In With The New

As I sat down a couple of weeks ago to begin outlining my 2013 goals in my sketchbook, I faced two minor dilemmas.

• One: what on earth am I supposed to dream of accomplishing this year when I crossed off "get engaged, graduate college, get a full-time job, get my own place, and get married" in the span of less than eight months in 2012? Let's be serious: anything less than "buy a house and have a baby" seems a little anti-climactic. Don't even think about it - those are not making the list of goals for quite sometime. I'm essentially maxed out on milestones over here.
• Two: are you aware that goal-setting has magically evolved into serious business? I'm talking twelve-step-program, one-little-word, hashtag-hashtag, multiple-online-workshops kinda serious business. Long gone are the days where it was good enough to make a simple list and then proceed to accomplish things. Oh, no. Women of the blogosphere must be more successful, more focused, more inspiring, more goal-oriented. Bigger dreams, bigger challenges, bigger risks, bigger rewards.

Pshh.


For both of these reasons alone, I have affectionately dubbed 2013 as "the year of the little things." And you know what? I'm excited about it. Like, really excited about it. I'm excited about little projects, little life accomplishments, little milestones. The little things tend to actually be the big things, you know :)





With all of that in mind, I present to you some of the things I want to accomplish in the next 12 months.
(Eh, 11 months & 11 days. Better late than never.) ;)

1. Complete my first Project Life album. I can't wait to share more about Project Life later this week, and hopefully incorporate it into weekly/biweekly posts throughout the year. I've been hooked on Project Life for the past six months or so, but waited until January 1st to actually start my album - a great way to document our first year of married life :)

2. Grow something. Considering I've never had much success with any living thing (apart from stalk of curly bamboo that lived in a vase of water in my dorm for nearly two years), I'll be pleased if there is more green than brown at the end of this endeavor. I'm not really picky with what the "something" is, although I should add "edible" to the end of this goal: grow something edible. Suggestions, anyone? Keep in mind that I'm in an apartment, so I don't actually have a yard full of soil to work with, here. What edible things can I grow in pots on a 100 square foot balcony?

3. Go camping. Such a simple little thing, but I couldn't be more stoked about finally being able to go camping with Zach. We spent every weekend in the woods surrounded by camp friends the summer we started dating (minus the tents - hammocks only), but we haven't had the chance to return to the great outdoors for days at a time since then. We got a tent and a couple of sleeping bags as wedding gifts & can't wait to use them as soon as it gets warm again!

4. Complete a monthly "color" project. I'm making up the guidelines to this as I go along, but be on the lookout for the January reveal at the end of this month. You knew I had to find some way to fill all of my free time now that I'm no longer planning a wedding ;)

5. Sew a quilt. I received a Singer Esteem II from my grandparents for Christmas in anticipation of this goal, so I'm already halfway there, right? :) My grandma taught me to sew when I was seven - first by hand, then by machine - and she helped me complete a patchwork quilt by my eighth birthday. I'm not sure how much I still remember after fifteen years, but fortunately, Grandma is only a phone call away... and there's always YouTube to fill in the gaps.

6. Celebrate ONE YEAR of having a full-time job. Woo, only 45 more years to go ;) Seriously, though, I think having a full-time job for an entire year at the age of 23 is a pretty big accomplishment, especially in today's world. More impressively, a job that I like and actually correlates with my college degree - oh, heyy. Bring it, July 1st.

7. Celebrate ONE YEAR of being married. At our wedding, we had cards on the table with questions for guests to answer, one of which was "Where should we go for our one year anniversary?" We loved reading the answers, which ranged from New York ("to see the ball drop" - definitely on my bucket list!) to Camp Bethel ("winter camp," obviously) to Fiji, Scotland, and a little bit of everything else in between. Considering we still haven't celebrated one month of being married, I think we still have some time to plan :) Nonetheless, I like that the end of 2013 brings this little milestone along with it.

8. Support Zach through his first year of college. That's right: Zach hung up his camouflage uniform for the last time and started hitting the textbooks a few days later. He's using his well-earned GI Bill to obtain a degree in Criminal Justice Technology before beginning a career in law enforcement. Fortunately, he just so happened to marry one of the world's greatest tutors. That may or may not be a slightly biased statement, but considering the fact that he's been in classes for two full weeks and has made As on all of his assignments so far, I'd say the tutor is pretty good ;)

And there you have it - the year of the little things :) Other potential little things for 2013 include permanently opening my Etsy shop, running a mile (yes, a mile - little things, remember?) and getting a kitty (MEOW). No promises, particularly on that whole running-a-mile thing :)

Happy new year, twenty days later :)