Less Hustle More Coffee

Well, here they are. My goals of 2023. I’ve thought about these a lot. And I think it’s representative of what I’d like to see of myself in 2023. Many of these are very broad and very general. And that is okay….for now. But I do plan on breaking each one of these down and having subsets, quotas, measurable, and lists within the goals. If you know me well, you know I love this kind of thing, lol. Some I have the measurable on already but some I don’t.

Please note that these are not in order of importance but just the way they ended up as I planned or thought of them.

I can also use your help and ideas for ways to make these things happen across the year, so send them on.

NEW YEAR GOALS FOR 2023

______ Write in my Grandmother’s journal for Little Roo. I think the goal is to do 2 pages of fill in every week.

______Read more. My goal here is at least 1 book a month. It’s a stretch for sure being that I have such little time. But it makes me relax and gets me out of my world for a bit and I get a lot out of it too.

______Sharing God’s Word and God’s Love. I’m hoping to get involved with World Bible School, and want to share more on social media and platforms.

______Be More Frugal. With the prices going up I really want to be better at what we spend. Subsets here that I have thought about so far are: grocery items, better meal planning so as to not waste food, visit Good Will, thrift shop, sale shop. Plus I can share finds on my blog, vlog. I know you all love that kind of thing, right?

______Bless my House. I spent a lot of time doing videos and blogging and learning new things and a lot of time on things I had not planned last year. And I ended up ignoring my house. So if I improve at all I’ll be happy. Things like cleaning out the fridge, cleaning vents, picture frames, toilet bases, windows, cleaning out drawers, reorganizing. I did some of this last year, but I need to be better at it. I also enjoy decorating and while I did a lot of that last year according to season, there are some areas that need some attention and redesign as it comes to functionality. So I’ll be working on that this year and I’ll take you along on blog and vlog. I will go room to room and make suggestions for myself, lol. And then that will be a subset to the goals. I need to be better about helping out in the kitchen and cleaning up.

______Periodic Challenges for Growth and Improvement. These layered challenges tend to work well with me as long as I’m not in a month that I’m overwhelmed. So right now, no challenges for JAN. But I have a list of things I am going to challenge myself on in 2023 and I will share those in a blog entry eventually.

______Overall Health and Wellness. The health and wellness journey must continue.

______Make a Smoothie Bar. So this is my February project. I will be doing some research and visiting some nutrition stores. I will be using things like protein powder, thinking about collagen, and greens. I’m wanting to have a tiny set up on the kitchen counter to hold the powdery things that I’ll toss in there – like the protein powder, peanut butter powder, cocoa, or whatever it is I’m doing. I still don’t know yet. I’ve ordered a Ninja Smoothie Maker with my share of the Amazon Reward Points for last year. (George and I do this after Christmas, lol, and split the points.) So I’m excited to be able to make smoothies again. I will be working on my recipes and will share with you of course on blog and vlog.

______YouTube Growth goals. I have so many goals and plans. I will keep most of them to myself, but I have a separate chart of my subset of to do’s for this and still defining what the specific goals are. Boring for most. It’s really a challenge to work on this because I get so little time outside time to edit a weekly vlog upload, so it’s really hard to reach around and do things that will help me grow, but I have to if I want to grow. It’s all good and the fun is in the journey anyway. I grew last year, ever so slightly. I’d like to see a big bust lol, but if I did it better be a big one. Enough to make some bigger life changes more quickly, lol. So I can deal with it. It’s scary so I’m kinda holding myself back in a way. If it took off could I keep up with it?

______Blog Growth and goals. Mainly just want to reach into SEO (search engine optimization doing all I can there) which I’m not doing myself any favors really right now. So much I can do to help the cause, yet I’ve not taken time to do the recommended things. These things are a reach. Having a mindset like it was a business will help. It would be nice if I could supplement some during retirement. But there is a lot of things that have to be done to expand it. Many say it can’t be done. I know it can, but it would be a challenge to get there. I’m not a young chicken and not sure I have the pizazz people need, for a follow, but I can sure enjoy trying to get the niche out there. And I’m not one to say “never” on something that is in my mind. I’ve obtained much of what I’ve wished for. Maybe not the RVing, but life ain’t over yet, lol. (((((I still think George and I would have a blast running around in a luxury leisure van, cooking out, fixing meals on the go, seeing nature, visiting family, finding new grocery stores, getting away from it all, listening to music, reading our books to a campfire, sipping coffee on a chilly morning outside the van and listening to nature, listening to music while driving and fixing dinner. I see it but I wish he could.))))))

______Laugh more. I need to work at ways to make this happen. I’ll have to do a blog entry on it once I set up my subset of goals. I can use ideas on this. I’m thinking roughly – develop a mindset to seek the funny parts of life and life’s happenings, giggle more at things that happen, watch funny videos, begin following funnier things on social media platforms.

______Caregiving project. So, this one is mainly based on Mom and/or others as it comes my way. If it’s on the to do and the goal list, I’ll be better at it. I realize there are “some” in life that are never happy and I don’t want to be milked of all my spare time, but I truly want to do a good job of helping others from a reasonable standpoint. I know a few that would want you to be by their side almost inseparably and that is just not going to work. I only have a few hours a week for this since we work full time with a commute, and have so much going on.

______Basement project. We really need to get a handle on this in 2023. One way or another. I’ll have to break it down and see what we can do. I need to get more serious about this. And I intend do and it will involve George. I’ll probably just break down and involve the blog and vlog. It’s a mess and embarrassing. Mom things we still have half her stuff downstairs. She asks for things all the time and it’s either gone to good will or she has it packed away somewhere.

