Today is finally the last of the deep chill. We might actually be in the 30s by mid week. Yay!  This was the temp this morning:

We went out for our usual breakfast on Sunday. Normally we walk downtown, but -20 is ****ing cold, even without any windchill factor.  Your eyelashes and nose hairs freeze and it hurts to breathe deep.  How I look forward to 30 degrees coming up. Perspective 😀

I chose a word that I want to represent 2018 for me and I decided on Titan.  Not Saturn’s moon or mythology, but the definition of a person of great strength. That’s my mantra for 2018. I will be a titan.

As far as goals go, these are some things I want to work towards this year:

1. Eat more vegetables.  I seem to do this goal every couple of years. I just need to remind myself to eat them and make sure I have frozen veggies in the freezer at all times so no excuses.  Hello broccoli!
2. Read 15 books.  I was not able to complete my challenge last year. I just found myself too tired at night to do the amount of reading that I like to do and then extra time was spent working on the businesses.  Reading is a good way to make myself take a break.  Not only reading 15 books, but I’d like half of them to be classics. First up is Sense and Sensibility.
3. Work on an organizational system.  I am really not the most organized person. I tend to have too many things going on all at once and in various stages of completion. This is going to take a lot of work LOL.
4. Continue being an advocate for the environment.  I started the year off with purchasing wool dryer balls to reduce fabric softener use:  Supporting a small maker on Etsy with this purchase, too.
5. Spend time with body weight exercises and stretching on a regular basis. Pretty self explanatory.

That’s pretty good for the year, I think.  I also will get back to reading blogs more regularly. That took such a back seat and I’m sorry I haven’t been reading your blogs!

Do you have a word for 2018?

I haven’t done written goals in forever! I’m feeling disorganized, so setting some goals this month will hopefully get me focused.

What I would like to accomplish:

1. Make a schedule for business. I’m running 2 businesses and I have to get some sort of schedule set for what I’m going to do when instead of the way I do it now, which is whatever whenever. It’s just not an efficient use of my time and kind of stresses me out. So tasks will be scheduled for certain days.
2. Clean my closet. I will admit here that I have a messy closet. Clothes are on the floor, clothes that are supposed to be folded are just shoved in the storage thing. It’s just a mess. It’s going to be clean and hopefully purged of stuff I don’t wear anymore.
3. Follow disciplined eating. Since we are in birthday/holiday season for a while, it’s even more important that I be mindful of what I’m eating the other times. That way I can really enjoy those days.
4. Decide on whether or not to join the gym. I’ve been waffling and if I don’t do it, I need to set a training schedule for lifting weights at home.

Okay, that sounds good. The closet thing might be pretty ambitious LOL! The last thing you want to do in the little free time you have is clean a closet. 😀

It feels so weird not to be at my job anymore. I keep thinking I have to log in and start typing, but I don’t.  I have plenty to do with the business and the nice thing is that it keeps me moving around instead of sitting at my computer for hours on end.

After all was said and done with the holidays, I ended up 1 pound over the weight that I went to Ireland at in September.  I looked at a graph of the last 3 months and my weight pretty much fluctuated a pound above or below that weight for that time period.  I’m pretty happy about that!  I ate quite a bit of food, particularly the last couple weeks (like everyone else), but I also got in a ton of exercise. I think that offset a lot of it.

Now no more egg nog and the cookies are in the freezer. Back to the routine again, which does mean bagel Wednesday 😀

Anyway, time for those things I want to accomplish in 2017.

1. Read 25 books.  I read that many last year and hope to be able to do that again. It would be nice to read more, but I have a lot on my plate for the year coming up.
2. Be more of an activist for the environment. I have some serious concerns about the environment and am going to take an active part in making sure that no legislation gets passed that is going to take us backwards.  This also means being a good steward in my own corner of the planet and I will continue to grow my pollinator garden.
3. Build something.  I did this goal last year. This time it will be a piece of furniture of some type.
4. Get back to a structured lifting program. I have been all over the place with consistency in lifting and I need to get back to a rhythm.
5. Grow the businesses. I have specific plans to implement to make growth happen. Hopefully that will work LOL!
6. Do more meal planning.  John and I tend to fall into the same meals just out of convenience  — and we like them. I want to do more planning so that we can do new recipes and change things up.

