I've decided I need to revise my goals for this year.  For one thing I'm doing absolutely horrible at keeping up with my blog.  Also, my boyfriend and I are now in the process of buying a house.  So I have to factor in all the extra time and expenses for moving.  It will be awfully nice to have a place that is ours.  Finally, I can hang my pictures without worrying about putting holes in the walls.  I can paint.  I don't have to live with white walls any longer.  On the other hand, my craft room will be tiny.  Its the smallest room in the house.  At least until we build the addition that we are already planning.  But I have to live with the tiny craft room for at least a year.  A lot of my craft stuff will have to live in the garage for the time being.  At least the house comes with a three car garage, so we have plenty of room to store the stuff that won't fit in the house.  And there will be a lot of it.  Having a smaller house and a smaller craft room means less room to work on my projects.  And with all the time moving and settling in is going to take, there is no way I'm going to finish the 15 projects that were my goal.  With everything going on, I think 6 projects is more realistic.  I don't think I will get the 3 sweaters done.  I have one done and I'm still hoping to get 1 more done before the end of the year.  I already took 1 class and I'm still planning to take at least 1 college class this fall.  That may be as far as I get this year.  It depends on how much money and time I come up with.  I'm hoping that I can take at least one more fiber class.  It would also be nice if I could take 2 college classes instead of just 1.  The more classes I take, the quicker I get my degree.  And that will be nice.  So at the most I will be taking 4 classes this year instead of the 6 I had planned on. 

    More and more I am seeing the advantages of teaching.  Right now all I want is time off.  I would love to just stay home for a week and do my stuff.  I dread coming in to work everyday.  As a teacher I would have summers, Christmas, and Spring Break.  That would be so nice.  It would make up for so much too.  I know teaching can be really stressful.  But there are compensations.  It would allow me time to focus on the Creative Center without having to go without a paycheck for any amount of time.  The hours would be more predictable and shorter.  I know I can teach since I've done it before.  At least one of the classes I take this year will be for my degree.  Of course, it gets discouraging when I look at how far I have to go to get that degree.  For the next couple of years, I can only take one or two classes at a time.  Hopefully after that I can go back full time and finish up.  Unfortunaly that seems so far away right now.  Its almost depressing just thinking about it.  I just have to keep telling myself that I'll get there.

I'm not doing so well on some of my goals.  Namely updating this blog at least once a week.  I'm getting there though.  Getting into a habit takes time and planning.  Every time I get off track I just have to remember to focus again and get back on track. 
Some of my goals are proving easier to accomplish.  I have started my first knitting class and with it my first sweater.  So far I have only had to rip it out once.  The class is nice because it means I don't have to figure everything out for myself.  If I have a question, I can just ask the teacher.  That is a new experience for me. 
I've also been working hard to finish at least one of my unfinished projects this month.  With only a week and a half to go in the month it is a hurry.  Keeping the focus is hard.  December seems like a long ways away.  I still haven't made the bulletin boards yet.  I could have done it this last weekend, but I was having a hard time doing anything.  My biggest obstacle is myself.  I've been dealing with depression most of my life.  Its hard to get much done when just surviving takes so much out of you.  This last year I dealt with a few mild bouts, but nothing major.  I think this year I'm going to have to face it and get some help.  The last few weeks I have been fighting a major crash.  It tends to take my focus off of my goals.  That in turn gets me down more because it the goals look that much further away.  It is a difficult spiral.  This time I am fighting that.  I want to stay focused on my goals and get there sooner rather than later. 

Its a new year.  I know that traditionally people make resolutions at this time of year.  I, however, have decided to make goals instead.  I have 15 goals for 2008.

1. Finish at least 15 of my current projects. 
2. Take at least 5 classes.
3. Teach at least 1 fiber class.
4. Write the business plan for my creative center.
5. Organize my craft room.
6. Have $500 in my savings account.
7. Pay off all my credit cards.
8. Make 3 sweaters. 
9.  Finish fixing up my loom.
10. Learn to weave.
11. Fix both of my spinning wheels.
12. Learn to spin on both of my spinning wheels. (One is an Ashford traditional, the other is a great wheel.)
13. Update my blog at least once a week.
14. Write out where I want to be in 5 years.
15. Write out where I want to be in 10 years.

