2015 Goals Review

I started 2015 with some pretty big goals, even if there were only 8 of them. Several of them were large and on-going.

I'll tell you know that I didn't finish them all. I accomplished some. Got close on some of them. And missed the mark on others.

BUT. But despite that, I did put forth a good faith effort. I did work hard. And as I look back, I did accomplish a lot! Since it's good to see the big picture, I thought I would round up what I did manage to accomplish this year here!

1. Make a granny square every weekday of 2015: This one was completed. I made two blankets for our house and one for a friend. I made a lot of granny squares and used up a lot of yarn! And I like the two blankets that are gracing our couches a lot!

2. Read 40 books, with 30 of them being from the Rory Gilmore Reading List: I blew this one out of the water. I read 56 books. A few were children's books, but it was over 18,000 pages that I read (or listened to). I did read 29 off the Rory Gilmore List. Even though it's not the 30 I wanted to read, I'm calling it finished anyway. I could split hairs, but I'm not going to. Because 29 is close enough!

Needlepoint on Jan 11

3. Organize three years worth of digital pictures: I was short 4 months of this goal. However, I went through thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures. I will carry this same goal through to the new year, but I'm going to modify it a bit. Instead of 36 months of pictures, my goal will be 36 folders. Some months have an extra folder for vacations/sporting pictures/etc. Those folders have as many pictures in them as a regular month, and many have even more! If I count folders, I did 37 this past year, so hence I'm calling this one done as well.

4. Organize scrap-booking items/keepsakes: I jumped in and tackled this in January last year so it was done, finished and out of the way for the rest of the year. It's nice to have something to cross off right away!

Needlepoint on Dec 31

5. Finish a train embroidery project: While I worked on this a lot this year, probably about 100 hours of needlepoint, it is not finished. And it still has a lot of work to go. So while this isn't finished, and maybe isn't even half-way finished, I'm happy of what I accomplished. And am quite driven to finish it in 2016!

6. Make money from my knitting: Technically I did. I made and sold one blanket. This isn't quite what I had in mind a year ago, selling things on a regular basis is not on my radar for the time being.

Blanket I made to order!

7. Blog twice a week: I had 92 posts in 2015. With 30 of them being in November. I fell short of this pretty consistently. And while the average overall, is kind of close (1.7 posts per week), I'm calling this not accomplished. And we'll try again next year!

8. Comment on other blogs more: While I did comment more than I had been, I did not comment enough either. But it's good to keep doing this, so in 2016, we'll see this goal again too, but with more direction. Comment more is pretty wide open ... if I left just one comment more than 2014, technically I've done it, right? But not what I had in mind. So hopefully less vagueness in 2016 will get me there!

In the next day or two, I will post 2016 goals. A lot will be the same, or similar. That might not be very exciting, but many of these projects are smaller chunks of larger goals, so I'm okay with repeating several goals for the next 2 or 3 or maybe 10 years (yes, one big goal will take me 10 years to accomplish!). I don't mind having long, long term goals. But I do need to break them down into smaller chunks, hence, each year's goal!

Did you set goals in 2015? How did you do with yours? Share in the comments!

Needlepoint

At the start of the year, I set a goal to finish a needlepoint project I had started, oh, about 4 years ago from now.

Needless to say, it's been in progress for a long time, and this year, I was determined to finish it.

Despite my best efforts, I haven't made it quite as far as I wanted to. I set aside about 30-60 minutes a week to work on it, and have been able to do most weeks.

I think, that this goal will have to extend to next year honestly.

That said, I've done a lot of work on it and it's starting to come together.

How it looked January 10

How it looks today

I realize it doesn't look like much, but I assure you that this is a lot of stitching.

It's supposed to be for my son. As he grows older, I realize he might not be as into trains as he was 4 years ago. So I want to finish it in time to give it to him and have him love it.

He picked it out those four years ago. Every so often he asks me how it's going. And if he sees me working on it, he tells me "You're doing a great job mom!"

So, while another year might pass before I can give it to him, here's hoping that another year is all it needs!

UFO: Week 1

So, the first week of the UFO Challenge has come to an end and I feel like I made a lot of great progress so far!

Three stuffed animals were repaired and returned to two very happy to have them back children. However, mr. snakey here developed a new tear in only a few minutes, which I fixed right away to save him from being stuck in the repair pile for another 2 years LOL! I want to mend a few more things next week and get those items out of the way. Truthfully, mending is my least favorite thing to do. And that's why I think the mending projects sit forever.


I also did some great work on the photo project. 90% of the photos were already scanned in (which was a lot of work in itself. I have one album left to finish. Last week I went through 8 albums worth of scanned photos and straightened/cropped them. I'm using a photo scanner, but it doesn't always pick up the photos properly and I don't always feed them straight. Next, I need to go through and label the photos with whatever was on the back of the original photo. Again, this will be my biggest focus until it's all done (hopefully within 2 weeks!)

And I was able to find time to work on my needlepoint project.

 This is how it looked before I started working on it. At the end of the 7 weeks, I'm hoping to have a picture with a lot of progress shown! Although it did dawn on me, I'm not a fast needlepointer. And if I only do 5 hours of work, you probably won't see a huge difference, but hey, it's five hours more of work than I had before. I probably won't work on it for the next few weeks though. This is a project I can take with me on vacation (we'll have a lot of travel time) and so I need to focus on the ones that won't be so portable! But my son (whom I am making this for) is so happy to see me working on it. Who knows. It might be in his room by the end of the year if I can just stay motivated enough to finish it!

How did your week go? Did you make a lot of progress on your projects? Let me know!

Actual crafting

Once upon a time, there was a girl who started a blog to share some of the crafty projects she was making. She wrote about knitting, sewing, and other crafty things she made. Sometimes, she strayed and wrote about reading or her children or other various things, but for the most part she wrote about crafting.

But then one day, her lovely little blog was taken over by an evil monster: breast cancer. And where once she wrote about knitting and sewing, she now wrote about side effects and exhaustion. Where she once shared pictures of her projects, she now shared pictures of her bald head.

But the brave blogger fought back. She knew she would not allow cancer to take over the blog forever. And so today she is here to show you a new project she is working on!

 Last week, I went to Hobby Lobby to pick some stuff up. My five-year-old saw this needlepoint project and begged me to get it to make it for him. So naturally, I bought the kit and began work on it. This isn't the easiest project for me to work on right now because my fingers are still bothering me. But, it's also not that bad and it's given me a lovely new project to do.

Some of my long-term readers might remember that I like to start new projects at the beginning of things, like the start of the new year or a big vacation we are taking. So, while I'm technically not done with treatment yet, I'd like to consider this a new project for starting life after treatment. And not only is this a new project, but it's a new craft for me. I've never done needlepoint before. So far I'm enjoying it and can't wait to see the finished product hanging in my son's bedroom.

For now, I'll just show you a picture here or there as I get more work done on it. And just because I can, I won't tell you what the picture is yet. Instead, I'll let you have some fun by trying to figure out what I'm making!