I’m not a resolution-y type of person, but there is something about starting anew each year that makes me feel like I can wipe the slate clean and move forward with a bit more purpose and power.
I figured since there are 12 months in a year, and this happens to be 2012, it would be cool to challenge myself to master one sometimes-small, maybe sometimes-big thing a month. I doubt I’m the first special snowflake to come up with this idea, but here’s my list:
1. Create a functional office space for myself. No more operating from the counter on the side of the stove. (Already well on my way! I can hear Scott in the other room, cutting dry wall. Our new home office is starting to take shape.)
2. Learn to make homemade tortillas (especially wheat). We spend way too much money to buy freshly made tortillas every week. This can’t possibly be that hard.
3. Improve my blogging and photography work-flow. There are about 50 million places on my computer that I store images and files. It takes forever to search for things, organize them, back them up (when I rarely get around to that). I need a system. This haphazard approach is costing me too much time.
4. Finish writing my book draft. Yeah, so NaNoWriMo didn’t exactly turn out the way I wanted. I spent much of the month trying to sift my way through postpartum anxiety and figure out the best dosage for my meds. I gave myself a writing break pretty much right after I vowed to write every day. It just wasn’t worth the stress.
5. Print a photo book for every year of Kendall and Leyna’s lives so far. That’s 4 total. They don’t have to be fancy or pretty. Just simply printed in chronological order with a burned DVD of the pictures stuck inside the cover. I HAVE to stop sucking at these things.
6. Do something for someone in need. Maybe another blog fundraiser, maybe just time volunteering, but something that has a big impact on somebody else’s life.
7. Run a race. I thought I might try to attempt another marathon this year… and I may. But, the thought of training for one right now is pretty overwhelming. If anything, I want to at least run a half marathon this year.
8. Purge my closet. Because, really, who needs that shirt they wore in their senior high school pictures *cough* 13 *cough* years ago?
9. Take a vacation. Maybe it’s with the kids, maybe without, but a REAL vacation to an exciting place we’ve never been before.
10. Learn to take self-portraits. I got a tripod and camera remote or Christmas, and I’m super excited to put them to use to master self-portraits to get pictures of me with the kids or us as a family.
11. Print and display our wedding photos. I want to finally get around to designing and printing a photo book (I have a couple Picaboo vouchers I plan to use to make one similar to Leyna’s book I printed last year), and print a large canvas collage to hang on our wall.
12. Make our master bedroom look less like a frat house. We’ve focused so much attention on the rest of this house, all the parts people can see when they walk in, the kid’s rooms. Our room, though, is… embarassing. Seriously. I HATE for people to see our room. There’s no rhyme or reason, no matching furniture. It smells like dogs. This has to change.
So, that all should be manageable, right? And to hold myself accountable, I just set reminder timers on my phone for the 1st of every month to remind me to tackle a new 12 in 12, the 15th to remind myself to keep working on it, and the 30th to see if I’ve blogged it yet.
What about you? Have anything in mind you’d like to accomplish this year? If you get a 12 in 12 post up on your blog, feel free to link it up here:
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44 comments
Number 3 OH GOD THE PHOTOS. My goal is to start organizing them first and foremost by MONTH, so when it is time to go back and make photo books for the kids (just finished mine in December!) I don’t have to spend a million years finding the right ones. And the backing up thing…I lost ALL my photos of Evan from the first half of his life due to a failed external hard drive so I should have learned my lesson. I did not.
Also on my list are 8, 9, 10, and 12 but first I need to get over my paralyzing jealousy of your number 1. What an AWESOME gift to yourself!
I weep for your lost pictures!!
We have a lot of the same goals/things to get the hell done. I have my 101 in 1001 list and feel like I am making some good progress.
Jill this is a great linky. I will work on mine tonight. Love your goals. Doable and no nonsense. Go get it lady : )
This sounds like a fun idea! I’m going to work on a list of my own!
[…] And because Baby Rabies did a “12 To Do in 2012? post and I want to link up…here are 11 more goals (many of which relate to number one […]
Good luck with your goals! I just finished my list, so I’m linking up now! 🙂
Ok, for some reason I can’t get the linky tools to work. It keeps saying that i don’t have a link to this post in my blog post, but I obviously do, because there’s a trackback comment from my blog below! I’ll have to try it again later…
Sorry about that! Make sure there’s not a / at the end of the link.