I think these are reasonable for the year.  Some of them will be easy, like taking classes.  Others will be more difficult, like organizing my craft room.  I've been trying to do that for a year now. 

My goals started with where I want to be at the end of the year.  Now I just have to complete my goals. 

I'm going to keep them in front of my.  I have two bulletin boards that I'm going to put pictures and notes on to help me visualize my goals.  Eventually I will add longer term goals to that.  When I get my 5 and 10 year plans written out, they will go up on the board.  Then it will be time to make some goals to get me there. 

This is really the first time I have done any long term planning for my life.  I've never been very good at sticking to plans.  Hopefully I have made this one flexible enough that I don't have problems with it.  I'm also trying to break it down into small bits.  I have the big picture for the year.  Now I just have to plan each day to get me closer to where I want to be at the end of the year.

I tend to get discouraged if I look too far ahead.  It seems as if I will never get where I want to be.  There are so many things I want to do, if I look at them all at once I don't think I'll ever get them done.

With this plan, I'm trying to keep them all in mind, but focus on a little bit at a time.  I can do this.  If I just take one day at a time, I can do great things. 

I have plans to take classes in fiber arts.  I want to take a knitting class, now that I actually know a little bit of how to do it.  I know you're suppose take classes to learn how.  But that is never the way I've done it.  This will be the first class I have ever taken.  Usually I teach myself what I want to learn.  But with the plan of opening the Creative Center, I want to see what classes are actually like.  Soon I want to start teaching my own classes. 

I have been teaching a couple of the girls at work.  That is going well.  In fact its going so well, that the last girl at work asked if she could learn too.  So now all four of us get together to crochet.  Its really fun.

My boyfriend often watches me knit or crochet.  He says he would never have the patience for that.  I have to laugh at him, because he does model railroads.  But not the usual HO scale.  Oh no, he has to do N scale, and complains that it is still a bit big.  N scale is 1:160.  I can barely see the little details that he puts so much time into.  Yet he doesn't have the patience for needle work?

I guess it takes a different kind of patience.  To me its relaxing, meditative even.  The repetative motion could almost put me in a trance.  Or if I'm not in the mood to meditate or think, I can read or watch a movie. 

Being able to read while I work comes with practice though.  I've been crocheting for 20 years or more.  For a 30 year old thats a long time. 

It also helps with the patience thing that I keep at least two projects going at all times.  That way if I get bored or frustrated with one, I can lay it aside and work on something else for a while.  The only  problem with that is picking the projects up again.  I'm really good at starting projects and not finishing them.  I'm working on that.  I'm finishing two old projects before I start one new one.  It seems to be working too.  I still have a long ways to go.  But over the next year I should finish most of my older projects.  And any new ones that I start, I'm forcing myself to finish.

I just finished my ruana, except for weaving in the ends and blocking it.  I haven't done that because I'm not sure how and I don't want to ruin it.  So I'll ask a friend when I see her this week.  Or if that falls through, I can always go online and find instructions.  Thats what I've always done.  Well, online and books.  Most of what I've learned has been on my own.  I'm trying to change that.  I want to take some classes, and by next month I should be able to. 

Next year I want to start teaching a few classes.  I will be teaching one or two friends between now and then, but I don't know how to structure an actual class.  I've never taken one or even seen one taught.  That makes it kind of hard to teach one.  Its slightly different than teaching in a regular classroom.  That I can and have done.  In fact I've decided that will be my day job as soon as I can finish school.  Or it will be until I can get my organization self supporting enough to justify a salary for myself.

Well, the plan is not down on paper as yet.  But I am getting there.  I want to open a school to teach the old arts.  Its going to take me a while.  Right now I look at all the work that will have to go into it and wonder if I can ever get it done.  I've decided that this first year of planning will be the easy part.  The first thing I want to do is name.  If I give the dream a name it feels more real.  The problem with that is that I have a hard time coming up with names.  I have a hard time with names in my writing as well.  Some of the character spring into my head already named.  Those are my favorite.  Most of the time, however, I sit and struggle for a name for ages.  Its the same with this.  I want the perfect name.  I want something that reflects where it will be (Nevada) as well as something that will leave no doubt as to what the purpose is.  Just coming up with that last part is proving to be a problem.  I'm letting that sit for a few days while I think about.  Perhaps inspiration will come.  Along with the name I want a great tagline.  I think I need the name first to find a tagline that works with it. 

