October 4 2018

3rd Quarter Goal Check-in

Here is the list of my 2018 Goals.

FAMILY/FRIENDS
Spring Break Cabin Trip (March 23-30) (Read More Here)
London Trip (September 21-29) (Watch for details and photos)
College Avenue Stitchers (1st Saturdays) (7/12)
FlyFests (2nd Saturdays) (9/12)
Knit & Crochet It Forward (2nd Saturdays) (9/12)
YarnSlingers (3rd Tuesdays) (8/12)

HEALTH/FITNESS
Sleep (6 hours/night) (73/92 this Qtr) 79.3% (barely better than last Qtr)
Water (6 cups/day) (76/92 this Qtr) 82.6% (worse than last Qtr)
Cardio (15/92 this Qtr) 16% (Achilles Tendon trouble since 7/1)
Strength (0/92 this Qtr) 0% (no excuses really)

HOUSE
Finish Cleaning Office (cleared table from the hall that I piled office stuff on)
Backup Floppy Disks to Iomega Drive (ALL 434 DONE! as of 4/24)
Paint Table for Porch (DONE! as of  4/29) (See proof here)
Master Bedroom (work on it) (destruction is done) (See proof here)

We have decided to Reclaim Our Home, one room or area at a time.
We turned our daughter’s old bedroom into our Reading Room.
We decluttered and cleaned the Landing, Garage and the Basement!

FINANCES
Pay Off Car Loan (DONE as of 7/17!)
Pay Off TAN (making monthly payments) (9/12)
Pay ALL Bills on Time (so far, so good) (9/12)
Save $6,000 for London Trip (scraped it up somehow)

We cut the cable and will save over $200/month!

GIVING
Donate 36 Crocheted Hats (41 done so far)
Donate $ to NaNoWriMo (November) (no progress yet this year)
Gift Wrap for DAR (December) (no progress yet this year)

I have also added crochet edging to 6 baby blankets (30″x30″) this year and taught a great group of ladies how to do this as well. All blankets will be gifted to family or charity. I made 10 soap sacks too!

FUN/HOBBIES
Get Family Tree Maker (upgrade from 2006 version) (no progress yet this year)
Update My Genealogy Websites (ALL DONE! as of 4/16, see Karen’s Kin)
Setup a Way to Sell my Crochet Online (got Etsy Store up and posted 30 listings/49 pcs total)(Sold 1 hat!)

Got a My Heritage DNA test kit for my birthday (review to come)

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Read 100 Books (87/100) (see GoodReads for specifics)
Complete Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge (8/12)
Read 3 Personal Development Books (21/3)
Update Resume (DONE and currently job hunting)

BLOG
1 New Blog Post/Week (Thursdays) (40 +4 book reviews) 
Continue Five Minute Friday Posts (39)

YOUTUBE
Continue to Add Content (13 video clips posted this Qtr) 
Try to Film Bullet Journal Flip Through (I filmed it!)
Try Being On Camera with Someone for a Virtual Write-In (still thinking about it)

I did test Google Hangouts with my adult son who lives in another city
I took a free class (5/11-15) to learn how to edit videos and have posted a few to my IG feed

WRITING
Complete NaNoWriMo (November) (no progress yet this year)
Read 3 Writing Craft Books (DONE 4/3)
Take 3 Writing Classes (1/3)
Submit 3 Guest Blog Posts or Magazine Articles for Publication (DONE)
Write 3 Contest Entries (DONE) I won for the state on a DAR essay contest I entered but didn’t make it past that level.
Thursday Night Writing Group (33/52) LOVE this group!

Word counts are steady but not as much as I’d like. Pretty much just writing blog posts, resumes, and cover letters these days.

How are you doing on your goals so far this year? Is there anything we can help you with? Let us know in the comments or email me through the contact form.
Please subscribe so you won’t miss anything I post.

Category: Goals | Comments Off on 3rd Quarter Goal Check-in
September 6 2018

Crochet Hat Goal Met!

I set the goal at the beginning of the year to crochet 36 hats to give away to charity. I met that goal on 8/28/2018 and thought I would share a bit about how setting goals and tracking them has revolutionized my productivity.

Actually, maybe I am just as productive as I ever was, but tracking my goals has made me realize just how much I am capable of accomplishing when I set my mind to it. When I don’t set a goal or track my progress toward a goal, I lose track of just how much I have done and so I am always feeling like I don’t get anything done.

