RaptorMama

Oh my gosh, it is so cold here. We’re on our second ice day! Unlike 2021, we currently have power ::knock on wood:: so we’re actually really enjoying it. I even let Kate and Xander go outside and play in it! Mia looked at us like we were insane for leaving the warm house. Kind of think she might have the right idea. 😉

But we had fun. 🙂 I switched my lens out for my macro one- so fun!

I’m actually pretty proud of this shot! And now, back to the goals.

January

1. 10k steps a day. Well, I’m averaging 8,463 steps a day which is a step up from the 6,238 I averaged for 2022. I tried to find how many days I actually got over 10K steps, but my phone and I are currently in a stand off. lol.
2. Old Project Life. Done! I got 4 weeks of 2021 done. 🙂
3. New Project Life. Done! I got the first 4 weeks of 2023 done and I am thrilled!
4. Old Scrapbook. I didn’t get August of 2019 done, but I did get February 2021 done so that’s something.
5. New Scrapbook. Done! I am all caught up and January 2023 is finished! Yay!
6. Ice Cream Soda. This quilt is in time out.
7. Africa. Still trying to get our flights booked, but we’re working on it.
8. Doll House. I didn’t get a bookshelf made, but I did make a fish tank and that’s pretty awesome.
9. Girl Scout Cookies. Well, we’re not done yet, but we are getting closer and so far it’s been ok.
10. Valentine’s Day. Behind as per usual, but I did start a new tradition last night that I’m pretty excited about. I cut out hearts and I’m writing down one thing I love about each of them every night between now and Valentine’s Day and taping them to their doors. So cute!

So February Goals.

1. 2023 Project Life. I’d like to get caught up and do February in real time. That’s 4 weeks.
2. Old Project Life. Fingers crossed I can keep the momentum going. I’d like to get 4 weeks done in one of the old Project Life albums.
3. 2023 Scrapbook. Keep current! January went really well and I’m hoping I can get some systems in place to keep this up.
4. Old Scrapbook. I’s like to get 1 old month done. My current (delusional) plan is to keep current while knocking out 1 old month each month so I can (very slowly) catch up.
5. Heart Quilt. I didn’t really get any quilting done last month. This month, I’d like to piece the backing for my heart quilt.
6. Girl Scout Cookies. ::sob::
7. Beach Trip. I’d really love to make a day trip down to the beach. I love the beach so much and it’s a huge recharge for me. Bonus is that in the winter, it’s so cold that my kids don’t want to go out in the water!
8. Spring Break. Make a spring break plan! We’re going to do it as a staycation so I want to make a plan. Initially I was thinking “all the Austin things!” but then I remembered that spring break in also SXSW. Hmm… Will need to ponder this further.
9. Wood Signs. I’ve decided to make some wooden signs to sell on Etsy. Um, I need to figure all of this out.
10. Hexies. My poor neglected hexies. I want to pull these back out and get to quilting!

It’s January 1st! You know what that means, right? It’s the few weeks of the year when I’m motivated to tackle things! So let’s see… Shall we look at the 2022 goals?

1. Monthly Adventures. We didn’t manage to go on an explicit monthly adventure day where RaptorDad took the day off of work EVERY month, but we did manage quite a few! Highlights being the Ice Cream Museum for my birthday and Barton Springs to celebrate back to school. I’m going to give us credit for this anyway because we also tried a ton of new local restaurants for lunch dates!
2. House Reorganization. Well, we didn’t end up getting the new wood floors because we found out that peanut needed hearing aids! But we were super thankful that we had the wood floor money set aside and we could get her the hearing aids when she needed them. Plus they’re pink and blue and *adorable* and her speech has exploded since getting them! Plus, I’m giving us credit for this anyway, because we managed the room swap/ playhouse tear down and it’s been amazing. My new art room is *chef’s kiss.*
3. Road Trip. This got put on hold, but we are tentatively planning to take a 1 month road trip all the way up to Maine this summer. As soon as we find out about RaptorDad’s bonus and our tax return we will finalize plans for this summer or keep planning for summer 2024. 🙂
4. Past Project Life. Um, well, about that. lol. I did finish 2020 so that’s something. And I went from 27 missing layouts in 2021 to 23. Some forward progress at least.
5. Current Project Life. I failed pretty spectacularly at this. I’m missing 39 layouts from 2022.
6. Past Scrapbooks. Well, I didn’t do so hot with this goal either. That said, I went from 10 missing months in 2019 to 5. And I got 1 more month of 2020 and 2 more months of 2021 done. But still. Momma needs to pick up the pace in a big way.
7. Current Scrapbook. I got 4 months done. Leaving 8. So I guess on the upside I did get a total of 12 months of layouts done and I’m not *further* behind? Except that now I’ve added a whole year to the mix… Maybe I should stop typing while I’m ahead.
8. Bucilla Advent Calendar. I didn’t manage to completely finish this, but I got it done *enough* that we were able to use it this year.
9. Smitten Quilt. I actually finished the top! I want to hand quilt it so it’s going to have to wait until I’m done with the hexagons.
10. Butterfly/ Caterpillar Quilts. This still aren’t labeled, but I’m counting them as done anyway. They’re hanging in the twin’s bedroom and they love them. 🙂 I even entered the caterpillars in the Austin Quilt Show!

