2015 Goals

Happy New Year! We enjoyed the heck out of the holidays around here. 4 Christmas celebrations with family, lots of food, and many a day spent in pajamas watching Christmas movies. Great times.

2014 was my best year to date. I made some big life changes - mainly leaving my full time job to stay at home with my crazy boys - and had a full year of adjusting to what all of that entailed. With more than 12 months of stay at home mommyhood under my belt, I feel like I've hit a stride and am ready to tackle this coming year.

I'm always a fan of setting goals, but not really a fan of New Year's resolutions. Why? Because resolutions are usually too lofty (loose weight. be more healthy. travel more) so we usually just give up on them after a few weeks. Or days. Or hours.

Goals are more specific. Attainable. They should stretch you, but be realistic. Nothing worse for the soul than failing just days into a resolution that you weren't likely to be able to keep in the first place.

I like to pick a couple of themes for the year to come back to. A list of 42 resolutions just doesn't work for me. If you can't remember them without looking at a list, how in the world are you going to keep up with them? Answer: you can't. Pick 1, 2, or 3 things to do, and do them well. That's the recipe for success. Last year I only had one: simplify. Streamline my life to enjoy it more. Mission accomplished.

So with that said, I used some of my downtime this last week to really think about what I want to accomplish in the coming year, and what I want to leave behind in 2014. Here's what I came up with...in case you're interested.

Cultivate: No, I'm not taking up gardening. I mean to cultivate in the context of relationships. I did a lot of this in 2014 by pulling back from my job to stay at home, but just because you're around your family doesn't necessarily mean you're focusing on them.

I'm a do-er. I have to do lists of things that I want to get done each day/week/month/year. Hence this blog post, right? But I struggle to just be sometimes. To ditch the list for a few hours and just play cars on the floor with the boys. Or read books. Or whatever. I still want to stay on top of those things that need to get done, but I want to be intentional about making time for the people that matter the most. To make this attainable (a goal instead of a resolution) I plan to do the following:

- On days we are at home, spend at least 30 minutes each morning and afternoon working on something with the boys to stimulate their minds. That could be educational, reading, an art project, or exploring outside. I'll be focused on spending time with them and not secretly also trying to clean something or check email. Not that I've ever done that. Nope. Not me.

- Date nights. Ah, this seems to always be on the list. I'd love to go to dinner with the Hubs every Friday night for the rest of my life, but it's not in the budget. Nor can we find anyone to watch the kids that regularly. Instead I'm instituting a cell-phone-free Netflix night a week. Simple. Affordable. Attainable.

- The Year of Weddings. My baby brother and sister-in-law are getting married this year (to other people, not each other. That would be weird). That means a year full of opportunities to extend love, time, and grace to both of our extended families.

- Friendships. Remember friends? Those people I used to make all kinds of time for before I had small children. Thankfully they're still there, and I want to see more of them. Or at least talk to them! Facebook doesn't count. I'll visit or call a pal at least once a week to catch up on life.

Create: I want to keep up the momentum from 2014 in the creative department. I learned after 10 years in a creative field that having to create "on the clock" can actually suck the creative energy right out of you. Being able to make what I want on my own schedule has done wonders to fill my creative reservoir. In 2014 I made 11 quilts (I think...it's kind of a blur), which is 3x more than I had ever made in my life previously. I hope to continue to do so this year, taking on some bigger projects.

- Make 4 large quilts, one to be completed each quarter of the year. Some of these have been on the to-do list for YEARS. Time to knock 'em out.

- Learn the violin. This probably sounds strange, but for at least a decade I've said over and over that I want to learn the violin in my 30s. Well, my Hubs heard me and bought me a violin for Christmas. So sweet. My main goal here is just to not be terrible by the end of the year. I'd be a fool to say I'll have time to practice each day. My goal is 3x a week.

That's my list. It will be challenging, but I feel like it's do-able. I won't make it happen every week because LIFE. Someone will get the flu and I wont' have time to phone a friend. Or family will come visit and I won't have time to sew or play violin that week. That's FINE. But at the end of the year I hope to see real progress in these areas.

As far as blogging goes for the new year, I have to admit that I've enjoyed taking some time off for the last few weeks. It's been nice not obsessing over what my next post will be about, editing photos, etc. So I'm going to ease my way back into it. I've let go of the pressure I put on myself to post three times a week. I'll share something when I feel compelled and have something meaningful, but I won't force it if I'm not feeling it. The blog is an outlet. A hobby. Not a job. And it was kind of starting to feel like one. Hopefully you guys don't mind too much. And having more time to focus on making the posts better will ideally make them more enjoyable for you to read. Quality over quantity, right?

What are your hopes for 2015? I'd love to hear them!