Abbie's Real Life Blog

Well, so my project of quarterly resolutions might not have turned out as well as I hoped.  I did get some stuff done, but I didn’t get all of it done.

Stuff I Got Done:

• The roof is done.  The roof is done!  The gutters and the skylight were replaced!  Woo!  I have a good roof under my head and a solid foundation over my feet.  Or whatever.  Anyway, that’s done.  The last thing left on the ‘big shit to fix on the house’ list.
• I cleaned out the garage.  It looked fabulous.  Then winter hit and we tracked cinders and salt all over the place, but it still looks good.
• I read the books I wanted to read.
• I met up with my International Center friend and she came to Thanksgiving.
• I had dinner with my grandparents regularly.
• I participated in the October rotation for the Columbia Art League, and I’m participating in the January rotation as well.  With some luck, I should have a new group of photos for it.
• I went on some hikes and took autumn photos.
• My sister and I continued our exercise schedule.

Stuff I Didn’t Get Done:

• Most of the gardening.  I think I did one flowerbed as a result of the resolutions list, but I didn’t move any shrubs or get any new mulch.  There are only so many weekends, especially once it gets dark so early.
• I didn’t take anything to Goodwill or put anything on Freecycle.  I did bag a bunch of stuff up, but I failed to go through on that.
• I bought the high heels and never wore them.  They’re painful!
• I only watched one AFI movie (Patton).  It’s not like I haven’t had time for movies, but I’ve been moving through The X-Files instead.  The AFI movies require a little more focus than the television shows while I’m working on photos.
• I didn’t finish the California pictures.  I don’t know why.  I mean, I’ve had a lot of stuff to do and a lot of photos to process over the past eight months, but it’s not like I couldn’t have done them.  But I think maybe I don’t want to sully the memory of a really excellent, wonderful trip.  Working on the photos reminds me a little of it now that some of the memory has started to fade, so maybe I’ll get more done in the next few weeks.  I really want to show them at the Jeff City Photo Club in February.

What was successful about the quarterly resolutions was that I didn’t forget about them!  I did not forget that I was supposed to be cleaning out the flowerbeds; I just never did it.  Three months is short enough to remember my goals, but long enough to procrastinate plenty.

So let’s write up the goals for First Quarter of 2009, eh?  Let’s see how we do this time around.

New or unfinished goals:

• Yardwork!  I tend to get pretty atypically gung-ho about gardening in late February and early March, which is a good time to be doing all the things that I want to get done, like the flowerbeds and the shrubs and the mulching.
• Clean out the closet in the guest bedroom.  It won’t be hard- there’s only one shelf of stuff that you can’t name off the top of your head.  The rest of it is photography equipment, luggage, and off-season clothes.  See?  Not so hard.
• Clean out the attic.  There’s not that much up there, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  Lots of it can be taken to Goodwill or put on Freecycle.  Speaking of which…
• Take that stuff to Goodwill or put it on Freecycle!  You’ll never ever have a garage sale.  You’ll never want any of that stuff again.  Get it out of the house.
• Hello, California pictures.
• Five AFI movies.  Five.  (For real!  Those Westerns don’t require that much focus, and you’re going to run out of X-Files soon enough.)
• Put together a list of big stuff that will have to be bought for the move in June.
• Make arrangements to go to Orlando in January and maybe again in April.
• Come up with a good layout for the front page of the photography website and implement it.
• Come up with a few prints and greeting cards to sell on Etsy, just to see.

And continue with these:

• Three books.
• Continue exercise schedule.
• Regular visits with grandparents and International Center friend.
• Participate in the January and March rotations with the Columbia Art League.  If you don’t manage this new exhibit for January, then it should go on for March.

Ok, then.  So let’s see where we are in three months.  Time moves just too fast, you know.