January 2011 Goals Update

The year has barely begun, but I’m off to a great start on my goals list! Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:

Goals Completed:

#8 Make a bobble scarf

Did you see the bobble scarf that I made? I love it and I’ve worn it practically every day since I finished it!

#26 Sort and purge my fabric stash

I used to have three big plastic bins and two cardboard boxes full of fabric in the basement, but I sorted through it and now I’ve only got one plastic bin and one cardboard box. Yay, me! Most of what’s left is quilting fabric, but I’ve got a bit of garment fabric too. I’m really not very good at sewing clothes though so I pulled most of the garment fabric out with the exception of some flannel that I’m hoping to use to make pajama pants for the kids.

I’m also going to make a concerted effort to use a bunch of the quilting fabric this year. I was an avid quilter for years, but I dropped the hobby almost completely when I started scrapbooking. I always loved designing and piecing the quilt tops, but I really didn’t enjoy the actual process of quilting, so I’ve got several WIP’s sitting around. I’d like to finish some of those, as well as make a quilt for each of the boys.

#30 Find the basement/mailbox keys!

I have to admit that I felt kind of silly when I put this one on my goals list for the year, but these keys were missing for almost a month and it was a near daily annoyance.  I am a much happier person now that I have these guys back in my possession. I ended up finding them dead-center under the seat cushion of our purple chair. I have a feeling that someone — who shall remain nameless but who is roughly 30 inches tall and says “NO!” a lot — is responsible for their initial disappearance.

#33 Get a new couch.

Zach fixed our couch! Yay! Yay!

Our couch has been broken for over a year, but we haven’t had the money to replace it, so we’ve just been living with it. We’re not particularly handy people and we tried to fix it a couple times before with no success, but Zach finally decided that he was going to repair it come Hell or high water. After 3 hours, two broken screws and two trips to the hardware store, he finally managed to fix it and we’ve been living in non-broken couch luxury ever since.

I know that technically fixing the couch doesn’t equate to getting a new one, but what I was after with this goal was a normal, non-embarrassing place for ourselves and our guests to sit, so I’ve decided that this goal is complete. I’d love to get a new slip-cover for it too, but at this point that would be gravy.

Goals In Progress:

#7 Make 40 scrapbook pages

1 done!

#22 Clear out the basement storage room and Freecycle like crazy.
#23 Clear the clutter from my bedroom.
#24 Get rid of half the stuff in the office.

Did I mention that we’re moving? We rented a new house a mere 850 feet from the one we’re in now. This means that I’m packing and purging like crazy and I’ve been making tremendous progress on the three worst spots in our house. My goal is to not put anything in a box that I don’t use regularly (with the exception of a few sentimental items that I want to keep around) so I’ve been listing stuff on my local Freecycle list practically every day and the lady at the Goodwill donation center knows me by name now.

#27 Add at least four bento videos to Wendolonia

I’ve put up two videos already this month, another is coming tomorrow and I have one more in the works!

#38 Leave more comments on the blogs I enjoy

This one is hard to quantify, but I’ve been making a concerted effort to chime into the conversation on blog posts I enjoy. I know that I love to get comments here — and I don’t know a single blogger who doesn’t like comments — so I’m trying to let people know that I appreciate their hard work and the ideas they share with me via their blogs. My blog reading has been limited because I’ve been so busy with our move the last couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to do an even better job with this in the coming months.

#43 Read 12 books

My first book of the year was World War Z by Max Brooks, a book about the zombie apocalypse. It was really good. I know what you’re thinking, but really — it was actually very good. Not too silly and very realistic. You have to be able to suspend your disbelief about the rise of a zombie army, of course, but once you do it’s a very well thought-out story that examines the government and army screw-ups that would most likely occur and how ill-prepared most Americans are for a disaster. And truth be told, reading it is part of the reason I added my emergency preparedness goals (#41 & 42) to my list of goals for the year.

How are your goals going so far? Are you reading anything good, making any cool crafts, or de-cluttering?