A New Year

Yesterday morning the sun rise was so pretty.  I happened to wake up and look out the window, and it was pretty enough to make me jump out of bed and run downstairs to get my camera.  I call this shot "Sunrise Over the Chicken Coop."  Heh.
















I figured it was a good way to start out my New Year's post.  I haven't done a New Year's post in the past few years, but I figured I'd jot down a few goals of mine for this year. 

1.  Blog more.  Our computer is old and slow and I get so frustrated when I try to blog, so I end up not blogging as much.  Maybe this year will be the year I can finally get a laptop, so I don't have to sit in the basement away from everyone while I'm on the computer.  My husband just asked why I needed to blog, and it's because it's nice to look back and see what we've done.  It's a great way to document pictures and activities and stuff like that.  It's like a scrapbook, only without having to do all that cutting and gluing.

2.  Take care of myself more.  I would like to add in more exercise and make it part of my routine instead of an occasional thing.  I have had back troubles lately (herniated disc), so I need to strengthen my back and make sure it's healthy.  It's hard to take care of livestock when you can't move.  I'm also going to try to add in more veggies, though I feel like we eat healthier than the average American.  We can always do better.

3.  Speaking of eating more veggies, I'd like to have a better garden. Every year I start out with good intentions, and the garden gets off to a good start.  Then summer heat hits and makes me not want to be outside at all, we get a drought, the weeds take over, etc.  I'd like to find ways to get around that, by either mulching more or using irrigation under black plastic, which will help our very sandy soil retain water.  I start looking through seed catalogs in the winter, and it makes me have huge dreams for the year's garden.  Hopefully this year I can really do my best to make it happen.

4.  I've had goals with the animals before...like getting meat rabbits and raising pigs.  I did both of those last year.  This year I'd like to focus more on the rabbits and get them producing more.  One litter in one year isn't exactly stellar.  We may or may not raise pigs again this year, it all depends.  Hopefully both of the goats, June and Ida, are bred, so we'll have plenty of milk if we do decide to get pigs.  Pigs love goat milk.

5.  Purl & June.  I'd like to expand Purl & June and concentrate on getting more product out there.  I'd really like it to be more profitable.  I'm finding it takes more than just making soap to sell soap.  There's a good bit of marketing involved. 

6.  The house..  Every year I say I'm going to paint the mudroom, or the bathrooms, etc.  I'd like to do a little work in the house to make it a little prettier.  We don't need any major remodeling, just final touches.  Our closets desperately need to be organized, so I'd really like to finally get little stuff like that done. 

Well, that's about all I can think about right now.  I'd like to come back as the year goes on so I can read this post and remind myself what I want to get done.  I'll also try to blog about changes so I can keep track of them as we go. 

What are your goals this year?  I'd love to hear them.