And the December Goals?

1. Sub 15 days. No lie, I didn’t think I was going to make it, but I did!!!
2. Buy all the things. Done.
3. Africa Trip. We got travel insurance! And RaptorDad got me hiking boots for Christmas! We haven’t booked our flights yet just because we’re waiting for the tour people to get back to us to see if they can get better rates than us.
4. Evaluate Goals. hahahahahaha.
5. Sports. Ugh. I dropped the ball on this and we missed the registration deadlines. ::sigh::
6. Teacher Gifts. Target gift cards to the rescue!
7. December Montessori Trays. Done! I pulled out our Santa stuff much to her delight.
8. Advent Calendar. Done enough.
9. Advent Activities. I didn’t do great on this one this year, but I’m trying to give myself some grace and remember that we can do fun things next year too.
10. Hexagons. I made some good progress on this!

So new annual goals? Hmm… I’m honestly not sure for this year.

1. Old Project Life. ::sigh:: Maybe I can focus on 2021? I talked more about this in my scrappy update post, but I am missing 23 layouts in 2021 and 39 in 2022. I once again considered throwing in the towel on this project, but the thought of that made me so sad that I just ordered an album and page protectors for 2023. lol. Maybe instead of an annual goal, I’ll just keep a running total this year and try to be less behind that I currently am by the end of the year.
2. Current Project Life. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’d love to do these in real time.
3. Old Scrapbooks. Um, I’m not even sure where to start. What’s an actual realistic goal… Maybe to finish 12 months of old scrapbooks before the end of the year? That won’t get me anywhere near caught up, but it would be a good start.
4. Current Scrapbooks. Do them in real time!!! Also, only do 1 or 2 layouts a month. More realistically, 5 or 6?
5. Lose 30 pounds. Not sure how feasible this one is. I didn’t manage to lose any more weight this year, in fact I regained about 7 pounds. BUT, I’m still down 45 pounds and keeping that off feels like a major accomplishment! I’d really like to get in better shape before Africa and to shrink my butt a bit before I sit in an airplane that long. lol.
6. Africa. Speaking of Africa, I need to get ready!
7. Hexagons. I want to finish this beast!
8. Try New Things! I am leaving this goal deliberately vague to promote creativity. lol. But I want to push myself to try something completely new once a month. That can be a new craft technique, a new restaurant, a crazy recipe- I just want to push myself to say YES more this year.
9. Crafty Nights. RaptorDad and I are thinking of making a YouTube channel! More because RaptorDad wants to play with videography than a desire for a bunch of followers. hahahahaha. I thought about making a goal of 12 videos in the year, but then I decided to reevaluate given that we don’t actually care if the videos ever get posted. I’m making a goal that we have (at least) 1 video worthy craft night a month. We’re wanting to make a doll house so we have lots of inspiration!
10. Felt. Always felt. lol. I *really* need to finish the advent calendar. And then make 3 new stockings. And no, we’re not having triplets! Or any babies! But I want to make our puppy a new stocking. And I want to make myself a grown up stocking and I found the *cutest* kit! And then RaptorDad needed a new grown up one too! Will I finish this? Outlook not good. lol. But we’ll see.

Which brings us to January goals! And since this is the world’s longest (picture-less!) blog post, I’ll keep them brief.

1. 10k steps a day. I am embarrassingly out of shape so baby steps? 10 thousand of them? A day? hahahahahaha
2. Old Project Life. 4 layouts.
3. New Project Life. 4 layouts.
4. Old Scrapbook. August 2019. If by some miracle I finish that, January 2020.
5. New Scrapbook. January 2023.
6. Ice Cream Soda. Finish round 6. Prep round 7.
7. Africa. Book flights and research travel vaccines.
8. Doll House. Make some books for the bookshelf!
9. Girl Scout Cookies. ::sob:: I’m the cookie mom for Peanut’s troop again this year. Survive.
10. Valentine’s Day. Remember, for once, that Valentine’s Day does not come at the end of the month like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas would have you believe. Give some thought to some fun kid activities!

