2012 Goals

I don't remember the last time I made a New Year's resolution. Obviously I read plenty of blogs, and it's no surprise that a lot of them right now are focused on resolutions for 2012. While I don't "do" resolutions, I do "do" goals. I like the idea of concrete goals for the year. Taking some inspiration from Newlywoodwards I have decided to write some goals for this new year, using her categories that she used for her 2011 goals. You may recognize some of these from my unfinished 30 before 30 list.

enjoy
Go on a big vacation. Go on a little vacation. Go to 3 new places in Oregon. Read 12 books for fun. Get a make over.
create
Learn to sew. Make one thing a month. Give some homemade gifts.
home
Finish painting the house. Install flooring. Get on a regular cleaning schedule.  Put up shelves in kitchen. Put up something on our walls in the living room (gallery wall?). Do something with the "entry."
cook
Make a new recipe every month. Learn how to can. Take a cooking class.
save
Put 10% of my paycheck into savings each month. Get a CD through our credit union. "Want" purchases of more than $20 go on a 30 day wait list.
health
Train for and complete the Rock-n-Roll Half in May. Get a massage. Work out 12-15 times a month
misc.
Send thank-you notes and birthday cards regularly. Finish changing my name. Take Gus to a dog class.

Boy Bibs

In 8th grade I took home ec. When I sit down at my sewing machine, that is the knowledge I am pulling from. This is NOT a sewing blog, although I do want to get better at it. I am even registered for Sewing 101 at my local JoAnns next week. But that is next week, and I have a baby shower to go to today. I saw these on Pinterest and fell in love with them.

source

There are actually a bunch of pins for this type of project and many of them go to different etsy pages. I love etsy. I also love doing things myself.

Please ignore my nails. Gross!

So I started by drawing out a template for a tie. If I had a printer at home, I would have printed one off the Internet. I folded an index card in half and then drew out one side and cut it to make it even.

I also cut the "knot" part off the tie so that I could have two different pieces of each tie.

I made a bowtie too by doing pretty much the same thing.

Cut your tie out of fabric and sew it on to a plain bib. I used a zig zag stitch because its fun.

Over all they are pretty darn cute if you ask me, but on closer inspection, they are definitely home made. If I had bought some from etsy they would have been much more professional looking, but I had fun making them. And picking out the fabric.

I wish I could say I just whipped these up, but actually they took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to do. One of the most frustrating things for me about sewing is that when something goes wrong, I know that some people could look at what is happening and fix it in a nano second. I fix things by taking out the bobbin, unthreading the machine and starting over. That seems to fix it.
 
What are you crafting? Any sewing tips for a novice?

These are my confessions

I have been reading E, Myself and I for awhile now, and for the last couple weeks she has been hosting a little midweek confession link up party. I think it's about time I do some confessing :)

- When I make a dinner with a protein, veggie and a starch, I feel like I should win wife of the year award. (Even if one or more of those items comes from a can or box)
- I'm kind of struggling with being 30. Its been about a week and I am over it.
-I like eating healthy, but I REALLY like eating convenient more. I try to make my healthy foods convenient (cut up veggies, hard boiled eggs, prewashing/cutting my fruit) but do you know what else is convenient? Oreos.
-Every time I go to the grocery store, I buy myself a treat. Sometimes it is a diet Coke, other times it is a Cookies and Cream Hershey bar.
-Sometimes, at the grocery store, I buy both. And eat them in the car before I get home.
- I live less than a mile from the grocery store.
-I hate doing my hair in the morning before work. I wish messy bun/braid was acceptable everyday at work.
-On Monday, I reorganized some of my pins on pinterest, and then felt like I had accomplished something with my day.
-I get mad that my dog likes the Mister more than me.
- Sometimes at work, I really want to squirt my students with a squirt bottle when they are not paying attention.


Do you have any confessions>

30 before 30- How did I do?

I turned 30 on Christmas day, so I guess my time limit is up for finishing my 30 before 30 list. Not to give away the ending or anything, but if this was a class assignment, I would probably get an F. Actually, I would give  "redo" since I don't really give F's in my classes. When I wrote my list, I didn't really put a lot of thought into it. Add that to the fact I gave myself a little over 4 months to get it all done, I sort of set myself up for that grade. Anywho... here we go:

1. Vegas with my hubby! I still owe you all a post on this trip. So fun!

2. Finish another 1/2 Marathon Holiday Half December 11, 2011
3. Sew something that I am not embarrassed of- I never got around to posting about this, and now it seems a little weird to, but I made some Christmas pillows for our couch. They turned out cute though. Trust me on this
4. Reupholster something   Love my office chair!
5. Create a gallery wall- fail
6. Frame & display wedding pictures- fail. ( I almost tried to say I did it, because I printed and framed a couple pictures for my mother in law for Christmas.)
7. Lose some weight.- I think this is a fail. I haven't been on the scale in a while. But, I have decided I should figure out another way to measure a health goal. A friend of mine set a goal for hours working out for 2012, last year her goal was to finish 500 miles. These are great ways to measure this type of goal, without being a slave to the scale.
8. Go vegan for a week- Check
9. Cook a new recipe once a week- I did pretty good at this and it was fun
10. Let people know about this little blog and get some followers
11. Continue blogging 4-7 posts a week- Again I did pretty good, until this last couple of weeks.
12. Clean out the spare room (formally wedding room, now disaster room) Check It has now began to morph into a craft/sewing room
13. Paint the hall and bedroom- fail
14. Get a make-over and buy some of those products- fail
15. Send Christmas cards- Woop woop! This was my first year ever sending Christmas cards. I really wish I would have done it last year for our first married Christmas.
16. No fast food for a month Check
17. Take a necklace I inherited from my gramma in to have some links added- fail. I was really mad at myself for this because I wanted to wear it in Vegas.
18. Do something from my pinterest boards- done like 9 times over
19. Get a massage- so I bought a Groupon. Does that count?
20. Do a version of Stephanie O'Dea's Daily 7- nope
21. Meal plan for three weeks straight and follow the plan! Much to the Mister's dismay, I heart meal planning.
22. Go see a movie by myself- I really meant to. I went to the Blockbuster kiosk and rented a couple movies to watch by myself.
23. Have my eyes checked. - Again, I should get this done
24. Get a new work ID (with my married name)- I filled out the paperwork, I even went into the office for it, but I never sent it in. Fail
25. Take a cooking class- This one I actually have a good reason for: there was never a class I wanted to take. I still really want to do this, and am still looking up the classes.
26. Send birthday cards in the mail, even to people I see regularly: I did okay at this. I give myself 75% credit.
27. Stay a week ahead at work: yes I did.
28. Floss: Funniest quote from our Vegas getaway: "You can't take a vacation from flossing." As the mister throws a package of floss at me in our hotel.
29. Put 10% in savings from each paycheck- yup
30. Roast a whole chicken- nope.

So there you have it. I'm working on a new set of goals right now for 2012. Many of my uncompleted goals are going on that new list.

How do you keep yourself accountable for goals?