Also known as my "2011 Goals" post.
2010 sucked hardcore for me. It was the skidmark on an otherwise pretty good decade. A decade that saw me graduate from college, get married, work at the coolest job in the entire world for 4 years, travel overseas, and give birth to my sweet baby boy, ended with a shitty bang. Eight months of the last year of the decade saw our income cut by 40%, brought about a career change that has cost us an obsene amount of money, but won't maybe prove fruitful for another 1-2 years, and caused me to be a single parent many nights a week.
2010 caused me to question my faith in god, my own mental strength, and the idea that hard work produces good results. There was probably a 2 month period in the summer where I literally lost hope and just gave up.
2010 can suck it as far as I am concerned.
So, 2011, I have high hopes for you. I have a lot riding on you. Let me down, and I'll give you a swift kick to the britney.
2011 is the year I:
- learn to use a sewing machine
- learn to relax attempt to sit on the couch for more than 15 min a night without folding laundry, hanging up laundry on drying racks, stuffing cloth diapers, reading magazines on how to save money, or knitting homemade Christmas gifts
- knit something more than a really big glorified scarf. My baby blankets? Huge scarves.
- grow lettuce. Seriously? I live in a pretty mild climate and have a wonderful garden and yet I can't freaking grow lettuce! What gives?
- increase our already somewhat comfortable emergency fund. For 2012 will bring with it 10 weeks without our 2nd already small income.
- sell our property. We bought it in 2007 when times were better and we anticipated that we would move back to Washington and start building within a year. Two years in our return, we're hanging on by our fingernails a lot of time. We most certainly can't afford to build because we have to live someplace during the build. Rent + mortgage does not = a happy budget.
- find a small part-time job I could do at home. Something like bookkeeping for 10 hrs a week.
- finally conquer my fear and just go ahead and make my own mayo
- employ a math professional to figure out the exact quantity of strawberry jam I need to keep my family happy for 12 months. Those calculations are beyond my state school abilities.
- sleep
Wishing you and your family a very happy and very frugal New Years!