Tag: 2019

Goals and Plans

2019 Blogging Plans

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My 2018/2019 are *almost* done I promise, there’s just one more after this. It’s mostly because I ran short on ideas – I was going to review some books, both of which I wasn’t into and decided to skip reviewing them.

I’m planning on moving off of here and on my own server/other hosted site. With Gutenberg coming out, I want to play with all the new custom blocks plugins and WP.com doesn’t really give me the level of freedom I want at a price point I’m willing to pay. I do WordPress development as my day job and was originally just interested in blogging without doing any development. Now, though, I think I’d like to create a theme and maybe some custom blocks. I’m looking at using my personal AWS account to do it, but I might just go with a regular hosting site. Decisions, decisions.

I still want to do book reviews, but I’m not going to force one if there’s not a book I want to review. Or if I just haven’t finished a book since the last review. I want to read a lot more sci-fi and fantasy books that are a lot longer than most of the books I read last year.

I’m not worried about visits, or views, or followers at the moment. I’m just really enjoying blogging. This will never make money or be my career or whatnot, so I don’t have to try to hit goals like that. Obviously, I love seeing that people are reading my posts and I hope people like reading them, but I don’t want to lose that enjoyment because I’m chasing a number. I admire bloggers who do, though. They put in work. This might change – I reserve the right to decide I care about numbers at some point in the future.

Anyway, I’m off. I have a cat to snuggle with.

~Sarah~

Goals and Plans · Life & Family

2019 Goals

SarahLeave a comment

I’m doing “19 in 2019” this year. It is *exactly* what it sounds like – I have 19 goals to complete by the end of 2019. I know I already made a post on my 2019 reading resolutions, but to be honest, those are secondary goals. Completing the PopSugar Reading Challenge will not further my plan for world domination, now will it?

Goals and explanations below:

  1. Go minimal.
    • Am I a minimalist at heart? Almost certainly not. Does it seem like a good thing to explore? Sure. I need a good & thorough investigation of all my stuff anyway, despite moving every year for the past 5 years, I own too much stuff.
  2. Reorganize the apartment.
    • This one goes with number 1 up there. There needs to be a better way to organize the stuff we have.
  3. No buying books in 2019. I own 110+ books that I haven’t read. I have so many books {that I have read} that I have to store them in bins in the garage.
    • There are 3 books I *do* want to buy next year, so they don’t count.
    • This is probably the goal I’m most likely to not meet.
  4. Respond to my pen-pal letters within a week {two if there are extenuating circumstances – like a hurricane}.
  5. Lose the 20 pounds I gained in 2018. Preferably I’ll lose more, but those 20 need to get out of town for sure.
  6. Keep the blog up all year.
    • I’ve been enjoying it for the past little while and while I think I’ll be making changes, I don’t particularly want to stop.
  7. Read the entire Bible.
    • I’m a Christian and have never read the Bible front to back so that’s probably something I should remedy.
  8. Complete Couch to 5K….finally.
  9. Revamp my wardrobe.
    • This one has been hanging out on my ‘ get to it eventually’ list & I’d like to cross it off.
  10. Make at least 24 new recipes.
    • We’re going Paleo in January, so I’m pretty sure this one will be doable.
  11. Track our spending all year & develop a budget.
  12. Make real progress on my novel.
    • I’m not sure what this looks like yet, so it’ll most likely be updated along the way.
  13. Go tech-free for a weekend every quarter. From Friday after work through Sunday at bed. No phone, no tv, no internet.
    • Phone calls to moms don’t count.
  14. Make a list of things to do in Myrtle Beach and do them.
  15. Be more deliberate in the things that I decide to do.
    • I think most people could handle working on this from time to time.
  16. Pay off my credit card. Obviously.
  17. This one isn’t for sharing.
  18. Neither is this one, don’t be nosy.
  19. Nerp.

Blogmas · Life & Family

Bullet Journaling

SarahLeave a comment

I recently re-discovered Bullet Journaling {thanks YouTube!}. I’m not going to go into details about what Bullet Journaling is – I liked to the main BuJo source above, and there are some YouTube channels linked below if you’re interested. This time around I decided that I didn’t need to immediately jump into the whole situation, I really needed to learn a lot more about the whole thing. So I watched a billion YouTube videos from: AmandaRachLee, Sunshine & Stationery, Plant Based Bride, and so many more.

These ladies are so incredibly talented and I am amazed by them. I kind of wish I had held off on watching them, to be honest, because it’s hard to not feel insecure about my abilities. I cannot draw, letter, do faux calligraphy, draw a straight line even with a ruler, etc. so that’s not really something I can incorporate into my BuJo. I will forever watch their videos though – there’s something soothing about watching people create spreads.

The other downside to watching so many videos is wanting to start big, with all the spreads, trackers, collections, etc etc etc and that’s not sustainable when you’re just starting out. There are so many different custom Collections (which is what the spreads are called) out there, and I want to use all of them. ALL OF THEM. Not feasible, though. I’m not even sure about habit trackers – is it really reasonable to go from tracking literally nothing to tracking 10 habits, plus whatever else I want to keep track of {cleaning, exercise, etc}? I realize you can scale that down to just a few habits, but you get the point.

I started reading a book by the creator {founder?} of bullet journaling – Ryder Carroll – called The Bullet Journal Method {imaginative, eh?}. It’s a really good book if you’re looking into the whole bullet journal thing. He talks a lot about why he created the method and why. I identify with a lot of what he writes. It’s very much like a lot of other ‘how to improve your life’ books in that it’s advertised as a cure all – this method will not just change your life, it will fix your life. It’s different in that he freely admits that you can take or leave whatever you need; the entire method is not necessary for it to fix your life.

I have hopes for the system – I’m scheming and plotting and planning for 2019 and this is going to be a part of all that. I spent a lot of 2018 apologizing for letting things drop, and I’m hoping that this can help me out with that. I’ll talk more about 2019 in a blog post later this month. You can see my bullet journal Pinterest board if you’re interested. It’s mostly cleaning trackers and meal planning spreads, though.

~Sarah~