Photography Workshop . . . CHECK

Remember these Goals for 2010?

See that first goal under "Photography" - to attend a photography workshop?

Well, in good goal fashion, I've been doing my research all year. I've sent emails, read blogs, and searched for just the right training session at just the right price. And, at just the right time of year, because in case you're new here - I'm going to be a little busy come July. Nothing has come to fruition.

And then, the mother load of all workshops announced that they were coming to Dallas. I have followed Lauren Clark, Davina Fear, Millie Holloman and Kelly Moores' blogs since BEFORE I purchased my first digital slr. Their Love Affair Workshop is what I had in mind when I originally set my goal for 2010, but for some reason I kept telling myself I needed to start smaller.  Finally, Danny and I decided just to go for the gold, so this fall I couldn't be more excited to learn about photography, photoshop, business and more.

This week they are giving away all kinds of prizes on the Love Affair blog, and I am going to do my darndest to win a scholarship, so check out their blog here: Love Affair Workshop

GTD Goals 2010

Remember how I said that I save blogs in my Google Reader either just for future reference or because I want to take action on them - my GTD list? Well, for my own accountability and remembering here it is. You may find this totally boring - or maybe you'll find something you want to try out too!

GTD: Blogging

1. Integrate Amazon Associates & Blogger
2. Maximize AdSense w/ channels
3. Blog about freezer cooking
4. Blog about two-week menu plans
5. Improve Alexa rank
6. Improve blogging time management
7. Install popular posts gadget
8. Install recent posts thumbnails
9. Add "tweet this" to blogger template
10. Add rotating banners
11. Add Card.ly widget. Add SocialFeed widget
12. Add GoogleTalk to blog

GTD: Budgeting

1. Try out BudgetSketch
2. Analyze monthly food budget
3. Optimize cell phone bill
4. Try out Rudder

GTD: Computer

1. Turn Gmail into the Ultimate GTD Inbox
2. Back up online accounts (including Gmail to hard drive)
3. Start online back up  for extern hard drive (Mozy/Carbonite/Crash Plan)
4. Make sure iTunes is set up to store to external hard drive
5. Speed up Mac

GTD: Couponing

1. Update 2010 Savings Tracker spreadsheat & blog about it

GTD: Life

1. Set a date w/ Danny to set up a will
2. Compare insurance companies
3. Negotiate car insurance
4. Read about insurance premiums

GTD: Music

1. Organize mp3 tags w/ MediaMonkey
2. Organized iTunes w/ Pollux
3. Stream iTunes using PulpTunes

GTD: Organization

1. Going Paperless
2. Create a Big Book of Everything to organize personal information
3. Organize all manuals online
4. Create a DIY phone charging station
5. Try out Tarpipe (to update social media)
6. Try out Springpad (to organize personal information)

GTD: Photography

1. Learn Back-button Focusing
2. Practice Metering
3. Adjust RAW -> JPEG conversion in my camera
4. Study aperture
5. Understand camera lenses and here
6. Try adding in the sun
7. Practice changing to B&W w/o an action
8. Focusing

GTD: Photoshop

1. Learn Photoshop shortcuts
2. Learn to create blog layouts
3. Try using textures

That should be 46 GTD done items. And, considering we're five weeks into the year I'm right on track to do one item per week. Here we go getting things done!

Reading Goals 2010

I've always enjoyed reading, and I've always enjoyed making lists. So, naturally, a few years ago I started tracking what books I was reading using Shelfari. 

It wasn't until I stumbled upon the book list at Passionate Homemaking that I thought about setting goals for my reading each year. I liked the idea of trying to be more balanced and well-rounded in my reading, so here is what I'll be reading in 2010 (this list in not all inclusive, I may decide to add a few books here and there as I go along).

Reading Goals:

To see what I'm currently reading check out My Shelfari.

Marriage/Wife/Home:

• Womanly Dominion: More Than A Gentle and Quiet Spirit by Mark Chanski
• Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
• Practicing Hospitality: The Joy of Serving Others by Patricia A. Ennis & Lisa Tatlock
• Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy? by Gary Thomas

Parenting:

• Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods by Nina Planck
• Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby To Love Good Food by Gill Rapley & Tracey Murkett
• Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience by Ricki Lake & Abby Epstein
• Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby by Tracy Hogg & Melinda Blau
• Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years by Jim Fay & Charles Fay
• On Becoming Baby Wise: Parenting Your Pre Toddler 5-15 Months by Gary Ezzo & Robert Bucknam
• The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp
• Baby Bargains: Secrets to Saving 20% to 50% on Baby Furniture, Equipment, Clothes, Toys, Maternity Wear, and Much, Much More! by Denise Fields
• Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth
• Expectant Prayers: Praying for Your Child's Development-Body and Soul by Marla Taviano
• Baby 411, 4th Edition: Clear Answers & Smart Advice For Your Baby's First Year by Denise Fields & Ari Brown
• Husband-Coached Childbirth : The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth by Robert A. Bradley & Ashley Montagu
• The Christian Childbirth Handbook by Jennifer Vanderlaan

