New Year Update

It's the last week of the month and I was sitting in bed last night going over my goals. Were they too much? Too little? Too early to say. I have made some progress creatively speaking. If you follow my Tilt's Creations blog you have seen the things I have been making. If not, here's a little peek...

The biggest problem with the goals so far has been the photography. While I have come up with some ideas for backdrops and such, the weather has not been cooperating. Natural light is always always, always best, but this time of year it is hard to find. Especially in my house where there are very few places withe good window placement. I could default and just take some with lights, but that is cruddy as well. My house is quite dim. I could go into how frustrating it is to find bright enough lamps and such in stores that are too lit to see how well each piece lights up an area, but no one wants to hear that.

And from lack of photos comes lack of listings. I have made up for this by listing a bunch of destash patterns in my Tilt Too shop. I have a couple dozen more to go and some fabric bits too.

I guess that's not too bad. If I go another week without photos for listings, than I may downgrade it to "kinda not so good".

How are you doing with your goals?

Etsyblogger Carnival: New Year

This week's Etsyblogger carnival is brought to you by Missie from Sykin and is either about business goals or personal resolutions. Since I just wrote about my year in review and included goals, I will go a bit into the personal side.

My biggest "resolution" is a continuation of what I began in August. The first step was dropping pop from my diet. I have only had 3 since the end of August. Two of which were during a migraine, which always helps. I have gone back to a mostly veggie diet and am working out again. I am proud to say that I have dropped nearly 20 pounds since then.

The exercise started with walks after I dropped the kiddo off at school. I began adding gym time on the elliptical and recumbent bike. Then in October I received a free personal training session for my birthday. Jackpot! I then got a few sessions myself. They were awesome! As an ex-exercise scientist, I know how & what to do to improve my health. Nitty gritty bits of nutrition and exercise know how are still jammed in this old brain of mine. But nothing can compare to the jump start from another person. Not to mention the accountability after paying for and scheduling sessions.

My goal is to simply continue and up what I am already doing. Cardio 4 days a week and strength training 3 days. Some weeks may have to be adapted for home workouts, but with the basement getting cleaned, that should not be an issue.

Tomorrow's post starts a weekly feature that details my workouts. It will be one more way to help keep me in check.

End goal - to have lost weight and get healthier. Numbers? Deadlines? Sort of. My most comfy lifetime weight is still 35 pounds away. At a healthy & doable 2 pounds a week, I am looking at a date somewhere around June. Just in time for shorts :)

And I have some prizes for myself along the way. Comic books for the smaller achievements, DVDs for mid range ones and some fun funky new clothes (most likely from Etsy) when I finally get there. I am using Livestrong's My Plate to track my food & exercise and Goal For It to track my overall progress and rewards.

Do you have any personal goals for the new year?

I was supposed to write this last week....

I have been such a bad blogger, a bad Etsyblogger to be more precise. I have not done a carnival in quite some time. The subjects were interesting, I guess I just never felt like writing. I almost did last week's about goals and dreams throughout the quarters of our lives, but I realized I am way lacking in those areas.

I was never one to have big dreams of "I want to be/do this when I get older". I was raised with more of a grow up happy & enjoy what you do attitude. Everything else is just gravy. Were there things I thought I would like to do? Yes. Was I good at them? Not so much. I tend to enjoy things I do not excel at and only kind of like things I am good at. If I had a talent, like my oldest does with music, maybe I would have seen things differently.

Am I where I thought I would be at this quarter of my life? Well, that is the advantage of no majorly defined goals...yes, I am. I am happy. I have two wonderfully fantastic kids - which I thought I would want someday. So hey - a goal! A great hubby - which was never on my list, but darn it, the guy made me fall in love with him...men :P Job - well, not so much of anything there. I do love creating and hope to do more with that now that the little guy is in school. I would love to get back to painting. Maybe once I finish clearing out the basement.

I guess I do have one goal for now, two actually. The first is getting the biz going steady. I give myself this school year before I bow out & get a "real" job. The second - plan "Chunk Be Gone". I am off to a good start there. Getting back to veggie, walking kiddo to school & taking the long way home...next up - getting my big 'ol a$% to the gym. More on this fun ride later :)

Etsybloggers Carnival: My Goals...? hmmm?

These were our choices:
1) What are your new year's goals for your blog and/or shop
- OR -
2) How are you organizing your business for paying taxes?

The second would be too short...organization not necessary because so few sales. So I am going to try for the first one. This could also be quite short - I have no goals...none I write out anyway. So I am using this as a good excuse to do just that.

My shop and blog have similar goals...they both need some organization.

The blog organizing is much more simple than the shop. I just need to decide what kind of thing to post on which day. Pre-writing the posts and scheduling at least 3 a week is also on my list. The Treasures blog will be themed weekly - like next week will be the Beatles ... sky of blue, sea of green and yellow submarine :) That blog is going to be lots of fun.

The Creations blog goal: schedule 3 posts each week plus at least 2 the day of.
The Treasures blog goal: 3 treasure a week with weekly themes.

The shop organization is all behind the scenes in "production". It has been all too easy to let production slow down with so few sales happening. I don't want to get buried by an avalanche of handbags here at home. But since I do have tons of fabric...I guess I should just keep making the mountain of bags higher and higher. I have recently opened shop at Art Fire and Crobbies (will be adding Silk Fair this weekend) and I do prefer adding new items rather than just moving them over from etsy like I have been. I am not sure how many of these I will stick with, but I needed to try different venues.

Behind the scenes requires an organization overhaul. I need to go through all my fabric and put aside those that are not great for bags or do not inspire me. These will be put in a destash on my soon to be opened second etsy shop, TiLT Too! I guess that one will need a goal too...later :)
I also need to find a convenient home for the fabrics I will be using for my bags - hopefully next to my sewing machine. Limited space gets frustrating real fast. I want to have everything in one place. Once my sewing area is clean and organized, I feel I can get to producing.

My organization goal: fabrics and supplies to be sorted through and put away by next Wednesday.
My production goal: 5 bags every week...including photos and listing.