I think that sounds pretty good.  I should get back to my mini monthly goals as well. I haven’t done those for a while.

Now January is here and it’s time to hunker down to get through the winter.  It seems a long way until spring, but all these arrived for me in the mail today!

I know there are more coming, too, as I have a gift certificate to Bluestone Perennials.  Browsing flower catalogs while bundling up in fleece and being in front of the fireplace sounds pretty appealing for this winter!

Anyone else with goals?

I only have one day left at work!  Yay!  I trained 2 people on one of my accounts, which doesn’t give them a whole lot of time to learn it, but I told them to do as much work as possible today and tomorrow so I can answer any questions before I’m done.  I can’t wait.

Time to review the plans that I made back in January for 2016:

Take better care of myself.  Check! This year I got all of my health care done that was kind of lagging, not to mention unplanned 2 root canals.  And losing 20 pounds was a bonus.

Better balance between work and play time. When I mentioned this one, John said “Fail!” Haha. True. I worked too hard this year and too often. At least that work part will be over, although I’m sure I’ll be doing just as much work next year…

Finish the wallpaper removal in the house: Hallelujah!!! Done! No more wallpaper in this house. That was a huge job that took many months to finish, but now we never have to remove any again from this house.

Read 30 books:  Didn’t quite make this one. I read 25 books. I kind of got over booked with my time and wasn’t reading as much.

Build something: When I thought of this, it was more building something like a cabinet, but I suppose the water feature counts as building something, right?

Create and maintain a master cleaning list for the house: This worked really great until about this fall. Then when I started doing all those shows and we traveled and the list kind of fell by the wayside. However, it’s a good system and we are going to get back to it.

Keep building my soap business: Working on it. I had some great shows this fall and I will be doing a wholesale buyers show in the spring.  Now this business goes sort of hand-in-hand with our supply end that I will be taking over next year.

Not a bad year!  Plus, we did the trip of a lifetime going to Ireland.

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I still can’t believe we went there. It’s like a dream.

On another note, I will not be sorry to see 2016 go. So much crap happened in the world.  Whatever happens in 2017, it sure is going to be different.

How was your year?

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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!!!

Wow. Waaaay back in January I set some goals for 2015. It’s always fun to see how far off you get from those after a longer period of time 😀  Sometimes it feels like nothing happened this year and then it seems like it was non-stop with stuff. 

1. Create.  I think I did this one to the max. Between creating new garden beds, restoring the trunks, doing a new bathroom, the headboard project and starting a soap business. Yes. I think that one is checked off. 

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2.  Eat a lot more vegetables.  I don’t know about this. I think I ate more, but I can’t quantify it as being a lot more LOL! The spiralizer helped with that – at least with getting me to try different ones. I know I ate more zuchinni and summer squash because of this. 

3. New volunteering.  Did not do this. I could not find something that really called to me. Not to mention the time commitment was tough. We have been so busy with working on this house and my jobs that trying to squeeze in another time committment just didn’t happen. 

4. Hiking.  Finally!  We did it! We went on several hikes like the Sleeping  Beauty Hike, Pilot’s Knob and the Firetower hike. Interestingly enough, John and I never really hiked by ourselves. We always went with others. The great part about the hiking is that we got to see views that are not accessible on the bike. We will be doing more. 

5.  2000 miles on the bike.  Done and done. I hit this before what would be considered the end of the season and then managed to get in a couple hundred more miles with this crazy warm weather! I ended up a shade over 2400 miles.  The bike is officially retired inside as of yesterday, though. Boo. 

6. Sell the old house.  YES!!!  Okay, I didn’t make that happen, but it did. Finally the closing was done in June and we are now like normal people – kind of – with only one house and one mortgage 😀 That whole buying and selling was almost a 2-year process, although it felt like forever. 

Never leaving this house. Never ever never. 

7. Change up my wardrobe. Hmmm… I’m still no fashion plate. I bought some new clothes this year – and not all of them thrift, either. With my job working at home and doing so much work inside and outside – seems like I changed my clothes a lot to get into grubbies. Or I just wore them to begin with. 

