Forward-Thinking Friday #1: To Infinity, and Beyond!

Happy New Year!

I figure it's about time this blog had some alliterative titling going for it. Lots of other bloggers I know do Wifey Wednesdays and Thankful/Thoughtful Thursdays and I'm sure someone somewhere does Mournful Mondays! Since this blog is mostly about my hopes and dreams of homesteading (and occasionally the progress I make in that area), I figured Forward-Thinking Fridays would be a good place to set out goals both large and small, and look to what's coming instead of reflecting on the past. I reflect way too much on what's been done and not enough on what needs doing!

(Which reminds me, I need to wash the dishes!)

Anyway, it's January and the weather's milder than January in Pittsburgh has a right to be. It's bringing to mind sweet spring breezes and planting layouts even though I know we're going to have a real nasty February ahead of us, and probably March too! Still, gardening is on my mind, and painting, and all the million and one warm-weather tasks that I'd love to get done this year (and probably won't because let's be honest - it's way more fun to plan them than to finish them all!). Therefore this first FF is going to be a nice tidy list of goals for the year. I didn't do New Years' resolutions, but I can do goals!

Goals for Dawn's Homestead:
1. Enlarge the garden!
Pretty self-explanatory, really. Last year's garden did ok, but I want bigger and better this year! And I need to find somewhere to put the peas, because the kitchen garden isn't cutting it. I think it'd work better as a pond, with all the water it collects anyway! (Shhh... don't encourage that idea!)

2. Finish fixing up the downstairs!
This is a HUGE multi-part project and isn't realistically going to be "done" until we can afford to rip out the entire kitchen and re-finish it, but I'd at least like to get the living room, entry, and dining room cleaned up, patched up, sanded, primed, painted, and trimmed out, and if not refinish the floors then have a solid plan of action for them and a budget so we can save up to do it next year.

3. Learn to preserve my harvest!
I have some of the knowhow already, but I've never bothered with it before because we never grew enough to be worth the trouble. This year I'm not only planning to grow more, I'm planning ahead for preserving!

4. Find a volunteer position (or better yet, a job) in community planning/development/urban ag.
There are a few nonprofits in the city doing some really great things, and I want to get in with them. I've been having a tough time with my current retail job and the ugly side of humanity it exposes (shopping never was my favorite activity, unless it was for garden supplies!), and the argument to go back to school and get a Master's degree is losing interest. It's time to quit -thinking- about finding a job and either find one, or make one. (Making my own path in life scares the bejeezus out of me, quite frankly, but I'm NOT happy where I am, and I figure it's about time I quit waiting for happiness!)

5. Be "happier" in general.
This is probably the hardest goal of all. I don't need to be cheerful 24/7 but I'm prone to mild depressive episodes and self-loathing which not only keep me from working on the things that are important to me, they make me feel like that work isn't worth doing. That's awful! So my goal for the year is to spend more time reflecting on the good things about myself (and how much I've done!) rather than imperfections and unfinished projects. Because I AM good, and I AM productive, and I AM a halfway decent gardener and homemaker, and I AM going to get BETTER!

I'm going to keep re-visiting these goals on Fridays (assuming I remember, because blogging isn't one of my main goals this year!). Next week I'll try to break down some of the bigger goals into smaller goals! This year is going to be a good one for the homestead. I can feel it!

Are you ready for the new year? Let me hear some of your resolutions/goals in the comments!

Oh, and Happy New Year

Hope all is well with everyone who reads this. While I am still rather shaky in the belief that every day is a new day and the first day new year doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the year will follow suit, I did have a bad first day, and it didn't make me hopeful for the rest of the month.

I'm trying to start school again this semester, and we'll see how that goes. I'm also trying to keep my sanity in the face of the student loan companies... my forbearance is up in February, and if I don't get into 6 credits of classes by then, I'll have to start paying them back, something I'm not a in financial position to do.

I'm also stuck in the mid-December mindset of finishing presents and waiting for Christmas. We haven't had Christmas with my family yet due to work, weather and my little sister's inconvenient bout with the flu. My mom's presents are sitting in a bag next to the computer, wrapped and neatly labeled. The year hasn't had closure not only in the sense that I haven't done Christmas the way I expected to, but in a lot of other unfinished projects and goals yet unreached. Maybe this year will be better than the last...