Sometimes when it comes to crocheting the hats I make for donations to charity, all it takes is an idea for a new color scheme or yarn combination and then I want to at least start it so I can see how cool it will look. I hate having more than a couple of things started at once so I try to start and finish the hats during each of my monthly two-hour long crochet/knit group meetings. The knitters are always amazed at how quickly I can turn out a finished hat because apparently knitting takes much longer.

I won’t bore you with all the hats, but here are a select few for you to see how the same basic hat pattern can be infinitely different because of the combinations of yarns I choose to make them with.

Flat and tall on the head.
Folded with extra warmth for ears.

This was a fun experiment with the boa yarn someone was giving away. I paired it with basic black and had to go by feel to hit the stitches, but it turned out amazing. The black and navy combo of the boa yarn was a nice choice.
These were made with thick chunky yarns and trimmed with a variegated yarn. Note how the bands look different when paired with different colors on the top. The band yarn is the same.
Made these using up small balls of variegated yarn paired with a solid, then adding another solid when the ball ran out.
These are made with a light aqua and a peach colored yarn paired with a basic heather gray yarn.
First hat on the right. Second hat on the left. The blue ran out so I finished with gray giving this banded effect.

Not only have I crocheted the 36 hats this year, but I also made  5 small fleece blankets edged with crochet to donate to charity. Then there are the dozen or so soap sacks I made to give to the homeless with new bars of soap in them.

So have you met any of the goals you set for 2018? How do you make sure you meet or exceed the goals? Let us know how you are setting and achieving goals in the comments below.

If you want to support my efforts to crochet or just want to own one of my hats, check the selection available for sale on my Etsy Shop. If you have leftover acrylic yarn and want to have me make it into hats to donate, contact me to make arrangements to send me your leftover yarn stash and I will get right on it!

Happy yarning!

Category: Crochet, Goals | Comments Off on Crochet Hat Goal Met!
August 23 2018

Loved (Five Minute Friday)

I did something this weekend with Hubby that we absolutely LOVED. We signed up a couple of months ago to attend a 3-day intensive workshop to learn more about investing the way Warren Buffet does. It was serious, it was 3 long days of feeling like we were back in school. We drove 9 hours to get to the Atlanta area. We spent much of the drive listening to episodes of the Invested Podcast that I had saved to my phone. We had read the books written by Phil Town and his daughter, Danielle Town. We already believed in their way of investing but we needed more to actually put it into action. When I was looking for more info on the websites I stumbled onto the link to apply for the scholarship and decided to go for it. I applied to an event a couple of months out and Hubby and I got busy preparing to attend and learn even more. We began turning after dinner hours into Turquoise Table learning time. We would sit and read or researching companies and sharing what we found with each other. I can honestly say we have never been so focused on the same things for so long. During the workshop, we wrote out promises to ourselves and the team collected and laminated them so they would last while we carried them with us into the future. We met so many people. It turned out that there were two gals from the same area we call home sitting just a couple of people away from us at this workshop. We call that a God Wink (affiliate link). The brakes were acting crazy shortly before we got to Atlanta, but we nursed them and they got us home safely. It was a great weekend! One of the best we’ve had in a very long time. We loved learning so much and gaining so much hope for our future and the ability to actually have enough to retire someday. We actually loved spending our weekend this way and both agreed we would love to go back and someday become coaches to others.

If you think you might want to learn more about investing in stocks or options, you should apply for a scholarship to attend one of Phil Town’s Rule #1 Transformational Investing Workshops.

If you want to grab this book, please use the affiliate link provided here.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Loved
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday, Goals, Learning, Travel | 1 Comment on Loved (Five Minute Friday)
July 5 2018

2nd Quarter Goal Checkin

Here is the list of my 2018 Goals.

FAMILY/FRIENDS
Spring Break Cabin Trip (March 23-30) (Read More Here)
College Avenue Stitchers (1st Saturdays) (5/12)
FlyFests (2nd Saturdays) (6/12)
Knit & Crochet It Forward (2nd Saturdays) (6/12)
YarnSlingers (3rd Tuesdays) (6/12)

HEALTH/FITNESS
Sleep (6 hours/night) (71/91 this Qtr) 78.0% (much better than last Qtr)
Water (6 cups/day) (82/91 this Qtr) 90.1% (better than last Qtr)
Cardio (21/91 this Qtr) 23.0% (no excuse, really)
Strength (3/91 this Qtr) 3.2% (improvement!)