Fiction:

• Patron Saint of Liars: A Novel by Ann Patchett
• South of Broad by Pat Conroy
• Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
• Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Non-Fiction/Memiors:

• There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children by Melissa Fay Greene
• Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
• Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Ministry:

• Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian
• What Is a Healthy Church Member? by Thabiti M. Anyabwile
• Total Church by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis

Finances/Frugality:

• The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn
• Frugal Families: Making the Most of Your Hard Earned Money by Jonni McCoy
• America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams by Steve Economides & Annette Economides

I'm always on the look out for books to add to the "I Plan To Read" list - so feel free to share your reading goals or any other suggestions you might have!

Goals for 2010

Every year I say that my New Years Resolution is to not make any New Years Resolutions, and yet something in my Type-A personality just cannot RESIST the perfect opportunity to make a list!

So, other than survive childbirth (which is probably the most thought about and anticipated goal I've ever had), here are my Goals for 2010: 

Home/Family:

• Plan the entire month's worth of meals by the 20th of the previous month in hopes that it reduces the weekly stress and time I spend pouring over recipes.
• Buy more of our fruit and vegetables from the local farmer's market and research purchasing produce through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
• Stock pile diapers before baby comes in July.
• Kick up the couponing after the baby comes (start shopping at more stores, expecially Walgreens).
• Put dishes straight into the dishwasher instead of letting them pile up in the sink.
• Every week I save numerous blogs - some just for future reference, but some I save because I want to take action on them. I call the latter group my GTD (Getting Things Done) links - what did I tell you? TYPE A! I want to work through my GTD saved blog posts and do at least one per week.

Reading:

• Read MORE before going to bed instead of watching TV (read at least 3 days a week)
• Read 35 books this year (beat last years 29 - see Shelfari - a follow up post will be coming on my 2010 reading list).

Photography

• Attend a photography workshop.
• Purchase an external flash and a 50mm 1.4 lens for my camera.

Financial

• Finish saving for a car (for when our trusty Jeep eventually dies or we realize we need a second one)
• Track grocery savings and spending
• Lower grocery bill gradually, a little each month

See, nothing outrageous. In fact, some of these things I'm aleady doing - like reading before bed, planning a month of meals at a time (it is saving me a headache!), and putting my dishes straight into the dishwasher (my parents would be so proud).

Bike Rack Bedroom

Remember when I told you here, that we use to have my office desk in our bedroom, and now it's been replaced with a bike rack?

Well, it's true. But it's not just any bike rack.

I searched high and low for the perfect thing to suit my organizational fancy.

I didn't want to pay $100, even though I love keeping REI in business (my brother single-handedly does that).

I didn't want a huge, clunky monstrosity that took up half of our room.

Well, in all my blog reading, I stumbled across this.

I wanted it. If I had to have a bike rack in my house (and I did, because I am not a fan of dirty tires on carpet) then that is what I wanted.

And, Danny (because he loves me) made it happen.

Update: Since building this bike rack, my Dad ever so graciously GAVE Danny his old bicycle. Thank you Dad, for unloading your junk into our small space. Because two people need three bikes - that's only logical. Apparently fixed gear bikes are the current rage and completely over-rule reason. I need to get my urban act together.

Clean as a Whistle - Bigger Version

There are only two things that can get me motivated to clean up a mess this bad:

My husband saying, "Can we please do something about this room," and the fact that I signed up for an "organizational challenge" and can't back out now.

And so that craziness now looks like this:

I know you're impressed. I'M IMPRESSED. In two years of marriage all of this office "stuff" has been through four moves/apartments and has only grown into a bigger monster. So, this is the first time we have had a truly functional office.

The fact that Danny called me three times today - once to tell me how much he liked the clean office, once to tell me how much he LOVED being able to walk in a straight line across the room, and ONCE to tell me he was cleaning the bathrooms in honor of our new clean office - tells me this is going to be a beautiful change for our marriage.

Did you read that? Let me tell you again, just in case you were skimming. My husband stopped studying to clean the bathrooms in the middle of the day because he loved the organized office. I about came home right them to organize the rest of the house!

My husband can actually study at his desk now.

You'll see these questions in the post below too, because I've entered our newly cleaned room into a little organization competition.

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?
Getting everything out of the room in order to sort, purge, and organized.

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?
Nothing is stored in this room except for books on the book shelves and Danny's study stuff on his desk. Everything else has a spot in the closet.

3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
Threw it away or created a storage spot for it in the closet.

4. Now that you have completed the challenge, do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life?
It already has!

6. Why do you think you should win the challenge?
I have already won - my husband hasn't stopped awing over it - AND HE CLEANED THE BATHROOMS!

