The Goals and The Gifts


Yesterday on the blog we talked about the word of the year. Mine is “Engage”. I had a lot of feedback on this post through email and social media. If you’d like to read it, click here. It seems that for those who engage themselves with others on a regular basis, it does lead to the wonderful reward of sharing joy and feelings of well being. I hope you’ll give it a try even if it is not your chosen word this year.

Today I want to share some of my goals for the year. I won’t bore you with all of them as there seem to be quite a lot this year! I have personal goals and work related goals. Let’s start with the personal ones…they include the usual suspects of exercise more and eat better. To add to that list, I’d also like to limit my own screen time, work on my scrapbooking, be better about backing up my computer files, print my Hawaii pictures and generally be more organized. Sound familiar? Oh and working on the ukulele lesson book!

Work related goals would be to actually treat my work as the business it is. I need to set my work hours, look at/review the financial numbers routinely, attend Quilt Market this fall, get all of my patterns onto Quilt Woman, continue to submit to magazines, continue the monthly podcast, bring good content to the blog, choose an education focus (color theory and applique drawing on EQ7), attend quilt guild regularly.

Aside from these goals, there are several quilt projects that I want to make for personal use. These include finishing Leah’s turtle quilt, making the music school donation quilt for June and of course, using the patterns I have and working on Zentangle. I also need to continue to make Comfort Bears for the police station.

So it’s a long list but it’s totally doable. It’s only January 3rd…plenty of time.
Speaking of new patterns, I received three for Christmas from my mom.

photo 1 (1)

Two are Cynthia England patterns where I will learn how to piece those fabulous backgrounds. The other pattern is to make those cozy slippers. I have some that are store bought and I love them. I thought it would be fun to make my own for the family.

I had to laugh that the last Christmas gifts I purchased for the girls this year turned out to be their three favorite gifts! They weren’t toys or electronics either. You might like these ideas for future gift giving…they were all in the $40-$60 dollar range and found on Amazon.

Amanda received a breakfast sandwich maker and she has been creating delicious breakfast sandwiches since the day after Christmas! It poaches the egg, toasts the English muffin/bagel/toast and warms the bacon/ham/sausage. Yummmmmy.

photo 4 (1)

photo 5 (1)

Leah received a shake maker, spoons and metal shake cups…she has been creating really yummy milk shakes/frappes all week. Mocha is her specialty.

photo (1)

Lindsey received an Aqua Farm. It is a fish tank on the bottom and grows plants on the top. The fish waste feeds the plants (she currently is growing wheat grass) and the plant nutrients break down, filter back to the tank and keep it clean. Meet Oswald, our new Betta fish. We will also be getting a snail to help keep the tank clean.

photo 3 (1)

One of the gifts that I am looking forward to using (aside from my Cricut machine) is also for scrapbooking. This is called the Slider Writer and it is a clip board type item with a laser beam so that you can write on your scrapbook pages evenly without using a ruler to mark straight lines and then having to go back and erase those lines. You can set the laser to go diagonally if you want slanted writing. I think I’ll find a million uses for this…

photo 2 (1)

How are you doing on your goal list so far?

Share

One response to “The Goals and The Gifts”

  1. That slider writer is a really clever idea! I should look for one for my daughter – she’s not a scrapbooker, but she is an elementary school teacher. I’m sure she would find a lot of uses for it too!

Leave a Reply