Oh my gosh. Y’all, I started scrapbooking in 1997. 1997!!! For the last several years, I’ve contemplated giving up, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m not a quitter y’all! So I sat down this afternoon to see just how dire the situation is. Um, it’s pretty dire. Let’s start with Project Life since it’s not AS dire.

I started Project Life in 2011, and if we overlook the fact that I never made a book for 2014, I’m caught up through the end of 2020. I need to do 23 more weekly layouts for 2021 and 39 weekly layouts for 2022. Then obviously 52 for 2023. lol.

The scrapbooks… Ugh. I don’t have a layout list, but I need to finish August, September, October, November, and December. Of 2019. TWENTY-NINETEEN! ::shame:: For 2020, I still need to do January, September, October, November, and December. Also, I need to make monthly dividers since I’ve decided that the monthly calendar layouts suck. (September only needed the calendar so it will be done as soon as I figure out the dividers.) For 2021, I need to do February, March, April, May, June, July, September, November, and December. And for 2022, I need to do March, April, May, June, September, October, November, and December.

Oh my. To sum up, I need to do 62 Project Life layouts and 26 months worth of scrapbook layouts. Then the stuff for 2023. I’m not sure how I plan to tackle this yet, but stay tuned!

How on earth is it December?!? And December 3rd, no less! I swear, this semester has been flying by. But, we had a very successful Thanksgiving, my mom and I officially booked our trip to Africa (even paid the deposit!), and I got the initial Girl Scout cookie order sorted out for Mia’s troop. Yay! Let’s see how November went goals wise.

1. Clean all the things. Done! Or at least as done as it was going to get. lol. RaptorDad even organized the pantry!
2. Survive Photo Sessions. Done! I had to reschedule a bunch of them due to weather, but I got all 7 sessions edited and out to the clients. Yay! I’m actually pretty happy with how the images turned out. 🙂
3. Advent Calendar. Ugh. I didn’t work on this at all. :/ But I hung it up anyway and we’re really going to enjoy the 1st 6 days. lol.
4. Thanksgiving Menu Planning. Thanksgiving went so well! Largely because RaptorDad was in charge of most of the food prep. lol.
5. RE Homework. So close. We have 5 of the 6 chapters done.
6. Scrap 5 pages. Nada.
7. 2 Project Life Layouts. Also nada.
8. Finish color wheel top. I got all of the leaves appliqued, but I still need to trim them down and attach them to the center. The progress is looking great though!
9. Ice Cream Soda. I was meant to get this back up the design wall and I didn’t. Oh well.
10. Book Africa Trip. Done!!! Now we just need to get trip insurance and book the flights. 🙂

I decided not to try to do December Daily. It’s just too much. I was worried I would really regret not having done it last year, but honestly all I felt was relief. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some goals.

1. Sub 15 days. Not all in December. lol. The school that I sub at announced an incentive if we manage to sub 15 days in a single quarter. Currently with the jobs I’ve taken and those that I have scheduled, I’ll have 13 days. Surely I can shoehorn in another 2 days? Maybe?
2. Buy all the things. Ugh. I need to order aaaaaaalllllllllllllll of the Christmas gifts.
3. Africa Trip. We need to get trip insurance, book flights, and research the vaccines we’ll need.
4. Evaluate 2022 goals and write 2023 goals.
5. Sports? We’re not a sporty family, but I want to look at putting Xander in soccer, Mia in dance or gymnastics, and Kate in volleyball. Is this insane and way too many activities given the fact that we already feel massively over-scheduled with our current activities? Yes.
6. Teacher Gifts. Oh boy. I need to figure out something for this.
7. December Montessori Trays. I’m trying to do more academics with Mia.
8. Advent Calendar. ::sigh:: I’d like to get as much of this done as I can. I think I’m going to cut out the backings of each ornament and then they can pull out the “shadows” for the days that I haven’t finished?
9. Advent Activities. Yikes. Have I mentioned that I wasn’t ready for December?
10. Hexagons. I’ve been working on quilting the hexagons in the evenings. Honestly, I’m over it, but I also want to finish!

Notice that there are zero scrappy or Project Life goals? Yeah. I’m debating making some changes going forward. Like, I’m considering being done with scrapbooking. IDK. I’m in a bit of a creative slump. The December to do list is heavy on grown-up tasks and light on creative ones, but that’s ok. I generally get a burst of mental energy in January. Maybe it will come early and I’ll end the month being super productive. lol. And maybe pigs will fly.