Clean as a Whistle - Small Version

Okay, so remember this:

Sick right. Well, Danny finally got so fed up he helped me clean it. Yes, it was that unfunctional and bad.

But, no need to fear, because now our little closet looks like this:
I KNOW (said Monica style from Friends - only Kristi will get that)!

I'm hoping our "buckle-down and get her done" persistence wins us a little prize over at OrgJunkie.com.

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?
Getting started. It was a mountainous mess. We had to pull EVERYTHING out of that closet until it was completely empty. Then we threw lots of things away!

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?
EVERYTHING has a place and the boxes, drawers, containters are not overstuffed, so it's possible to put things back in their place.

3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
Gave it away, sold it on Craig's list, and threw it in the dumpster (which was my favorite).

4. Now that you have completed the challenge, do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life?
YES! Danny hasn't stopped commenting on how great it is to have a place for things.

6. Why do you think you should win the challenge?
Because who can't use $50 for making their own life a little more comfortable.

Organize Yourself

So, according to the little ticker in our side bar we have been in Dallas for three months and seven days.

That's three months of listening to our neighbor's alarm clock go off at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning for AN HOUR, because he's not home to turn it off.

That's 12 weeks of waving back at the white-bearded homeless man on my way home from work.

That's 416 quarters that I've feed the washer and dryer in the little laundromat downstairs.

And that's 91 days of living with our office LOOKING LIKE THIS!


And like this:
Yes, that's a can of varnish, sitting on a box of tableclothes, resting next to an old computer keyboard, just in case we need to stain something while typing an email on a cloth-covered table.

In the top picture you can see my attempt at cleaning this room - I walked in, got tired just looking at the mess, and plopped a Mango Diffuser from Pier1 on Danny's buried desk. Maybe if it smelled good it wouldn't look so back.

Believe it or not, we actually jump over all of this stuff to get to this closet:


Why? Because we keep important stuff in there. Important stuff like batteries, cds (does anyone actually listen to cds anymore?), and notebooks for school. All that stuff is in one plastic drawer, and I know exactly where it is when Danny asks - everything else is a lost cause.

Until today.

I haunt/stalk a few fun blogs here and there - most of them talk about exciting things like cooking, being a wife, grocery shopping, coupons . . . and ORGANIZING. Because, believe it or not I love to organize things. You'd never guess by looking at our office.

So, today, one of the blogs that I get some good ideas from is hosting an organizational challenge. I have the whole month of November to get my act together and get Danny's study room neat.

Because until I do, he will continue to study at the kitchen table, and I will have to eat my food with Greek and Systematic Theology books piled high. Nothing makes a girl loose her appetite faster than trying to wolf down some taco soup and thinking about studying at the same time.

So ya'll are my witnesses. It's a clean office or bust.

Organization Baby!

Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE to organize things. File cabinets, sock drawers, my kitchen, clipped coupons, to-do lists, anything. If it's messy I will straighten it. If it's out of order I will sort it. Unpacking our books and sorting them into catagories after we moved to Columbia was like putting a drill and a piece of plywood into Danny's hands, like giving my Dad a baseball glove and ball and telling him to go play, like giving Rusty, my parents' Golden Retriever, a piece of steak.

So, when I saw what I am about to show you in the magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, I was in heaven. I knew immediately what I would do. I would make one for my friend's wedding shower. It is exactly what I would have wanted.

Do you know what you can make with the following: a drill, a 5 gallon bucket, a tool belt, and a wooden dowel? Wonderful things, my friend, wonderful things.
First off, you should just be impressed with me that I got out the drill and made holes in the sides of this bucket all by myself. Danny was gone in Arizona and would not be home before I needed to finish this project. So, I changed the drill bit and everything BY MYSELF! I usually try to stay far, far away from tools. They usually mean loud noises and mess (typically saw dust which never sweeps up easily). But, I conquered all inhibitions and made holes in that bucket and stuck that dowel right through those holes. Then, my friend, Kristi, filled the bucket up with all kinds of goodies and our present was complete. Yup, we made a wrapping paper station/organizer/carry-all! How fun is that? There's 56 pockets on that tool belt - enough pockets to hold all the pens, tape, scissors, tissue paper, and stickers you could possibly need to wrap a beautiful gift. There's also a very handy rod to hang your ribbon on to keep it neat, and elastic bands to hold your wrapping paper tubes in place. All that's lacking is a gift that needs wrapping! It's portable, it's organized, it's neat, it fits in the corner of a closet, and it's original. What more could you ask for?
See, don't you want one of these? I think I'll start a business. I think they are so cool. But I get excited when the Sunday paper comes, knowing I'll get to organize my coupons into catagories and then by experation date that afternoon.

And there's always the possibility that if the bride doesn't like her wrapping paper station, her new husband just got a new addition to his workshop!