Guest room – the baby brunch stuff invaded, the packing to travel to the baby brunch invaded, and both were cleared out.  Then packing to go to the hospital invaded…no progress yet on hanging the picture or painting the lamps. 

Learn to coupon – I have a whole other coupon file for baby coupons, and the past two times I’ve gone to the store, I’ve used coupons.  This isn’t $10 a week yet, but it’s a start! 

Find a church – we’ve talked about it…and about going this weekend, but we’ll see, I’m not hopeful that this is the weekend.  Maybe next.

Lose the baby weight – I’m still gaining it, right on schedule.  I guess that is part one, to gain the baby weight. 

That’s 1 for 4 in the progress department, but I’ll take some credit on the last one, I”m doing exactly what I should be for now, so I’ll say 2 for 4!

I love the idea of setting goals.  Just look at the white board on our fridge.  It’s got a grocery list down one side and a to do list on the other (and sometimes the to do list takes over the whole board, like this week).  However, the idea of goals/resomutikns at new years is intimidating to say the least.  I have lots of goals and lots of things I’d like to do, and they usually just get pushed to “later,” yes I’m a procrastinator.  Also, with the anticipated arrival of our son, I keep saying that not losing my mind is my goal, but that doesn’t seem nearly concrete enough.  So, that said, here is what I hope to accomplish this year:

– finish the guest room.

Since we moved in, there has been a print in the floor of the guest room. 

We recently added two lamps that are desperate for a couple coats of paint (and I like to start projects before finishing others and then come back years later).  I will get those things taken care of and finally off the to do list.  This really doesn’t require that much time, so I should be able to accomplish this before April is over.  — If by some miracle this happens in the first quarter, I have some ideas for quarterly “finish the unfinished project” goals.

– learn to coupon.

Years ago, I’d save at least a few dollars a trip, recently I don’t even get the paper, so I’m going to start getting the Sunday paper for coupons, clipping coupons online, and paying attention to sale books for groceries.  My goal is to save $10 per week by the end of August. 

– find a church.

Yes, this is Adam’s goal too.  It’s also something we have talked about for a long time, and something that’s even more important to us now that Ben is on his way. 

– I said that Casey and I were going to start training for a 5k this fall, then pregnancy happened and that didn’t.  As things stand, my goal is to be at my pre-pregnancy weight by labor day. 

Before I get questions about this being realistic, this does take into account several worst case scenarios all together (c-section/extra long recovery, another 10lbs of weight gain over what I’m on track for, etc.).

Now, off to make somethings happen…

Today Nikki went to see a friend for lunch. She gave Nikki a small bag of baby presents, and in this bag was a set of four bibs with website names embroidered on them.

Me, thinking it was a cute cross-marketing attempt, decided to visit the sites.

This company didn’t buy the domains they are printing on the bibs!
Why? Why would you do that?

Two of the four were purchased about three years ago by two different individuals. The other two were purchased by me, just now.

The free advertising they are giving me should more than cover the $7.50 I paid for them.

A couple of weeks ago, we had an event at work, and at 7 months pregnant, I saw several people that I haven’t seen in…oh about 6 or 7 months.  This made me want to write a post explaining a little something about myself. 

For those who didn’t already know, I’m not a “scream it from the rooftop” type of person.  I’m can be very quiet and reserved and even shy at times (I know, this is shocking to some).  Don’t get me wrong, I was very excited to tell close friends and family we were expecting (and engaged when that happened), but I didn’t feel the need to blast Facebook (just the opposite with the baby news), rent a billboard or anything like that.  I don’t Ohh and Ahh at showers, parties, and the like, and I, like most of my family, don’t get very outwardly excited ever.  Yes, that means it takes a lot of energy for me to do parts of my job, but it does not mean that my gushing thanks is any less sincere, on the contrary, because it is such a stretch for me to be so enthusiastic. 

I wish my co-workers from the spring of 2007 could tell you about how they found out we were engaged.  Let me preface it with, there were 3 people in our building, so we were relatively close for the 3 months I’d been there and I might have been the most extroverted one- and I’m definitely an introvert.  So, we got engaged over the weekend. I went to work on Monday with my new, shiny ring on and went about my day.  Hours later one of our regular clients came in, noticed it, and inquired.  When he left, I remember turning around and Craig was just staring at me and Vanessa had her hands on her hips.  They were surprised I didn’t tell them first thing, and Vanessa said I should have walked in the door with my left hand on my forehead to tell the world.  I told her that just wasn’t me or my style. 

Some may say “but you had a big wedding, doesn’t that mean you sort of are a more ‘scream it from the rooftop’ type?”.  I did, but that wedding was Adam’s, not mine.  Don’t get me wrong, I wanted the big dress and I picked the flowers that I really wanted, but, having a wedding like that was what Adam wanted, not what I wanted.  (And yes I am awesome for planning that wedding for Adam and yes he knows it!)

I’m not sure where I’m going with all this except to say, writing is easy for me, but topics and putting it out there is hard.  I get easily overwhelmed with lots of attention and I’m generally a very level person (I’d like to think I’ve had only few exceptions to that, even during pregnancy, so far) and it takes a lot for people who do get outwardly excited to perceive me as excited, because I don’t show it like they do. 

Now, don’t take any of this the wrong way, both Adam and I are super excited about our baby, but you may think he’s more excited (and maybe he is, I’m nervous about it too, and a little overwhelmed with the holidays-  but, I’m also a realist, that’s another post) because of his behavior as compared to mine.  Really, we just have different personalities and different ways of feeling and showing emotions.  Neither of us does it the right or wrong way, just different ways. 

There is a lot of evidence that goal setting helps people be more productive. I did it last year for a couple of things and was fairly successful in my endeavors. I set two very specific goals and met both of them. That’s the key: specific….and written down.

Next year is going to be a little bit different for us since Ben will be here in February. It’s hard to tell what’s a reasonable goal and what’s not since we don’t really know how much things are going to change. Casey took all the low-hanging fruit in the leisure time category–or so I like to tell myself. So here are a couple of small things I want to get accomplished in 2012:

• Finally build a CNC router. I’ve already ordered the expensive parts, and they should be here by mid-January. I hope to have this finished by March.
• Have an Affiliate Website making $1000 per month by the end of the year. I made $90 in December on one of my blogs and it was the first time I’d ever made any money online. It was kinda cool. I’ll be happy with $1000/month in passive income from any source, but that’s too broad to be a good goal.
• Run a 5K. Maybe the Purity 5K in April. There are lot’s of Couch to 5K programs out there and I ought to be able to find one that I can work with. Casey will probably help, although the couple of times I’ve decided to start jogging with her on the leash she’s been very confused and began to jump on me.
• Find a local church and begin attending regularly. We really liked CrossPoint when we lived in West Nashville, but it’s too far for us now.

That’s probably enough for me. One other key point is to not overwhelm yourself by trying to do too many things. There has to be a balance between “so easy that it’s not a challenge” and “so hard that you can’t possibly finish.” In those extremes you get discouraged.