So yeah, and interesting year. How about you? 

So, sneaking this post in on a Friday when very few people read LOL.  I don’t mind setting goals for a year. It’s no secret that I like to set monthly goals or other types of goals just go give me some kind of focus, otherwise I am like a bee flying around everywhere landing on every different flower.

This is just a list of ideas of things I would like to happen this year or to do.  Some things I can’t make happen, but I would like them to happen. Other things I can help along or just plain old do.

1. Create.  This is a big one for me this year.  I am a creative person. I spend most of my day being noncreative with my job and I don’t like that. Not that my job isn’t important, but it doesn’t do much for the soul. This year is going to be about creating things, whether that is the garden, furniture, new friendships, or hobbies.  Whatever.  I guess this would be my word for the year if I were to choose one.

2.  Eat a lot more vegetables.  I get so stuck on the same veggie all the time, which would be the broccoli, and after making a vegetable tian for Christmas, it made me want to get more veggies in forms I like.  I am not the biggest fan of veggies in general, which is why I made the Great Veggie Experiment. I need to get back to that.  I am thinking about getting a spiralizer with a gift certificate I got.

3. New volunteering.  For the last 2 plus years I did literacy tutoring.  Now that I am not doing that anymore, I want to find some other volunteer opportunity. I think I need one with less time committment. The tutoring was 2 hours a week every week!  That’s a lot of time. Anyway, I will be researching the opportunities and try a couple before settling in.

4. Hiking.  It’s back!  The goal I never did last year.  No excuses.  There are some really great trails around here and we are going (Linda – I will take you up on your hiking offer 😀 )

5.  2000 miles on the bike.  This actually shouldn’t be too hard since it is a pretty normal biking season, but last year with the house remodel in the fall we ended up losing some bike time.  What was that I just said about hiking???

6. Sell the old house.  Okay, I can’t make that happen, per se, but we really need that to happen.  I know it will, but please let it be sooner rather than later.

7. Change up my wardrobe.  I am a thrift shopper, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be stylish. With so much rehab, I pretty much wear jeans and t-shirt or thermal shirt with a fleece jacket all the time. I am not a fashion plate, but I have been feeling downright frumpy lately. So, I will be thrift/sale shopping to be a little more stylish.  The key is to actually *wear* that stuff on a day to day basis. Since I work from home, there is no reason even for me to change out of jammies – although I do 😀  – but I could stand to look a little more put together.

I think is a good place to start 2015 from.

Note: I am not even putting wallpaper removal on this list, even though there are still 3 rooms, a foyer, stairwell and hallway all to be depapered this year. 😀   That’s just going to happen. 

It’s always interesting to me to look at what I had in mind for the next year and how close I actually came to doing those things.  You just never know what life has in store to change those plans or how maybe *you* change and those goals are not right any more for what you want to achieve.

Anyway, back at the beginning of January, back when we had the house closing scheduled for the 24th…. I wrote these goals:

1.  Build something. I had plans to build a piece of furniture from scratch, but didn’t quite get to that.  I did reupholster a piece and basically built a kitchen from the walls out, so I think this was accomplished LOL!

2. Hiking.  Fail.  We love biking so much that we just never got around to this, which is a shame because there are so many trails in the Adirondacks.  This item will be moved to the next list 😀

3. Focus on healthy eating.  Hmmmm… I did a lot of stress eating between the job and house closing stress. I turned to my comfort, which is food.  

4. Heavy lifting.  Yep – I got back to the gym in February and back to lifting. A little sparse the last week with shorter gym hours and busy me, but good to be back. I have to reevaluate the budget for 2015 and the gym.

5. Be a better person.  I don’t really know how I would judge this.  It’s not really a goal per se, but just an idea to be more thoughtful or think in advance before doing/saying something and make sure I understand the implications. Of course, this would be a lifelong goal and not just for 1 year.

6. A possible house flip.  Well, with that whole delay in closing fiasco, this was not even on the table. It’s not even on the table now since we still have our old house and won’t be on the table until we get that sold. There was no control over that situation.

Definitely a very memorable year, that is for sure.  I hope all of you have a very happy and safe New Year and I will see you on the flip side with my ideas for 2015!