Oooh, tortillas! I’ve been meaning to make them too, I want to try this recipe but haven’t gotten around to it yet:
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/10/21/recipe-connection-100-whole-grain-homemade-tortillas/
Mmmm…. that looks good!
I tell myself ALL the time that I’m going to do the photobooks. I really want to! I even have a free one waiting for me (if it hasn’t expired. shit, it probably has.) The next four months are not going to be the time to do it though. There’s an ulcer forming in my gut as I get closer to this last semester of school starting, and my MPH applications coming due, and my GRE coming closer — and none of this even touches the blog work I’ve signed myself up for.
But the photobooks. I WILL do those this summer. Please remind me. These poor chidlren are going to grow up thinking I deleted every picture I’ve ever taken of them.
I think you’ll accomplish way more than 12 big things this year. You’re on FIRE! The photobooks will happen. I’ll let you know if I see any good deals/flash sales for any.
Happy New Year Jill and a great list of goals! I thought I’d share my whole wheat tortilla recipe. They are so good and delicious. We have a “no buying bread challenge”, so have been making everything including tortillas ourselves. In my opinion, its way easier to make them from scratch than dress my little one up (we are in Canada so its quite the ordeal) to go to the store. Here is the link to my recipe: http://mommaandmax.com/2011/12/20/memories-of-mexico-whole-wheat-tortilla-recipe/
Happy New Year!!
I love this! Will try as soon as I can. Thanks SO much for sharing! Your homemade bread challenge sounds awesome.
I didn’t set 12 goals for myself…I know I’d just fail miserably and beat myself up. I did however set three goals for myself and damnit I WILL accomplish these goals this year.
I cannot wait to see what your home office is going to look like when its finished.
LOL. Better to set yourself up to succeed. I totally get that.
Here is my favourite tortillas recip.e
http://springpadit.com/kellylawson/recipe/texasflourtortillas
Thanks for sharing! Love that so many make their own tortillas.
I would love to link up with you but your tool is telling me that I don’t have a backlink…but I do. Any thoughts?
Make sure there’s not a / at the end of your link. Sorry!
Blah – I tried that. The only thing that I can see is your back link requires https://www.babyrabies.com/2012/01/12-to-dos-in-2012 but the link to your post is https://www.babyrabies.com/2012/01/12-to-do-in-2012 (not the dos vs do). If I change the backlink in my blog to ‘dos’ I’ll get a Page Not Found on your site. I checked some of the others in the linky party and got the Page Not Found error. I’ll try again another time. Thanks for the kick in the pants to define some goals regardless of the linky! : )
I went ahead and fixed it (I think) to where it doesn’t require a backlink. Let me know if it still doesn’t work for you.
Done and thanks! What a pain in the arse I am!
I’m so excited to see your office finished! Believe it or not, I don’t even have a dedicated office even after buying a bigger house! But 2013 is the big basement finish project for us.
Good luck with finishing your manuscript. I know that’s the big one on the list for me this year!
for #3 try Mixbook. I have used them for my kids. I didn’t do a book for each year of their lives because so many events intertwined, so instead I decided to do a ‘babies 1st year’ book for them, and then a ‘family year book’ for each year where all the events (birthdays, holidays, etc), fun activities and life milestones (losing teeth, etc) for an entire year are in one book. Mixbook is great because (similar to shutterfly) there are premade templates for when you are feeling lazy, but (unlike shutterfly) you can customize templates or build a page from scratch when you have the free time (ha, what’s that) or creativity. I’ve done it for a few years now and its great to look back at the years.
[…] always abstract to me. Yesterday I saw one of my favorite bloggers, Jill at Baby Rabies, list her 12 things to do in 2012. Now, that is something I can get behind. It’s more of a to-do list than a resolution. […]
I made my first photobook on Shutterfly using a bunch of Black Friday promo codes. I buckled down and made a 20 page book in an hour. It isn’t perfect, but I am sure it will become more perfect as time goes by.
Fabuous ideas.
Good luck with your 12 in 2012!
Hi there! I’ve been reading your blog forever now and felt the NEED to comment on your resolution-y stuff for two reasons
1. I’ve lost junk on my computer from not backing up, which is where Mozy came in. It’s an automatic back up. I sleep better knowing my photos are safe no matter what.