After that, there is paperwork and coming up with a board and coming up with money.  It seems a long ways away.  I will get there though.  I have found my calling and will follow it.  I love to pass on the old arts.  If they are not passed on they will be lost and that would be terrible. 

For months now I've been trying to figure out how I want to include my crafts in my life and what I want to do with my life.  Sometime in the last twenty-four hours I figured something out.  I've been thinking too small.  I've thought of trying to sell my crafts, maybe an occasional class if I can find somewhere to teach.  That is thinking way too small.  I want to pass my love of arts and crafts on the future generation, even my generation.  I've always dreamed of owning my own business.  Today my mind has been going a million miles a minute with plans for a school or center or something like that to teach and learn arts and crafts.  A place for workshops and classes, studio room and gallery room, gardens and many other things.  I have two pages of notes just from brainstorming.  And I write tiny when I'm brainstorming or anything else.  Of course this is the easy part.  I know what I want.  The hard part is after its down on paper.  Then I have to start finding financing for it and a place for it.  Making it a reality is more difficult than getting the plan down on paper.  But its the right thing for me.  Its something I dreamed about for years.  I just never thought of doing it myself. 

My life has taken so many twists and turns in the last two years.  Two years ago I was all set to become a preacher and change the church and thus the world.  Then came the realization that the church I wanted to change had more I didn't agree with than I did agree with.  It would be easier just to start over.  Of course all this took time.  And by the time I reached these conclusions, there was a new man in my life and we were trying to figure out a way to be together.  I was also studying religions and concluded that my beliefs were closer to paganism and Wicca than Christianity. 

In the last two years I have also rediscovered my love of crafting.  I would like to somehow make it even more a part of my life.  At this point I don't know if that will transfer into a career or just something to keep my sane.  There are so many things I would like to do with it, but most of them have to wait. 

Finally I have a stable job.  I'm able to get myself out of debt and going in the right direction.  Eventually I will have the time and money to spend on my crafts.  I'm impatient and want things to happen now.  But at the same time I know that if I just wait a while, things will be so much better. 

After having such a turbulant two years its really nice to be able to settle down.  The new man in my life and I are together.  We did figure that part out.  I have to stability to get on my feet.  I can relax.  I don't have to worry about my job.  My bosses love me.  Its a great life.

Lately I've been working almost exclusively on knitting.  It continues to amaze me how well its going.  I've always been able to pick up new forms of needle work so quickly, its like I've done it all before in a former life or something.  But right now its knitting that I'm focused on.  I have two projects going.  A wrap for myself.  And a Christmas stocking for my nephew.  The wrap is over half done.  I still have a couple of hurtles to it.  I've figured out how to change yarn.  The next thing is connecting yarn with nothing to tie to.  The last hurtle will be adding a row to the side.  I may have to have help with those two.  In fact I'm planning to go to my local yarn shop tomorrow and get help with the first one.  Well, that plan hinges on two things.  I have to get the first side done tonight and I have to get off work on time tomorrow.  Getting the first side done is just a matter of sitting down in a little bit and knitting three inches.  Getting off on time tomorrow may be a little more tricky.  But if not tomorrow, then Friday.  It will be this week. 

My nephew's Christmas stocking my prove a little bit trickier.  I want to have it done by the end of the month.  Originally I was going to have to mail it to him along with Christmas presents for the rest of the family, but I got some time off work at Christmas.  So now I get to deliver all the presents to my family in person.  But that doesn't really mean I have more time to work on the stocking.  I have so much to do between now and then that I really need to get it done and out of the way so I can work on other projects. 

As soon as I finish those two projects I can move on to some of the other things that I have started.  I am starting to get antsy to do that.  Part of the reason I have so many interests is that I'm easily bored.  I have to keep jumping around to keep myself interested.  And its getting to that point now with my knitting.  Soon though.