Falling behind or moving forward?

When the new year began I had big plans… I still do for that matter. I’ve just had to realize that if I want to see to it that I follow through with one set of plans, the other may have to sit back and wait a little for me to get to it.

This year is not about resolutions for me… it’s about setting goals and changing habits… which I guess is the same thing? Maybe not… I prefer to think not, since I have a hard time with resolutions. This year is the year of follow through for me… both on the blog and in the home. I am a GIANT procrastinator and am finally taking the steps to conquer that problem. Clutter bug? Well, I can’t say that I’m not one anymore, but I am taking great strides to stop being one. We are on the 7th day of the new year and so far I am very happy with the progress that I am making at home, not so much with the progress on the blog… but then again as my mother pointed out to me the other I never set a posting goal (for fear of not keeping to it). That said I did set up a posting calender here at home and did have something written down for each day… oh well those will be written eventually.

Anyway… my whole plan for this year was to set accomplishments that I would like to achieve… some bigger than others… some more important than others. The one that I found to be most important was the following:

• Declutter, decrap and clean the house… and keep it that way!!! I call this one DDC for short and  it’s what I have been working on since Monday. As I’ve mentioned before, I am a clutterbug… much to the dismay of my husband who isn’t one (except for when it comes to his clothes pile in the bedroom). I’ve tried to conquer this problem before, but with little success. This time though I am approaching the problem a little differently. I’m systematically going through each and every room this week and decluttering it while cleaning it. If I see a problem area, I eliminate it… sometimes adding furniture from other rooms or taking offending furniture out of the room, depending on the case. I only have our master bedroom left to clean and am loving how the house looks and feels so far! I’ve also made a “Daily Chore Chart” for myself… a guideline of sorts to follow so that I don’t feel overwhelmed trying to get everything done in one day… which almost never happened. I will start following that next week once the individual room cleaning has been finished.
• Paint and decorate the living spaces. Ray and I have been living in our townhouse for over 5 years now and we still have walls that are bare and (gasp) not painted. Before the kids came we were busy living life… riding on the motorcycle and going out with friends. The way our home looked really didn’t become a priority until we found out we were expecting. The only room we had painted prior to the pregnancy was out bedroom… we quickly added the  loft (now playroom) and Noah’s room (now kids room) to our “finished list”. This past year we redid the kids bathroom… but out of all of the rooms only Noah’s & Abby’s room  is completely finished and decorated. This will be changed… I will get paint up on all of the walls and have already started adding pictures and decorations to the others… I just need to get over my phobia of putting nails in the wall (thank goodness for 3M Command strips!!)
• Be creative – make 1 thing each week! I love crafting… any kind of crafting really… but get easily sidetracked by new projects and it takes me forever to complete the one I started on. While I was able to complete many of the projects on my list last year, I also started some that have yet to be finished (I’m 95% done on 3 of them!! Just need to set my butt down and finish it!). Anyway, I want to teach myself to sew better… and maybe open a shop??!!… so this year’s goal is to craft (of sew) at least one item a week. It’s a bit of a stretch… I really need to set aside time for me for this one… but it’s a goal I would love to accomplish!

So far I feel like I am taking strides in achieving these goals, yet at the same time I feel like I am falling behind. I have many items on my chore chart that I did not get crossed off this week, since I’ve been going through each room instead of following the chart. I will start following the chart next week though… it’s laminated and hanging on the fridge – nothing like holding yourself accountable! As for the painting, decorating and sewing… I did hang up 2 pictures this week… I actually put holes in the walls as opposed to using Command Strips and I bought some new things to help finish the kids bathroom. I have not even come close to crafting or sewing anything though… maybe I’ll try to work on that today.

Edit: I wrote this earlier and thought that I had hit post, but I guess I didn’t. I was able to work on some artwork for the kids bathroom. It’s not quite done yet, but so far I’m happy with how it looks and will be posting a picture of it soon!! =) I’ve also been working on some visual changes to the blog… I like how that is  coming together too and hope to reveal the new look soon!