HOUSE
Finish Cleaning Office (no progress yet this year)
Backup Floppy Disks to Iomega Drive (ALL 434 DONE! as of 4/24)
Paint Table for Porch (DONE! as of  4/29) (See proof here)
Master Bedroom (work on it) (no progress YET this year, plans are in the works!)

We have decided to Reclaim Our Home, one room or area at a time.
We turned the bedroom our daughter used into our Reading Room.
We decluttered and cleaned the Landing, Garage and the Basement!

FINANCES
Pay Off Car Loan (making monthly payments) (6/12)
Pay Off TAN (making monthly payments) (6/12)
Pay ALL Bills on Time (so far, so good) (6/12)
Save $6,000 for London Trip (not quite 10%)

We cut the cable and will save over $200/month!

GIVING
Donate 36 Crocheted Hats (21 done so far)
Donate $ to NaNoWriMo (November) (no progress yet this year)
Gift Wrap for DAR (December) (no progress yet this year)

I have also added crochet edging to 5 baby blankets (30″x30″) this year and taught a great group of ladies how to do this as well. All blankets will be gifted to family or charity. I made 10 soap sacks too!

FUN/HOBBIES
Get Family Tree Maker (upgrade from 2006 version) (no progress yet this year)
Update My Genealogy Websites (ALL DONE! as of 4/16, see Karen’s Kin)
Setup a Way to Sell my Crochet Online (got Etsy Store up and posted 30 listings/49 pcs total)

Got a My Heritage DNA test kit for my birthday (review to come)

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Read 100 Books (55/100) (see GoodReads for specifics)
Complete Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge (4/12)
Read 3 Personal Development Books (21/3)
Update Resume (DONE and currently job hunting)

BLOG
1 New Blog Post/Week (Thursdays) (27 +1 book review) 
Continue Five Minute Friday Posts (24)

YOUTUBE
Continue to Add Content (13 video clips posted this Qtr) 
Try to Film Bullet Journal Flip Through (I filmed it!)
Try Being On Camera with Someone for a Virtual Write-In (still thinking about it)

I did test Google Hangouts with my adult son who lives in another city
I took a free class (5/11-15) to learn how to edit videos and have posted a few to my IG feed

WRITING
Complete NaNoWriMo (November) (no progress yet this year)
Read 3 Writing Craft Books (DONE 4/3)
Take 3 Writing Classes (1/3)
Submit 3 Guest Blog Posts or Magazine Articles for Publication (DONE)
Write 3 Contest Entries (DONE) I won for the state on a DAR essay contest I entered but didn’t make it past that level.
Thursday Night Writing Group (23/52) LOVE this group!

Word counts are steady but not as much as I’d like. Pretty much just writing blog posts, resumes, and cover letters these days.

How are you doing on your goals so far this year? Is there anything we can help you with? Let us know in the comments or email me through the contact form.
Please subscribe so you won’t miss anything I post.

Category: Goals | Comments Off on 2nd Quarter Goal Checkin
May 17 2018

Details Matter

I learned an important lesson recently. Details can be very significant, they do matter. For example, Family.jpg is not the same as family.jpg and map.JPG is not the same as map.jpg, they may seem the same, but these details matter.

Details can be very significant, they do matter. Click To Tweet

These details don’t bother my computer. I can see these photos just fine, but I got so frustrated not being able to figure out why I could get hundreds of photos to show up just fine on my computer, but when I uploaded all the HTML and jpg files to my server so they would be online, something wasn’t quite right and one just wouldn’t show up. I thought I’d have to call for help to figure it out and then it happened again. Finally, after exhausting every possible cause, I finally found out that details really do matter, the internet is pickier than my computer apparently and capitalization is the detail that mattered this time.

Admittedly it had been years since I did much coding using the HTML programming I learned in college. They forced me to learn some sort of computer programming language for my computer endorsement on my elementary education degree. This was the only sort of programming language I could ever see a need to know, so that is what I chose to take. I love making web pages come out just so using Notepad and typing in all the code it takes to make it work. Continue reading

Category: Family, Genealogy, Goals, Learning | Comments Off on Details Matter