on product development.
We already got a start on the wallpaper. My niece is going to Paris this spring with her French club and to help her earn money for her trip, we hired her to start stripping wallpaper:
Surprisingly, she didn’t think it was that bad and offered to come back and work on it for free LOL! I should have had her doing this last year…
Onward into 2016!!!
Those are great goals! Happy New Year!
-longtime lurker
I always like how your goals include a variety of subjects. Heading home from a trip and then I can finalize mine.
Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, I have a lot of irons in the fire 😉
I like your goals. I think they are great! Better life balance is especially good and I have that on my to-do-list too. Finding balance between “must do” and “want to do” is hard!
I struggle with that balance. A lot. I think I probably need to enlist John’s help to achieve that one.
Good list of goals! The master cleaning list makes me nervous. I’ve tried various systems over the years, and always failed. With my house being smaller, I seem to be doing pretty good with keeping up the cleaning. The deep cleaning…not so sure about that!
It will be fun to see your building project!
I have done Fly Lady before and this is sort of similar with having a master list, but not the 15 minute increment thing since we do keep up with daily stuff fairly well. With a house the size of ours until we hire a cleaning service (hello Powerball), the deep cleaning has got to be us. 😀
Amazing what floats some people’s boats – stripping wallpaper must be really satisfying to your niece, which works out great for you! I’m like that with some things; but oh man, on the stuff I don’t like doing? I really slack on getting it done.
Your work goals will be the hardest to master, I suspect…but probably will make the strongest impact on your life, so for that reason I hope you can find that balance.
You are correct. The work goal is not all that new. I really struggle with that one. Guess I had better play Powerball this week 😀
seeing your number two makes me GRIN
Im with you there.
more play.
even if there is MORE WORK it still wwll be better balanced.
I hope anyway 🙂
Looks like you’re set for another jam-packed year! Lots of great projects for you to work on too. I can’t wait to see what your garden looks like in the Spring too!
I can’t wait for the garden either! I hope it does okay. I saw some sprouts of my alium coming up from that crazy warm weather and not sure they will make it with real winter now here.
I love reading your to do lists! I may need to steal that deep clean thing or modify it in some way. Last week while lying in bed reading I looked up at our ceiling fan and it was covered in dust. Over the weekend I got a bucket of water and washed it down, as well as the one in the guest room. Which got me to thinking about baseboards, etc. But I find by the time I’m done with regular cleaning, I just don’t want to do more.
Yes to better work-play balance! (We all probably need some of that.) I know that will be tough for you as you have a deep sense of responsibility towards your work. But I also suspect a playful Lori will be a less stressed, happier Lori too.
Yes, the cleaning thing was just noticing the baseboards being really dirty and dusty. Things you just don’t think about on a routine basis, but still need doing.
The work thing will be tough. I just have to relax on how much money I will be earning (which is the hard part). And you never know what can change anyway in my industry.
My goal is to read 12 books this year – which doesn’t seem like much, but when I’ve only read two actual books in 10 years – that’s a lot!
Happy to say I am already four chapters in a book! The kids bought me Apple TV for the living room so now I can watch Netflix and Hulu on my living room t.v. I used to watch Netflix before going to bed in my bedroom, but I’ve declared my bedroom a “no gadget” room and now have three books on my night stand. 😀
Happy New Year!!
12 books is a lot. It’s one a month. When you get busy, you do need to set aside time specifically to read.
Belated Happy New Year to you and John! (and Pixie) You’ve set yourself up for a great 2016!!!!!
I love your goals!
I have a 12 book challenge on Goodreads. Had it last year too and didn’t met the goal. I am reading the same book for more than 2 months now and I’m halfway through it. The story was very slow but now it’s getting more interesting so I hope to finish it this month. I could have put it away but I do think the story will get better.
Good for you that you keep trying to find balance between work and “playtime”. I love my job but I love my private life/time off more. I don’t work extra hours unless it’s really necessary.
Housecleaning is always a struggle for me. The last 6 months I did the entire house plus the extra chores on my 2-weekly day off but I rather use that day for something else. So since yesterday back to cleaning on Monday evening. I only do the regular cleaning then, yesterday downstairs, next week upstairs. And once a month I use the morning of my day off for the extra chores like cleaning windows or cleaning the fridge. I use a cleaning schedule from a Dutch website, they publish a new one every week.
I hope this new schedule works for me. I really dislike cleaning but I don’t want to spend money on a cleaning lady, that’s not really cheap here.
It would be nice to have a cleaning service, but the intensely private person in me probably couldn’t handle it. Not to mention it’s too expensive. My sister had someone come in a couple times a month and said it was worth it, though. With both John and I doing the cleaning, it will go fast and we don’t want to clean on weekends, so it will be a weeknight thing.
I usually do word puzzles on my Kindle at night before bed, which I am switching over to reading. The only problem with that is that I tend to stay up longer to keep reading LOL
LOVE 1 and 2 Lori – we all need to do that or at least a lot of us! I so need to do the cleaning one! I am trying to declutter right now first! 🙂