Happy New Year and New Beginnings!

 

Happy New Year from the Critter Crew!!

(The day before Christmas Eve we got almost 10” of snow!)

New Year's Resolution:

a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the year.

I prefer to call them goals to take some of the pressure off. I make goals all year long. And they sometimes change or morph into different sorts of goals, too. This time last year, getting back up on my horse was the very last thing on my mind, and I had even considered selling her on many occasions (and still might if the perfect buyer came along).

But getting back up on my horse became very important to me, over the past 6 months. If I had gotten back up on any other horse, it wouldn’t have meant nearly as much. Nor would it have helped me to conquer my fear or build my self-confidence. I could have slain any dragon, but I had to slay the dragon that burnt me. Know what I mean?

How about you? Have you made some new important goals this year? Or are you working on goals you made last year?

I don’t like to make too many goals for myself either. Then it’s just too difficult to meet or conquer any of them. And I also don’t make goals that are too lofty. In my mind that just makes it too easy for me to talk myself out of tackling them.

 

All that said, I have made a few goals for myself this new year:

1. To spend even more time with my kids and husband having fun together and doing things we enjoy. (Unlike my parents’ focus, I know that life is too short to worry about dried mud smears on the tile floor, fingerprints on the glass, soap scum in the tub, and dust bunnies. 100 years from now, none of that will matter, and we’ll all become dirt and dust anyway.)

 

2.To find our 300th Letterbox. (We’re at 249 now)

 

3.To learn how to hook up and tow our horse trailer on my own.

 

4.To take my llamas out hiking and packing more often. And maybe even do a camping/backpacking trip with them, too. (I bet they’d appreciate the break from their babysitting duties, too)

 

5.To find more time for hand spinning my wool.

 

6.To work on the relationship with my mare and to ride her, even if only around my own paddocks.

 

7.To take riding lessons again.

 

8.To ride in at least one trail ride. And hopefully the Spring ACTHA event.

 

9.To become more fit, strong and flexible.

 

10.To challenge and hone my photography skills.

 

That last goal had been started in 2009 by participating in the weekly photo challenges of Sunday Stills and Macro Monday. But in 2010, I am taking it a step further with my participation in Project 365, where I will be challenged to find something to photograph every day and post it to the group.

I was going to start up a new separate photo blog, too, like many others have done, but I know I’ll never be able to keep up with another blog, so instead I’ll be posting my Project 365 photo on my Laughing Orca Ranch blog, and hope no one gets annoyed. I won’t be posting it in a separate post, unless I don’t have anything else to blog about that day. Instead I’ll just add it to my post somewhere, probably at the end. So, bear with me, folks.

Here is my very first Project 365 photo for 2010.

   

 

So, have you made any special goals for 2010?