Something to Scrap About: My 2014 goals

Monday, January 6, 2014

My 2014 goals

As promised, I am here with my New Year's resolutions, and some cards.

I have written before about my thoughts om resolutions. I'm not a huge fan; they can be things that just serve to demoralize people when they end up not meeting their aims. I think a lot of times that's because people are externally motivated. They take on what they think they should do, rather than what they really feel called to do in their hearts. If you say you're going to lose weight, or give up sugar, or stop drinking pop (one of my issues) to please others, it will not happen - or at the very least, it is highly likely it won't be sustainable.

So after some time in prayer, I made some decisions. I had gone back and forth as to whether I wanted to do the 'One Little Word' Challenge. I admit that initially I didn't quite get the point. In time, though, I saw how it could work for me and I've decided to take on a word for the year. I started with the word 'roar.' That sat wrong with me because, quite frankly, I couldn't bring myself to grab inspiration from a Katy Perry song, no matter how much some part of it speaks to me. Then I fell back on the word 'brave,' - also a song title, but one by an artist I like more. It still felt wrong, though; I wanted a word that captured both somehow.
I spent some time looking at concordances, thinking about favourite bible verses, studies, past conversations with my pastor, and sermons that spoke to me, and I found the word. My word. My word is BOLD. That word encompasses where I am at in life. A lot of what I mean by that is pretty personal, so I will leave it there. My other 2014 goals are:

I'm doing the Goodreads challenge again. I have a lot of books on my shelf calling to me, and I genuinely love to read. I'm aiming for 40 books - I think I can do more, but I know I can do 40. You can find me here

I'm going to work on my health. I would like to aim for one to two pounds per month, but I'm less concerned about that than just being more mindful in what I eat and how I take care of myself overall.

I'm going to finish my cousin R's album, do one for my cousin DJ, and get up to date on Jade's. R and J are both almost done; I have a bit of embellishing to do and I need to put the pages in the albums. DJ I haven't started, but I'll use R's as a model so it won't take long.

I'm going to get MY pages in albums, and I'm going to get our family's negatives and older photos on to CD.

I'm doing the Christmas Card Challenge (10/month) and the 100 Cards in 100 Days Challenge at Splitcoast. For the 100 cards challenge, my Stamper's 10 Club cards and the ones I sometimes make on Monday's at the stamp store (the $2 Coffee & A Card), don't count, but Christmas cards made at those places do.

I'm considering doing a challenge where I use all my stamps at least once this year. I'm not willing to commit to that one yet, though. It depends how many sets I have; I want to do an inventory first.

Well that was a lot of chatter. Here's a photo of the cards I finished up last week when my Scrappin' Sisters and I got together on the 2nd. The two single cards are from a fundraiser in the fall that the local stamp store put on for cancer. I wasn't there; I just bought the kits. It was the same weekend the scrapbook store put on their yearly event for Children's Hospital. The other cards were from a day we had here at my place in November or December. I'm friends with a CTMH demo and we had a crop here. We usually have it in her Mom's common room, but she was ill at the time.

Note - yes, the bottom right card is upside down in the photo. It isn't in real life; I just didn't realize what I had done when I put it down to photograph and I don't have time to fix it right now. The two cards are exactly the same save for the fact that I switched the dsp over and used the other side on one.