Happy New Year!!  I’m back and ready to blog in 2013.  I hope you are ready to keep on reading because I am going to stick with one of my 2012 goals of blogging 3 times a week, lets see how I do this year!  I was looking over my 2012 Goals last week and realized that I actually completed a lot of those goals that I wrote down.   I hadn’t been checking in with my list regularly at all(I mean like never) so it did surprise me when over half of them were completed in 2012.  I guess writing them down helped me think about them in the back of my mind which caused me to actually DO them.  Whatever works, right?  Here is my 2012 list of goals:

• Go on a much needed vacation, I mean not a staycataion, a real get-on-a-plane-and-don’t-think-about-work-or-the-house VACATION.  We have one planned to Cali in March and I CANNOT WAIT!  If you have any recommendations on what to do while we are there please leave them in the comment section below- we will be in the OC(all I can think about is the show by the same name on the WB), and LA staying with 2 different friends who we cannot wait to see.  We love food, restaurants, beach, walks, people watching things to do.  Oh and wineries to visit:) Check and mark- we went to California in March and loved every minute
• Paint ALL the rooms in our house, including our master which I have no idea what color to pick?  Every other room was so easy for me to decide on a color, I’m not sure why I’m so stumped here.  I have removed the wallpaper and painted the kitchen and I am currently in the middle and I mean middle of painting the guest room- the paint is drying as I type.  Blog posts coming on these 2 rooms soon. Still working on this and I have at least selected the color I want to paint our bedroom, so I will add this to the 2013 list!  I am hoping to get our bedroom painted this month and half bath painted by the end of February!
• Prime and paint the risers on the stairs. This was no fun job, but it’s done and looks amazing.  Now we just need a bit of trim on there to cover up the gaps in the steps.
• Buy a Mac book- hopefully before June when I travel to Cancun! Sadly I didn’t have it in my budget to get one, maybe this year!
• Buy a 2nd camera body so I can stop renting one Check.  This one saved me lots of time and money getting a rental.  Not to mention piece of mind in case anything goes wrong.
• Clean out my closet/dresser and organize everything and donate anything I haven’t worn in the past year- which is a lot of clothes! I’ve been doing this throughout the year and actually did the most organizing back when we lost power with the hurricane.  I still have 1 bag to bring to good will, maybe I will drop it off today!
• More the really heavy armoire to the guest room once it’s finished being painted and re-organize the master bedroom furniture Done, and I even helped.  Not sure how I lifted the monster but we did it!  Our bedroom looks so much bigger with less furniture.
• Buy a bedside table for the master bedroom Luckily at my Great Aunts Yard sale I found the perfect one in her attic, it needs to be sanded and painted and will go perfectly next to our bed.  Photos of the bedroom will be on the blog later this year.
• Book 4 more weddings At the time I wrote my goals I had 2 weddings on the books, I booked 3 more in 2012.  I’m working towards my goal of 8-10 per year through word of mouth and client referrals.  If you know anyone recently engaged have them view my wedding portfolio online here. 
• Take Sundays(if I’m not shooting) and Mondays totally off from work- meaning no checking email either- and spend it with family and friends doing something we love.  This one will be particularly hard for me.  This one is hard for me.  I feel like I can always do something for my business.  I’m going to continue to work on this in 2013.
• Use facebook for marketing and furthering my business and only check it 2 times a day- once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  I was procrastinating waaayyyy too much on there this past year!  Need to make a schedule and stick to it. I think I have a FB addiction, seriously.  It needs to stop.  Over the past week I have been really good about not checking it, I’m going to add this to my 2013 goals.
• Start to exercise I started and then stopped.  Trying again in 2013 to keep it going!!
• Set up a slideshow for every client for viewing during their ordering session I’m not sure if this is the direction I want to go in so it hasn’t been done yet.  I’m still on the fence.
• Continue to blog 3 times a week(or more) Done, except for my vacation weeks and another week or 2 in there when I was super busy.  I’m keeping this on the 2013 list for sure!
• Take more photos of Chris and I- shooting for 1 a month to post on the blog.  A year long project I want to try- hoping Chris is on board with this one:) I managed to take 1 photo a month for the entire year and it really was a challenge for me to think of new ideas and get them onto the blog during the month I took them.  It’ s a great project and I want to keep it up for this coming year.  Check out the Dec. portrait below!  The only month I missed was November- there was a hurricane, snow storm, like 10 family sessions, 5 weddings and Thanksgiving thrown together.  I’m going to count our family photo I took at Thanksgiving as the one for November and no one can argue with me.  😉  I also made all our photos into a calendar and had it printed through Artifact Uprising which my mother in law loved!!
• Turn off the computer at 6pm- the workday is over Still a work in progress on this one but I’m getting there!
• Set up off camera lighting Done and it wasn’t as hard or scary to set up as I thought.  I am getting better and better with each wedding I shoot at using the light how I want to use it.
• Read more books for fun and business I read quite a few books in 2012 and will continue this for this year as well!  I read an entire book yesterday on the couch and it felt great to just relax and not worry about a thing all day long. 

I am still in the process of writing my 2013 goals but here is the list so far:

• Blog 3 times a week
• Read more books for business and pleasure.  I want to try to read 1 book a month this year and hoping since I won’t be on FB so much I can accomplish it!
• Paint the master bedroom and half bath
• Paint all the doors and windows that I haven’t painted yet(except for the doors that are stained since I want to keep those stained)
• Buy a Mac Book!
• Set up a new website that reflects my brand more- this is in the works!  I also am paying a yearly fee for the one I have now which I would like to eliminate to keep costs down.
• Adjust my blog layout to match my website.  I have made some tweaks already but still have some work to do.
• Design something to give to my clients after each session to get them thinking on how they want to use their images!!  I’m excited for this one.  🙂
• Purchase some new clothes that are nice quality since I have thrown out about half of mine due to poor fit, poor fabric or I just don’t like it anymore.
• Start and continue to exercise.
• Turn off the computer at 6pm and my phone too.  No more working at night on the couch!
• Take 1 photo of Chris and I each month.
• Hang photos and artwork in the bedrooms once I finish painting.  We have a box full of stuff sitting in my office that I want to get framed and hung up.  Not to mention I want to get the box out of there.  🙂

What are some of your goals?  Do you write them down?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below!