Musings....

Okay, so this is my plan for 2015. I hope that by committing it to "paper," my follow-through will be just as good as my intentions.  Hey, I can always hope, right??? (In case you're not paying attention, this blog will be short on cool quilt photos and potentially rambling and not that exciting. In other words, feel free to delete now and go on to something more fun!)

Last year I tried Evernote for the first time. This involved purchasing a scanner for my paper bills (got a super cheap one--$20 on Amazon), installing Evernote on all my devices (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) and setting up a "Financials" file on my computer. Can you say overkill???

For every bill received via snail and/or e-mail, it was scanned (if necessary), saved as a .pdf and filed in both the Financials file on my computer and then saved into Evernote. (Super cool thing about Evernote is that if you save it on one device, it automatically syncs to the rest).  I also did this with all my tax related docs: payment for quilts, business purchases, tax donations, you get the idea.  Yes, it was time consuming and since it was my first time trying this, I was overly cautious and redundant. Because this was my first year with Evernote (and partially because I'm cheap frugal), I opted for the free version. The free versions works perfectly, so I won't be upgrading.

This year, though, things are changing a bit. I've refined my Evernote usage and will not save everything to my hard drive (don't tell Dennis that part. He still doesn't trust Evernote *shrug*). I've set up a new e-mail account that will receive ONLY electronic bills (the goal here is to keep me from losing bills and getting the dreaded "late notice."

And I'm finally breaking into my Life.doc system from Get Buttoned Up. (I've owned this for four years now; however, I didn't want to rush into it!!) Not sure what it entails, but it can't hurt, right??

Then, on the personal side, I'm determined to get healthy, I've always exercised off  and on, but this year, I intend to get serious and do something physical six days a week. I'm already doing so well!!  Yesterday we took the dogs out for a four-mile walk and today I spent 35 minutes on our elliptical. Yes, I know...its only the second day of January and there are still 350+ days to go. But, its a start!

I also plan to be more organized with my customer quilts as well as my own stuff. I will quilt for customers M-F (taking Wednesday to do some piecing of my own) and will, with a little determination, quilt my own tops on weekends. Biggest barrier to quilting my own tops? Me!!  Give me a customer quilt and I can come up with great ideas; give me my own quilt and I cannot make a decision. Go figure.

So, that is my basic plan for 2015. Did you make any specific resolutions? Share if you'd like and maybe we can motivate each other!

Thanks for hanging in there with me...

Dory

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention: I plan to post at least twice a week in 2015!

Resolutions

Every year I find myself making the same resolutions...lose weight, exercise, get organized, blah, blah, blah.  I'm sure many of you do the same--its almost impossible not to.  I used to go to our local health club every morning for years and around this time of year, we'd always take a poll to see how many new people would show up in January and usually be gone by February.  Although, I was still there, I wasn't really accomplishing much.  I've not attended the club regularly for years now; initially due to my two back surgeries, but also because I allowed things to get in the way.

I have a forming plan for this year, however.  There is a new club in town that isn't filled with college kids, where the owners are very active and knowledgeable and actually help you rather than acting as if you're bothering them when you ask for assistance.  I want to join this club.  Unfortunately, before I do, I have to determine what's going on with my back this time.  I'm having the same pain as before, but down my left leg this time.  I've had x-rays and an MRI and will know the results on Wednesday.  Based on those results, I'll either be joining this club or visiting my back doctor. *fingers crossed that its the former*

What this all boils down to is Christine Kane's Blog.  If you're not familiar with it, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  She advocates a "Resolution Revolution."  Instead of addressing your resolution to what you're going to "do," you address what you're going to "be."  You choose a word and for the entire year, you remember the word, ponder the word and do things to help you accomplish it.  I'm choosing "health" for my word this year.  One other thing I plan to do is live my life by the punch method...another Kane idea.  I like it!  Instead of beating myself up at the end of the day for doing things I shouldn't have, or eating things I shouldn't have, or not doing something I should have, I'm going to "punch" that action from my day and replace it (mentally, of course) with something better/different/new or just edit it all together. 

Do you have a resolution?  What word will you choose??