So The New Year Is Upon Us

 

Now that 2010 is here, I am spending my day making a list of goals for myself.  I don't make resolutions. A "resoulution" is an "act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure..", and what I am doing is by no means a determined course of action. I find that in my life, setting out on a course of action usually leads to something other than what I started out to do. So, if I set goals instead, no matter what course of action leads me to the desired result is ok.

Some of my goals are simple, direct things that accomplish a specific task:

I want to clean up my computer, and by that, I DO NOT mean dusting off the screen. I want to get rid of files no longer needed; bookmarks that lead to pages that make me wonder why I bookmarked them to start with; organize folders in some kind of order that make sense, and put the ones I use the most at the top of the list. If I accomplish that, it will make my days infinitely better and help me save time. 

I want to get organized in my life. I do so many different things that I sometimes just get overwhelmed with the list. I want to make myself a schedule, so that I have an hour a day to write; an hour a day to sew, an hour a day to play, and an hour a day to exercise. (Not that putting the hour a day on my calendar will actually make me do those things...)

 

I want to get a tripod and learn to take better photos. If I had done that last year, this photo of the gorgeous blue moon rising over Payne Lake on New Years Eve would have been better than this:

Other goals may prove to be a little harder for me to do, but not starting to work in that direction will assure me that they won't get done:

I want to move my blog to a hosted website with my own URL. I have some very specific and some other vague goals for myself for this blog, and have already started working towards them. I want it to be the most Fab blog, ever. (Now how is THAT for a goal???)

I want to get my Etsy store up to date, and get all the purty things I sew listed on there for sale. I want procrastination to be a thing of the past.

I have a goal to get all my gluten free recipes sorted out, typed up, and presented in some type of cookbook, whether it is an e-book or a printed one. There are other gluten free cookbooks out there, but I am a southern girl who cooks in a "southern" way. I want other gluten free cooks from the south to feel comfortable in the kitchen, making all those mahvelous southern comfort foods we grew  up on, minus the gluten.

I want to make myself a quilt with these fabrics. I have already started it, by cutting all the pieces. All I have to do now is the sewing (HA! that's easy to say!)  I have a baby quilt to make, and a couple of other big sewing projects that I want to finish by spring, but of all my goals, this one will probably be the easiest for me to accomplish.

So, there it is, out there for public consumption, and public scrutiny. Making these goals public will put me at greater risk of completing them. What are YOUR goals for the year 2010?

Time To Confess: 55 Days Since The Last Big Shopping Trip

Way back on February 27 was the last time we made a big grocery shopping trip. I had made a personal goal to post a recipe for what we ate for dinner every night until the next time we shopped, but as you know, THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. I am not so good at sticking with the program on things like that, but I DO enjoy this budget thing. It helps me stay somewhat on a grocery budget when I have to publicly report how well or how bad I did with a goal.

So, here are the results of this last venture:

Wal-Mart and Frye's 2-27: $416.33
in-between trips thru 4-20: 222.35
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total grocery bill 55 days $ 638.68

That comes out to $11.61 per day, or $81.62 per week. Not as good as I wanted, but not as bad as it could have been. We bought a ham for $10.00 the week before Easter; I bought some chard, artichokes, asparagus, and avocados at various times when we were out. This also includes shopping at some small stores that had high prices.

I also have to say, that we had about 1/4 of the ham left, as well as the ham bone; some tilapia; and a couple of other things that could have made about 6 more days of meals. I would have stretched it out that far if we hadn't been getting ready to go to our job at the Grand Canyon. So, what do you think? Good or bad?

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up...

I know if I refused to participate in these Meme's that 1. people would stop tagging me, and 2. people would stop reading me. So what are you gonna do? I was tagged by Witchypoo over at Psychicgeek, who really makes me laugh, so I have to do this.

The tag is for a Meme, in which I have to list eight things I want to do before I die. Once upon a time, there was a lot of things I wanted to do, and places I wanted to go, so it would have been really easy to this several years ago. But now? It has taken me days to think about this. I have most of what I want, and have been to or have plans in the works for going to most of the places I want to go. So, yeah, this one has been hard for me.

1. I want to lose 50 pounds. And somehow, I often think that I will die much too early if I don't lose 50 pounds. I really need to do this one because I want to be around to still be FabGrandma for my gran chilluns.

2. I want to learn how to speak Spanish fluently. I want to do this because I will need to know how to do it if I get to:

3. Spend the winter in La Paz, Mexico, down at the end of the Baja. I want to loll on the beach, eat fish tacos til I pop, and take a ferry ride over to that island where the Blue Footed Boobies live.

4. I want to add Blue Footed Boobies to my lifetime list. For those of you who are not birdwatchers, a lifetime list is "just" a list of the different birds you have seen whilst birdwatching.

5. I want to publish a cookbook. Yeah, Me. I have one in the works, but have not gotten very far with it. A few years ago, all the members of my family--sister, sisters-in-love, nieces, some nephews, mother, etc., all wrote down our recipes and made up a family cookbook. All the new brides in our family get a copy of it, and let me tell you, it has probably saved a couple of marriages on that side of the family. But this new cookbook I have in mind is solely my creation, and will remain secret until I get further down the road with it.

6. I want to own a really good digital camera. Not a cheap one. I want one with multiple lenses, that will take excellent pictures of Blue Footed Boobies and Gluten Free Cherry Pie. One that will cost a month's pay, but that will let me take pictures worthy of selling and suitable for framing.

7. A short term goal I have is to have to buy new pants before this season is over in mid-October. I ain't telling what size I wear, just suffice it to say it is way too big. And even one size smaller would be one small step for womankind, and make this old lady very happy. Oh, and this is probably almost the same as #1, but because it is so important, I have put it in here twice, and because if I accomplish this one, it will help me to accomplish #8:

8. I want to be able to hike the Grand Canyon on the Kaibab Trail, from the North Rim to the South Rim. I want to stay overnight at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon. I want to drench myself in the Colorado River, and see for myself the waterfalls at Havasu Falls, Ribbon Falls, and Roaring Springs. Even seeing one of them would make it for me.

So, there you have it. I am not tagging anyone to do this, but if you decide on your own to list your eight things you want to do before you die, please come back here and leave a comment so I will know you have done it and I can come over and read what you want to do, OK?