Well, it seems that January 1st is here again, and that means that it is time to think about all the things that we want to accomplish in the coming year. I am not one to make many resolutions, especially when it comes to losing weight and eating better, because then I am just disappointed when I don’t follow through. I do, however, like to set some realistic expectations for what I want to accomplish during the year. Writing them out just helps to solidify the idea and keep me accountable.
1. Scan all my photos.
It’s going to take a considerable amount of time to scan all the photos I have printed and not digitally backed up, but this is a project that I think will be well worth the time. I am one of those people who likes backups for my backups and having one copy of most of my printed photos makes me nervous. If my house burns down, I am SOL. Most of the photos are ones I took in middle and high school, when I was a click fanatic, but there are also many from my childhood.
I got this awesome printer /scanner/ copier from my in-laws for Christmas and started scanning a couple of photos to see how it works. It’s great! It saves my images in a pretty large file size, which I really like.
a. All my printed photos are currently organized by year in 3 shoe box size photo boxes and tied with rubber bands.
b. Today I am going to Hobby Lobby and buying one of those large photo boxes with the mini photo compartments. Not just one of those shoe box things (I have 3 shoe boxes full of photos) I’m talking about one that is at least twice as large. This way as I come across photos that I have put in crazy places, I can just put them in the proper compartment until they can be scanned.
c. This also includes re scanning all of our wedding photos. Our wedding photos arrived in 4x6 prints with negatives. Not cool. We took the negatives to Meijer to have them scanned on to CD, but they turned out terrible. I didn’t know at the time that it is better just to scan the actual photos.
d. Once I get them all scanned, I’m going to burn them to CDs or save them on fly drives to put in our safety deposit box. Then I will back them up on our external hard drive and throw the prints away!!
e. I am going to have to break this project down into monthly and probably weekly parts—otherwise it will never get done.
At the end I will throw away or use all the prints and DH will really like that. He loves getting rid of stuff. Plus, in this case all my pictures are just sitting there taking up valuable space in my hobby room.
2. Along with this I need to reorganize all the pictures of our house.
a. It is not efficient for me to leave them in the dated photo folders that all my other pictures are in because I can never find what I need when I need it. Previously I had these organized by date, but even that got to be too much. So I decided to sort them by room/area of the house—but this project didn’t get all the way finished and now I feel like I need to start over and make sure that I have everything in order.
3. Caroline’s second year photo book. Completed May 17
a. For Christmas this year the grandma’s got a Snapfish photo book of Caroline’s first year. Since her birthday is two weeks after Christmas, it wasn’t feasible to have it done for her first Christmas (plus I wanted to include her first Christmas photos.) So anyway, my goal is to get this done pretty soon after her birthday. Last year when I did her photo book I had to go through every folder of photos. This year I was more proactive and created a “best of” folder for each month. So now all I have to do is upload them and put them in the book. It should not be that hard, but I can see this taking until next Christmas to get done.
4. Learn how to use my camera in manual mode.
a. I have been a little camera crazy since I bought a new camera right after Christmas last year. I think this camera is the best thing I have ever purchased. I would like to learn how to use it better. For most of 2011, I used the no flash auto setting. I have heard over and over that to get amazing pictures you have to shoot in manual. I have been reading a lot the past couple months and I want to get better at this. You may have heard of project 365 where you take a picture every day and post it. This isn’t really feasible for me—for multiple reasons, but I still want to take lots of great pictures.
5. Make photo movies of:
a. Engagement trip to Gatlinburg (2005). Completed 1/11/2012
b. Our Wedding (2006)—this will have to happen after I rescan all the photos of course
c. Mom and Dad’s 25th Anniversary PowerPoint and party photos (from 2008)
d. Trip to Europe (2005)
Side Note: I have made a photo video each year for Caroline’s birthday. I like this idea because it forces me to keep my photos organized--and by the time she is 18 there will be 18 videos of her life and I think that’s pretty neat!
I think that the hardest part of the photo movies is picking the music. At least the wedding one shouldn’t be too difficult because I can just use the music from our wedding. Let the search begin.
6. Bake once a week.
a. This is something I started at the end of last year, but I want to continue it. I got some awesome baking gifts for Christmas including a Bundt pan, cookie press (2 of them!) and a cake plate with dome.
7. Shop Target Clearance
a. At least once a week I want to shop Target clearance for table linens. I only buy on clearance, but I never seem to be there at the right time. Right now Tuesdays are the best days for me, so it’s going to be Tuesdays at Target. The day after Christmas I bought a Snowflake table runner and some green napkins on Target clearance. I love them and can’t wait to bust them out next year. Hopefully by the end of the year I will have a nice little collection.
8. Graduate with an MBA Completed June 7th
a. Ok, so this is probably cheating, but if I don’t do anything else this year on my list, at least this will get accomplished. I am set to walk in May and finish classes at the end of June. I am sooo ready to be done.
9. Have a Baby
a. Ok, so I might not have as much control over this as I would like, but I really want a baby in 2012 and I am running out of time! DH does not want to get on board with this idea. He thinks I am nuts because I want all the babies in even years. My parents were married in 1983 and had all their kids in odd years (85, 87, 93, and 95). We were married in 2006 so we need to have our babies in even years. Caroline was born in 2010 and so the rest need to follow suit! I don’t want a baby in 2013 and I don’t want to wait until 2014, so DH better get on board quick!!
10. Make this blog MORE
a. I want this blog to be more personal—not just craft and party ideas. The problem is that due to my lack of internet, I don’t have a lot of time to schedule a week’s worth of posts. I want to turn this blog to include more of my personal projects, baking, home remodeling, photography and just general me stuff. I think it will more fun for all of us.
11. Read a book a month.
a. This sounds a lot more daunting for me than it really is. I don’t have time to sit down and read, that’s not exactly a surprise. But with a 40 minute commute to and from work each day, it provides a great time to listen to books on audio CD—and I generally get them from the library for free! I am always looking for suggestions, so if you know of a great book, let me know!!
12. Finish Caroline’s First Year Scrapbook
a. I kept this one for last because it is so shameful. Caroline is 2 and her 1st year scrapbook is still not done. I made it my goal to get it done during the month of October and I spent a lot of time working on it, but I did not get it finished. Argh!!
When I started this post, I didn’t think that there were really going to be enough to put down 12 goals for the year. These have been floating around in my head for a week or so, but I didn’t realize that there were soo many! I feel a lot better already! I’m so glad I did this.
It’s your turn now! If you managed to make it to the end of this post, leave a comment and tell me one thing that you are hoping to accomplish in 2012.
I find it funny that you want your babies in even years because both my boys were born odd months, odd days and odd years so i would like it if we had another baby next year on an odd month and day!
ReplyDeleteYea, odd or even doesn't really mattter to me, as long as it's consistent. I was born in an odd year so it's kind of off, but dh was born in an even year, so someone has to give ;)
ReplyDelete