A New Year and New Resolutions

Or New Plans…whichever you prefer. I have not been great at keeping resolutions or even plans, but I am going to try for just one year to change.  If it doesn’t happen this year 2020, the start of a new decade, then I am going to stop beating myself up and just live.

I seriously think life will be easier IF I make the changes in myself and my daily life.  My problem is I just don’t keep promises to myself.  But this year 2020 I am going to do my best to be different than the past 62 years!

I am coming off a 2019 No Spend Year and a Disneyland vacation with my whole little family, all three daughters, their husbands and my three darling granddaughters.  It was a blast, but my old bones are really not enjoying the rides like when I was younger.  You really get thrown around on those things.

We rented an Air BNB that my middle daughter found and it was lovely.  It was 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms! It was only a little over a mile from the park and only 1.7 miles from Daiso!

My No Spend Year actually started 11/1/2018 so I felt like I was living in a period of grace that last couple of weeks of 2019 so I did spend some money, but not a lot.  I took a lot of food to Anaheim since we drove with a big ice chest in the back of the Toyota Tacoma! My Mercedes Benz needs to have the struts worked on and our mechanic suggested we not drive it to Anaheim from Humboldt.

Onto the resolutions or plans (haha)……….

1. Complete 20 quilts, complete not make the top or the top without borders or the entire top and then not finish it.  One of the purchases I made with the full support of my husband is a Handiquilter Sweet 16!! It was an exceptional price at https://www.sewingmachinesplus.com/index.php during the last two weeks of 2019 and I was so excited when my husband agreed after we checked with his best friend who bought one from a long arm quilting teacher for MORE than what the price was at Sewing Machines Plus.  They offer free shipping in California so it really felt like the time was right.  I figured out it will take about 40 quilts or less to make it worth it, so there you go! Besides the fact that my brain has made some kind of “switch” that I really have no desire to spend money, not even on fabric!
2. Read 20 books! This should be easy peasy as it is one book every 2 weeks.  I used to be a completely voracious reader in my younger years and unfortunately my husband’s TV watching has become all to easy to do.  I have a list that my oldest daughter and I started while on vacation from the 2020 Challenge at The Modern Mrs. Darcy web site.
3. Use my time wisely by making a to do list each evening for the following day.  Be up and ready to start my day showered with my daily clean-up done all by 8:00 a.m.  Stick to the time blocking of my day along with my daily deeper chores.
4. Plant seeds for flowers and whatever I have in my seed box.
5. The usual weight loss, floss my teeth, be nicer to my husband…

My biggest “vow” to myself is to find a home for everything in my house and to make a list of where everything is.  I know this sounds weird, but my husband inherited a bunch of stuff from his hunting partner/mentor/BFF of over 30 years.  His wife had put everything into those tubs from Costco, only have sized……and on each tub’s lid was a list of what was in the tub in a sheet protector taped with blue painter’s tape.  On the side of each tub was a number.  Accompanying 33 tubs was a binder.  It was divided into two parts.  The first part had a number with the accompanying list typed.  The second part of the binder had every item in those 33 tubs alphabetized with the accompanying number of the tub, said item lived.  OMGosh, when I saw it the organizing angels started to sing.  I knew right then that I needed to do this for all the stuff in my house that was not used very often, but was cluttering up our home, and did not have a home.  Like for instance, my dog’s car seat!

I was in a bad accident 9/30/17 that totaled my 2006 Toyota Camry that only had 73,000 miles on it.  My poor little rescue chihuahua, Lila, was thrown from the back to the front and was very shook up.  She was fine thank God, but she was so shook up that instead of barking all the strange men coming to the window, but actually licked the hand of one of those first responders! That’s when I knew how traumatized she was!

Unfortunately I got sick on 12/29/19 after our return from Anaheim so I am not going to be holding myself to these time or productivity resolutions until I am 100%.  I thought I was feeling better, but after taking my mom to the new medical provider, I have felt worse so I’m giving myself as long as I need.

Bring on the new decade, I feel ready!