My Goals for 2017

by - Sunday, January 08, 2017

Goals for 2017 Snow and Lights

1. Learn to Sew- If last year I learned to garden, this is the year to learn to sew. A few more years and a few less jobs, and I will be a full on 50's housewife. Since I have mostly stopped buying clothes for the last year and a half, the stuff I have is starting to show it's wear a lot more. To try to cut down my waste, I need to make these clothes last longer, and the best way to do that is to actually mend things. Sadly, to do that my sewing has to look less like a mess of string and knots.

To make a story short, if I don't figure out to fix some leggings, I am going to be making a lot of people uncomfortable. It's time to pull some crotches back together, friends.

snow hill and sunset


2.  Take Better Pictures- This is the year I will master the aperature. I feel like with little kids every moment feels a special one that you will deeply regret missing. But they move so fast. The fear of missing something has made me make really conservative choices and not learn anything particularly in the last year. My goal is to do better this year and really master my camera, so that our personal pictures and the content on this blog gets prettier.

3. Use Even Less Fossil Fuels- Currently, I am pretty fired up about politics and that Big Oil is buying it's way into our government (along with some of their allies). My goal this year? Give them as little of my money as possible. So not only am I going to strap my children to me and WALK, I am going to buy things that have traveled as short a distance as possible. I want to buy nearly nothing that travels overseas. My goal is to only buy used or local products for a year. Can I do it? I guess we will see!

4. Grow Teal Tuesdays- For a few years, we have tried to get the word out about Ovarian cancer every September. I am ready to step our efforts up. This is on my mind a lot.

meatless monday roasted winter vegetable hash

5. Embrace Meatless Mondays- We have been trying to get this going in our household for a while. We were doing pretty well, and then December happened. My goal for 2017 is to get creative about our meals and to fall in love with some new vegetarian and pescatarian options. It can be easy when things are unfamiliar to stick with what already works, but I am hopeful we can use cutting some meat out as an opportunity to keep trying new recipes and flavors. I feel like we should do this anyway to keep things fresh, but helping the environment is a great added bonus.

2017 goals gnome salzburg

6. Throw an Awesome 30th Birthday Party- The Boy is turning 30, and now I am thinking a lot about how to throw the best 30th birthday party ever. Or at least a pretty good one. With lots of Hogwarts references and magic drinks. Also, maturity. At the very least, I hope it is super fun (and I do love throwing a theme party- I just love themes for goodness sakes). Looking forward to some happy days, and planning on approaching them with real gusto.

2017 goals unfinished table goggles

7. Finish this Table- Ah, the sanding saga of our lives. I will finish this table this year. If nothing else, we will have a freaking finished table. I will not be defeated by pregnancies or Seattle's constant sprinkling.

8. Be a Better Responder- I hear a lot of complaints that I don't respond to things fast enough, or that I don't reach out enough. I don't know why. It's certainly not a sign of my lack of regard for people, I love my people crazy a lot, but I do this thing, where I check my phone and then I think of the response but save typing it for later, and then I never type it. Does anyone else have this problem? How does one master the problem of just being flighty? I know I could write back immediately, but I like being in the moment, especially because I HATE watching parents play with their phones instead of their kids. So I think my goal now is to make sure I crossed my t's before I go to bed. I certainly care a lot about all my people, but man I feel like everyday a good handful of things fall through the cracks. I will try to do better this year.  Many of you can hold me accountable.

9. The Great Donate 2017- I haven't written to all of you about this yet, but this is my big mission for 2017. My current thinking is that hardly anything actually needs to go in the garbage, and that most everything we would want to toss is actually useful to someone. So I am going to figure out where to donate anything and everything. And what you can't donate, I want to figure out how you recycle them.

My goal is to gift or donate at least 2,017 things in 2017. It sounds like a lot, until you realize the average American household has 300,000 objects in it. So I just think of how much we have just sitting around that someone could use. Or things we throw away that could be useful. So my goal is to just keep thinning out our hoard. Anyone interested in joining me?

10. Fight for my Own Optimism- Holy crap, 2016. Could you have been any worse? Every for the last 2 months, I wake up convinced today is the day I will get back in the swing of things with positivity and fierceness.

Then I get on facebook. What is wrong with this world? What is wrong with people? How is this not a bad dream?

I am fighting through this year, and I refuse to believe the narratives and negativity floating around. I am going to be productive, and I refuse to turn a blind eye because it is easier, but I don't want to lose my faith in humanity. I refuse. I mostly like humanity, and I have to believe that people in general are trying their best and are trying to do better, or I will just implode. I will fight, and I will organize, and I will fight the Corporate Party, and I will push all of you to finally stop using single-use plastic and start buying local, and I refuse to lose faith. Because things can and do get better.  Because everything can't stay as terrible as it was this year. Because darkness can take over for a minute, but light always comes back.

What are your resolutions for 2017? Hoping we all can find ways to get better and do good this year!

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