My 2013 List, Month by Month

When Chris and I moved to London, we talked a bit about what I would like to do now.

Now that Jayce is in school all day long and I have a little more time to myself.  Now that we live in this amazing city with so many resources to take advantage of.  Now that Hannah is closer to sleeping through the night than she has been in the past.  Now that our whole life seems to be a clean slate, waiting for us to fill it up with whatever we'd like: meeting friends, joining a church, making new habits, filling a new home, and setting up our routines.  When we lived in Lincoln I threw myself into different things at different times: thrifting, DIY-ing, painting, blogging, photographing, sewing, writing, reading, running...what would be my London thing?  Or things?

I think the new year has provided me with the perfect opportunity to figure out how and where to organize my time and energy in the form of resolutions.  I've seen a few other bloggers do this sort of monthly change-up, (here and here are a few favorites), and I think it is a system that will work perfectly for me.  Having one month set aside for each task will help me to focus my energy so much better, instead of feeling like I need to be doing a little bit of everything all the time, which is how I feel now.

All of that said, here is my 2013 monthly lineup.

January: Photography.

This item is first, because this week I started a photography course.  Three years ago I was dying to take some photography lessons or a course, but there wasn't anything available anywhere near us.  I am thrilled to be able to push myself more in this area, and excited to get some feedback from the instructor and the other students since I've never really had anything like that before.  I'm also pretty nervous, but for right now the excited is bigger than the nervous, so I'm clinging to that. :)

February: Knit.

I think this one is fairly self-explanatory.  Joining the knitting group was a wonderful start, and introduced me to just how many beautiful projects are out there, but it's difficult for me to learn much with Hannah by my side, or, more accurately, running away.  I need to set aside some time to read a book/watch a youtube video (or ten), and practice, some things that I haven't made the time to do.  But in February, I'm going to make it happen.

March: Decorate.

I've said it before, but having an entire flat to decorate, all at once, when you're starting with nothing…well, it's a daunting task.  There is everything from furniture to storage, from curtains to rugs, from art to finishing pieces, and for EVERY room.  I need a month so that I can focus on putting this place together now that we've lived her for a little bit and have a better sense of what we want and need.  

April: Blog.

I spend a lot of time on this blog, it's the main window that a lot of friends and family have for our life, and I want it to be good.  There are some things I want to do differently, things I want to do better, things I want to update and things to change.  There also is a backlog of posts that are important to me that I need to catch up on.  Did you know that I took photos of every room of our old home for a little walk down memory lane/home tour?  Have I mentioned that we took the kids to Edinburgh last month?  And I know that I still have most of the flat to show off.  I'm going to update as much as possible.

May: Sew.

I sewed a LOT throughout the months of October and November, mostly for gifts and decorations for our home.  But there are still a lot of things that I'd like to try: little projects that I've been putting off, bigger projects that will push my skill level to the next level, and just having some time to sit down at my machine and figure out how to make my sewing time and projects to be smooth and efficient.

June: Decorate.

Yes, I know this is on here twice.  But there is a whole downstairs AND an upstairs, and I know I will run out of time and money in March before I finish it all.  Really, I should call this one, "decorate the kids' rooms."  We'll be having some visitors this summer, (yay!), and this will give me the motivation to get some of the home projects completely finished.

July: Light Room.

All of my photos are edited in Light Room.  Yet even though I've been using it every week for over 2 years, I am still learning how to use it best.  I know that there are short cuts that can speed up my workflow and tools that I should take advantage of to achieve better results, but this requires time to learn, practice, and implement these things.  Enter July.

August: Visit.

We are tentatively planning to come home the month of August for some family and friend time.  I cannot wait.  This is my goal for the month: see and visit with the people that I love, get in some major quality time, and just soak it all up.  That's it.  Its a month I am very much looking forward to.

September: Join.

Jayce (and Chris) will have just started back at school and our family will be setting up a new routine in line with the new school year. So this seems like a perfect time to evaluate our commitments and activities and perhaps plug into some new ones.

October: Make.

This past October I was busy making Christmas things the second week of October, and I think it was a good practice.  It helped me to get a start on things before the craziness of Halloween/my birthday/Chris' SBL trip/the Christmas season. So I'm giving myself permission to focus my time just on creating something or another.  I'm sure I will make more than just one thing, or maybe as many as I possibly can in one month.

November: Me.

What is something that I would like to do, just for me, that I always put on the back burner and chose busyness instead?  Read?  Exercise?  Nap?  Study?  Go out with friends?  Go out with Chris?

The week that Chris was in the US and the kids were sick, I made a deal with myself that in my "free time" (once they were in bed or napping), I was going to do whatever I needed the most.  This meant that a few times I chose to take a nap instead of attend to chores, ate dinner while watching Greys Anatomy instead of answering emails, and read a book that kept me up past a responsible bedtime hour.  But these were good things, and in my birthday month, I'm going to chose me with my free time again.  It will likely end in sewing/blogging/Light Room anyway, but hopefully there will be at least an instance or two of reading in tub.

December: Cook.

I hate cooking.  Which is why this is last.  But putting forth the effort to find new dishes to add to the rota is nothing to shake a stick at.  I found this last month, and though it is a hassle, I have made it twice since then, except covered in dark chocolate.  It's amazing.  If I think about it too much, I'm going to start gnawing on my hand.  Finding recipes like this is the reason I need to make an attempt to try more.

Wish me luck!!  Anyone else doing some form of resolutions this year?