Long time no see! I apologize for being MIA for so long, once again. In my defense, I had to live through almost an entire two months in a house that was not connected to Wi-Fi - I have no clue how I managed to survive it, aside from racking up a massive data bill on my phone XP But I'm back, and hoping to keep you updated on the regular this month with a variety of interested and (hopefully) geeky posts about a variety of subjects. I thought I'd start by bringing you all back in the loop with my goals for the upcoming month, starting by catching you all up on how my goals went for the past two months.
October Recap: I had a number of goals that I laid out in my first goals post that you can find by clicking here - some I managed to complete in full, some in part, and some were unsuccessful, but that doesn't mean that I didn't manage to accomplish anything from setting those goals in October.
My first big goal was to buy a planner and, most important, to start using it. I have definitely succeeded there :) I typically have way more fun decorating my planner than I do with the actual planning, but I'm sure that's normal XD I carry my new Happy Planner around with me wherever I go, and I'm always looking for an excuse to write or put stickers in it to remember important dates.
I also wanted to do as much prep for NaNoWriMo as I could, and while I did a decent amount of planning before November began, I'm not sure I would have ever been 100% satisfied with any level of preparation before diving in head-first. As for being able to start with snail mail again, and scheduling more blog posts so I wouldn't experience an absence from blogging in November, those didn't work out the way I hoped. Early in October, I moved into my grandmothers. All of my stuff, including my stationary, was all packed in boxes, and while I thought I was going to be without Wi-Fi for maybe three days, it ended up being two months. I won't make excuses, but I'd like to think it's fairly reasonable why those things didn't work out as planned.
November Recap: Although I didn't create a post for this, November held only a single goal - to win NaNoWriMo. It was something I charged into, after a lot of preparation, and I did amazingly well in the beginning. I sometimes fell behind, but I managed to make it up a day or two later. But then things in my personal life got pretty real, and dealing with my usual amounts of anxiety and depression became near impossible as the problems grew worse. My grandmother had a series of falls shortly after I moved in, and throughout the course of my stay, and I've had more responsibilities while I was staying there. Again, I won't make excuses,and I certainly won't complain because I love taking care of my grandmother. But I knew my own limits, and I had to take it easy on myself when I knew it was time to stop and to just relax. After all, I'll never stop writing :)
And now, for December's goals :D
My first big goal was to buy a planner and, most important, to start using it. I have definitely succeeded there :) I typically have way more fun decorating my planner than I do with the actual planning, but I'm sure that's normal XD I carry my new Happy Planner around with me wherever I go, and I'm always looking for an excuse to write or put stickers in it to remember important dates.
I also wanted to do as much prep for NaNoWriMo as I could, and while I did a decent amount of planning before November began, I'm not sure I would have ever been 100% satisfied with any level of preparation before diving in head-first. As for being able to start with snail mail again, and scheduling more blog posts so I wouldn't experience an absence from blogging in November, those didn't work out the way I hoped. Early in October, I moved into my grandmothers. All of my stuff, including my stationary, was all packed in boxes, and while I thought I was going to be without Wi-Fi for maybe three days, it ended up being two months. I won't make excuses, but I'd like to think it's fairly reasonable why those things didn't work out as planned.
November Recap: Although I didn't create a post for this, November held only a single goal - to win NaNoWriMo. It was something I charged into, after a lot of preparation, and I did amazingly well in the beginning. I sometimes fell behind, but I managed to make it up a day or two later. But then things in my personal life got pretty real, and dealing with my usual amounts of anxiety and depression became near impossible as the problems grew worse. My grandmother had a series of falls shortly after I moved in, and throughout the course of my stay, and I've had more responsibilities while I was staying there. Again, I won't make excuses,and I certainly won't complain because I love taking care of my grandmother. But I knew my own limits, and I had to take it easy on myself when I knew it was time to stop and to just relax. After all, I'll never stop writing :)
And now, for December's goals :D
#1: Make Christmas Cards!
This is something I have never attempted before - and yes, I know that I don't have a whole lot of time left if I really want to get this done before the holidays are over - but I really think this is something that could be a lot of fun and I'd like to try it! Recently I saw an awesome tutorial for a Christmas shaker card from love_cat_xo on YouTube and I'm going to attempt to make my own Christmas cards in the same style (minus the foam) and to send them to as many friends and family members as humanly possible!
#2: BAKE ALL THE THINGS!!!
I am on a HUGE baking kick right now, and I 100% have Pinterest to blame for that - I even put together a little Pinterest board of all of the recipes that have caught my eye this holiday season. The majority of these cookies I would eat, but some are recipes that I just want to make and give to other people. They just look so darn delicious!
I know just how much work it can be to do a lot of baking for the holidays, especially when I'm working almost every day in December leading up until Christmas, so I'm not going into this blind - I have looked up online how to put together a baking schedule, which is a pretty brilliant idea. One of the first bits of advice I found after making a list of all of the recipes you'd like to bake is to eliminate about three of them, just for the sole reason that you know that you won't be able to get to all of them. And so many kinds of dough, AND finished cookies, can be frozen for a later date, which is super convenient. Better make sure I have room in my freezer...
#3: Christmas Shopping!
This is probably on most people's list of goals to accomplish around this time of year - at least those who are celebrating Christmas, that is (FYI, the picture above is from a super gorgeous planner sticker layout called "Christmas Shopping" by SpotOnPrints on Etsy). I've been making a lost of people to shop for and gift ideas for them since sometime early or mid-November I'd say, and I keep adding things to the list and crossing them off as I go.
Although, recently I've developed a pretty bad habit with my Christmas shopping that I'd like to share with you, and I'm curious if anyone else has ever developed this problem: The last few people that I have ordered gifts for online, I have also ended up ordering something, or the same item, for myself as well! So I'm paying double the price each time I buy something and I'm selfishlessly getting myself gifts at the same time XP Definitely not good. Does anybody else tend to do this as well, and if so, do you have any advice to help me from going into debt before I finish crossing everybody off my list?
#4: Catch Up With Snail Mail!
Yes, I'm still hoping to catch up on my correspondence even after my failure to do so over the past couple of months. With all of the other things I want to do this month, it might end up coming later in the month than I would like, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to make an active effort to write letters and create awesome flipbooks to send to my favorite pen pals as soon as humanly possible. Pretty sure I owe all of my pen pals something or other - I'm even behind on my Christmas gifts from last year, which is just plain sad XP I probably won't do Christmas-themed flipbooks, since I'll be doing Christmas cards that I'll b sending to all my pen pals, but I hope I will still b able to send all of my pen pals something before the end of 2016.
And those are my goals for the end of the year! What do you all hope to accomplish before the end of December? Let me know in the comments below, and we can cheer each other on! :D
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