_______Cook more and be more involved with the kitchen. I love to cook and I’ve been shying away from it because I’m unhappy with how it looks and how unorganized and unlatching and old everything is. I’ve ordered more dishes for my birthday. I’ve prayed they arrive in one piece. I will have to rearrange the kitchen to make it work. I’ll take the blog/vlog along for that too. No shortage of blog/vlog material, lol.

Phrase of the Year: “Laugh more, enjoy more, share more, learn more!”

So to laugh more is obviously a big part of my 2023, in an effort to enjoy my days and to make merry in all the things that try to bring chaos, which can be quite the challenge in itself.

Enjoy more is to enjoy the journey, not sweat the small stuff, realize that time is always going to be an issue and just make the most with the time you have and enjoy life as it is. Yeah you can still try to form it to the best you can, but just realize there will be days it won’t work as planned, people will throw you curve balls. Part of this is learning how to react to said curve balls. lol. Life is short and it deserves to be enjoyed.

Share more is two-fold. Sharing God’s love, sharing my life on social media – especially in areas that may help others in their own game of life.

Learn more has to do with just about everything, lol. But originally I was thinking health, wellness, vlog strategy, blog strategy, YouTube, SEO optimization, God’s plan for me, or anything else I feel I need to learn more about to survive the games of this world we live in.

Word of the Year: LAUGHTER!

I just can’t think of a more pleasing word to have as a goal and a mindset for the year!

What’s happening at our house today?

Well, I woke up finished the laundry, packed up all the Christmas items that I had gathered from yesterday. Took the ornaments off the tree, wrapped up all the breakables. George took the tree and all the boxes downstairs – bless him.

Oh and I figured out what Dexter was chewing on. A starfish ornament. I guess it’s too late to grow back? lol. So I tossed him away. It made George really sad. We got this in Destin I think from our vacations years ago down there. I told him we’d have to go back and get another one. lol. But it just seemed gross anyway at this point. I mean really? A half chewed starfish snow man? I’m sorry Mister Snow man. We’ll hook up a different time. I am sorry your journey will not be as bright, but hey it might even be more interesting considering you spent 11 months cooped up an a box with a bunch of other red and green things!

I have vacuumed, planned a bit on our mid January Northern55 party, getting some ideas for my dessert and/or dessert board. One of us is gluten free so trying to keep that in mind. Will work on it more some this week. Will put out the decor next weekend. I only have Saturday next week.

Next Sunday will be action packed with church, my birthday lunch and Mom has a line up of Lowe’s, Sally’s, AT&T, and probably the store. I’m sure she will miss Aunt Martha and Uncle Ken driving her around. We will have to do everything on Sunday because I have to have a day to myself to get my stuff done. It’s very difficult to do everything you need to do in one weekend day. I can’t give her all my spare time so have to draw the line to be able to exist myself.

We get closer to that assisted living every day. This week Mom lost her keys and I found them. And also her sink stopped up and I’m sure that it was probably food going down the sink she couldn’t see. Every day there is a crises of some sort. Seems like she would want to hand it over to someone else. I’m not going to be able to be beside her all day to fix everything that goes wrong. I think she will be happy when she finally lets go and goes to assisted living. What am I saying? I’m not sure she will ever be happy. I’ve not seen her happy in very long time. Trying to remember when life was good for her. I always remember the bad parts I guess.

Momma’s don’t yell at your kids please, it has a hard impact on them. They never forget it. Just be patient, love them, coach them – but please don’t yell and raise your voice, nor slap them or any of that cruel stuff. It has a lasting impact. Be patient, loving, and try to show your kids the rosier side to life rather than the bad negative side. You will help them to have more friends, to have more fun in life, and not take life so overwhelmingly emotional and serious. I’m not kidding!

I still have to tell my mother to this day not to yell at me. I couldn’t tell her when I was a kid for fear of being slapped or punished. It was a way of life I think. It wasn’t until I was grown did I realize how inappropriate it is to yell at others. Or was it that I knew it wasn’t right, I just didn’t realize that other houses didn’t always do things that way. Isn’t that sad? I had to learn as an adult how to treat people. I still have to remind myself sometimes that it is not ok to raise your voice at another because they simply asked you a question, or because they didn’t hear you the first time.

And for certain I’ve learned to set boundaries and not let anyone treat me rudely….. or they will not see my presence. I simply will just not put up with it or allow it. I AM MOST CERTAINLY DONE WALKING ON EGG SHELLS. I REFUSE TO DO IT ANYMORE. And I am only wanting to be around positive minded people that will be kind to me. I am going to be me and if someone doesn’t like it they can leave and if they are ugly, I can do the leaving myself. Any time! Almost did it Saturday when someone raised their voice at me rudely.

Katy and I are working on our trip in March. Looking like George and I will fly to San Antonio. Everything is so expensive. But this is time with family and it’ll be a while before seeing them again, so we want to do it. Just trying to figure out all the details.

That’s all I will give the blog today. I have so much left to do today. I go back to work tomorrow. George is taking me out for my birthday date tomorrow night. My birthday is tomorrow! I almost forgot. But looking forward to steak. Mom is taking me out on Sunday and we’ll run HER errands, lol. But that’s the only time we really can this week.

I will have to share my white whine sauce pasta dish with you in an upcoming blog entry. I’m just running out of time and this was a long entry. Probably going to have to go back to every other day. It’s time to start editing up some video! Not sure if I can make this Saturday. We’ll see. I think I may need another week off.