It's June now, which means we're halfway through 2010. And I'd estimate about I'm halfway to my goals for the year (which I suppose is better than being behind schedule.) To refresh your memory (all 5 of you who read my blog) my goals were as follows: 1) Make our first house feel like home 2) Re-engage at work 3) Open my own Etsy shop 4) Run a marathon 5) Improve my photography skills
And here's where I'm at with each goal:
1) While I don't think I'll ever be able to look around my house and say "it's done," we've definitely made a ton of progress toward making it feel like home in the past 6 months. I've been slacking on posting project recaps (I promise, they're coming!) but to summarize - we've painted almost every room, given both the front and back yards a major overhaul complete with veggies and a fire pit (thanks to my hard workin' green thumbed husband), invested a small fortune to air seal and insulate the basement and attic, remade the sun room into a great breakfast/lounging room, built a dining room table from scratch (the Modern Farmhouse Table thanks to the awesome plan at Knock-off Wood!), gutted the basement and made it into a livable space for storage, crafting, brewing, laundry, and hanging out, and outfitted our front porch with the requisite adirondack chairs and table. By the end of the summer I hope to have the landing and hallways painted (bye bye ugly mustard walls!!!) and finally hang our art and photos. It's been hard work, but it's been more than worth it. Most days I still can't believe we get to live here.
2) I'd say this one is 90% there. The last 10% will come when we move into our new office space at the end of the summer. We've been in a temporary, shared workspace since the company started up last September, and I'm really really looking forward to finally having our own space.
3) Ohh, my own Etsy shop. The thought of this finally becoming a reality later this year fills me with joy... anxious, terrified joy - but joy nonetheless. I just finished a prototype for 1 of my 2 initial products and it looks even better than I hoped! Very very exciting. If everything goes as planned, I'm hoping to launch at the end of September when Jared and I get back from vacation. Stay tuned!! :)
4) This is the only goal that I had to change. You could probably sense from the way I talked about it that my heart wasn't exactly into the idea of running a marathon. It wasn't at the time, but I was hoping it would be when I started training. Sadly, it wasn't then either. I was doing a training run and everything inside of me was saying "Why are you doing this? Is this really something you want to accomplish or are you doing it because you feel like it's what you're supposed to do once you've checked the half marathon off the list?" To train for and run a marathon you REALLY have to want it, and I just didn't. This was Jared's goal, not mine, and after making the decision to do the 1/2 in San Diego instead of the full I never once had a feeling of failure or regret. I have so much going on with the house and my sewing, and I'd be insanely disappointed with myself if I didn't achieve goal #3 because I spent all my free time training. So instead I ran the 1/2 this past weekend in San Diego, and set a new PR. It was a great weekend and a great race. It was Jared's moment to shine and I'm just happy I got to share it with him. After pacing like a nervous wreck for an hour I finally saw him come into view at mile 25. When he got to me at 25.7 it was clear - like with so many other runners - the heat of the day had taken everything he had. We ran last 1/2 mile together, and crossing that finish line with him was a moment I'll never forget. There will be more goals and more races, but this one will always be very special to me.
5) It's hopefully clear by now that I've made some progress on this one (though not including iPhone pics in my posts is hardly a photographic achievement.) I'm definitely starting to get the hang of lighting and composition, and I've discovered the awesomeness of Photoshop actions. I still want to learn how to use the manual settings on my camera and continue to improve my editing skills - could come in handy for that whole selling my products online thing. ;)
So there you have it. 6 months down, 6 more to go, lots more to do. But first, me and my hobbled legs need to go to bed so I can dream about etsy shops and painfree quads. Goodnight!