2. canvas art from photographs is awesome! Try canvaspop.com. They allow the most customization with sizes and such and are very reasonably priced : )
ryanres1
[…] myself to explore new things. I plan on linking up with Jill over at BabyRabies for her awesome 12 to do in 2012 linky. I have big plans that I will execute and I cannot wait to share with […]
I have a couple of suggestions as to how to organize your photos. Someone may have made a similar suggestion above, but I’m too lazy to read through all the comments to see. I am in charge of all the family photos at our house, so to keep everything manageable I organize them by month. I have at least two subfolders within each month: one for raw files and one for edited images. Some months I also have additional subfolders when we have special occasions (i.e. kindergarten fall celebration (because these images get uploaded to our class web site), birthday parties, Christmas, etc.). So here’s what a folder may look like:
>01 January 2012
> print files
> raw files
> birthday party for Olivia (aka world’s greatest mom)
After all the files are edited I upload them to Snapfish.com (you can choose whatever site you like, I just started with Snapfish six years ago so I’ve stuck with it. They also have lots of coupons on albums and calendars around Christmas so I take advantage of those. But the quality isn’t impressive). All the images are organized on my Snapfish account by month, too, just like on my computer. I create a family album every year that is organized by month, as well, (one spread per month) so the monthly organizational system works for that purpose, too.
Then I burn all the images from my computer to CD or DVD and put the disc in a box in the spare bedroom. Then I delete the images from my computer. This incredibly anal process ensures that I have a copy in the house and one living online at Snapfish (in case the disc gets lost or the house burns down or something).
When it comes to your wedding photos, Tyler is offering some cool albums these days, so if you don’t want to do it yourself he can do it. We find CanvasOnDemand.com has a lot of coupons AND they send you a Starbucks gift card with every order.
Love reading about your growing family and all the fun things you’re up to! You always make me laugh, which is hard to do some days!
Awww! Thank you for chiming in! I love your ideas and will have to steal a few. I’ll keep you guys in mind for an album. I’m still madly in love with our amazing wedding pictures and feel so blessed we are all still in touch 🙂
Jill, I’ve never commented and first of all I wanna say I love your blog. I have a 14 month old little boy and another on the way in May (oldest will still be 18 months when the new one is born). I have a lot of anxiety sometimes thinking about taking care of two under 2 yrs old, but your blog makes me feel better and makes me LAUGH (you and I are the same age too)!
This post cracked me up because my hubs and my room looks exactly like you described and our two dogs are in there with us everynight too. Rest of the house, FINE, but our room is ALWAYS neglected. Now i have a 6 month old nephew that my mother just HAS to take into our bedroom whenever the company is over to feed him, change him, let him nap and they just barge right on in there so I HAVE TO make good on this same resolution this year. Mom even feels the need to get down on the floor and shove her purse under my bed. There are 3 year old dust bunnies under there, dirty socks, maybe even a very old bottle that my toddler has chucked up under there–yikes. I feel ya on the disgusting bedroom. It’s shameful to me. Thanks for making me feel not so bad about it. 😉
[…] in 2012. Making it happen. Part I Jill of Baby Rabies has an awesome linky up called 12 To Do in 2012. I loved the idea and am excited to participate. Of course I am late to the game but if you are a […]
[…] failed horribly at my resolutions last year, I don’t even want to look at them. I think maybe Jill at Baby Rabies has the right idea. I think I can accomplish 12 things in […]
[…] more 12 in 2012, visit Baby Rabies. No related posts. This entry was posted in Dreams, Health & Well Being, Home by […]
[…] at Baby Rabies posted a list called 12 To Do in 2012. It’s a resolution list with twelve items and the goal is to accomplish one item per month. I […]
[…] be coming back to this list to share how I’m going with it. And I’m linking up with a few other bloggers that I adore to keep myself accountable. How about […]
[…] have monthly reminders that pop up on my iPhone, asking if I’ve completed and blogged my “12 in 12″ yet. And no, I haven’t. […]
[…] be coming back to this list to share how I’m going with it. And I’m linking up with a few other bloggers that I adore to keep myself accountable. How about […]
[…] I mean, we all know I suck at sticking with anything like this. 12 in 2012, anyone??? LOLOLOLOL. […]
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