Today is January 1st, which means we have officially started a new year. I don’t know yet what 2014 will hold. What I do know is that I hope to have a 2014 filled with happiness and love. The good news is that with my awesome hubby David by my side, I know I will always have the love.
I’ve been very busy lately saying that I have no new year’s resolutions for 2014. And I still contend that is true. That doesn’t mean I don’t have any plans for 2014, because I do. First, I want to continue working on my blog and see it grown in 2014. I actually started to see some growth at the end of 2013. My readership is still very small, but I am hoping to see a steady climb this year. To help spur continued growth, I am participating in two challenges this month. One challenge is a daily challenge for the month of January that I also participated in back in October, the Ultimate Blog Challenge. The goal with this challenge is to have a new post on my blog every single day this month. I successfully completed the challenge in October and I hope to do so again this month.
The second challenge is actually a year long challenge being hosted by Gaby of AnotherGirlyBlog, the 2014 Blogger Challenge . With this challenge, I will be creating two blog posts a month with each post having a specific theme. We have already been given the theme for our first post and I am excited about it. You will see my first post for this challenge later this week.
I also plan to take more pictures this year. In 2012, I successfully completed Project 52 (at least one photo a week). I loved looking a all of the photos I took as part of the 2012 challenge. I started strong in 2013 and then about April I just seemed to lose interest. I will do better in 2014. I am participating in two weekly photo challenges that should help me get back in to the picture taking habit. Both challenges involve taking a photo to capture a specific theme. Project 52 on Facebook is filled with amazing photographers who are much more skilled than I. But it encourages me to work on becoming a better photographer. I was part of this group last year and while I floundered early, I was very happy with the photos I did capture. I am also part of the Weekly Photo Challenge community on Google+. I just joined a couple of days ago, but I think it will be a fun set of challenges. (And a little less pressure than my Project 52 group.)
I also have a couple of scrapping goals as well. In 2013, I finally found my scrapping niche. I love digital art journaling. And I feel that I am really good at it. I really focused on this area in 2013 and loved it. But I am not getting my pictures scrapped. I realized this when my husband asked why I hadn’t scrapped any of the photos from our Texas trip at the end of 2011. I’m either doing art journaling pages or single photo pages but not really getting the events scrapped. I have challenged myself to do two things in 2014. First, I am going to give Project Life another shot. I tried it last year, but couldn’t seem to make it work for me and it became too much pressure. This year, I have set a goal of two, two-page spreads per month. I think that will work much better for my situation than trying to have two pages for every week of the year. My other goal is to go back and scrap some of the past events I totally ignored in my scrapping the last couple of years. I got started in scrapping to document memories, and while I still plan to do plenty of digital art journaling, you will also see more traditional pages this year.
I also have a long-term goal that I hope to get started on in 2014 although it may have to wait until 2015. We shall see. What I want to be able to do this Fall is go back to school and study either web or graphic design. I’d like to start developing a career in an area that I really love. Going back to school would allow me to do just that.
This was a much longer post than I had originally planned. I hope I didn’t bore you to death on the first day of the year. lol Whatever your plans for 2014, I hope your have a year filled with success, love and happiness.
Wow, that’s a lot of challenges, Cindy! The year-long blogging challenge sounds really interesting; it’s a shame it’s too late for me to take part. Will you be sharing your posts for that challenge as part of the UBC too? Sounds like you’ve got 2014 licked into shape already I’m impressed. Looking forward to reading the rest of your posts. I’m with you on the no new year resolutions; so I shall just say best of luck with all your challenges. Hope you have a blast! Blessings, Andrea
Andrea, thank you for your comments. I will be sharing the posts as part of the UBC challenge as well. (You’ll know it’s part of the challenge cause I’ll indicate it somewhere in the post for those who are specifically following that challenge.)
Alana, thank you for stopping by and commenting. Best of luck with your upcoming care duties.