2013, The Year of Organization

I like to think that I’m pretty up-to-date with organizing. Okay, maybe I’m not. I am up to date with purging things on a regular basis. Especially with limited space, I do have to have a place for all these clothes to go somewhere else.

Most of these clothes are gone. I sold them at our latest JBF sale here in Springfield. Some of them have made their way to the attic to be sold at a garage sale. However, it’s a new year. Meaning my girls have grown, and I have a whole new set of clothes to sort through and to add to the garage sale.

In my other post I mentioned a few hints about how life seemed to crumble if I took a day off from the computer.

You see, having a part-time job at home is a huge distraction. Jeremiah is only home a little after 4:30pm, and he is gone before 6AM. I’m usually in charge of dinner, unless we want to eat noodles and chicken nuggets the rest of our lives. What can I say, there’s some things only Jeremiah can do that I just can’t, and there are things that I can do that Jeremiah just can’t. Like a potato. We use the microwave to make a baked potato but somehow he can’t get the technique down just like I can to make it turn out perfect. Or painting. I can’t get a straight line but he can cut into the edges like he’s been painting for 50 years (and he’s only in his 30′s).

I only have a few hours a night to sit down and work on the computer. Once Jeremiah walks in that door I’m glued to the screen until I have to help with dinner, the girls baths, or putting them to bed. I would love to see my family in the evenings instead of working hard to make a dollar every. single. night. I miss my family. This is why I want the website and zazzle to be my primary bread winners. I absolutely love designing, but with two small kids still at home and not in school, it makes it really difficult to keep up all my business adventures and to reach our financial goal. The blog is a passion of mine, and zazzle makes designing for clients easy. All I do is create a template and I’m done, and people keep buying the template. I don’t have to send files or proofs. It’s a win-win for everyone with zazzle, no matter how difficult zazzle can be.

I’m not saying I’m shutting down the etsy business, but if we ever do meet our financial goals with my business adventures, then the thoughts may cross my mind until the girls are old enough to go to school.

I’ll be real. Over the past year all profits I made from my business adventures were turned around and invested back into our personal finances. Now that we moved, I can turn around and invest some of that money back into my business. I always have been designing with free fonts, and I made my first licensed font purchase the other day. I’m super excited to use this in new wedding stationary, but first on my list is to complete my stationary lines I already have in the Etsy shop.

Speaking of lists, I haven’t had a calendar that I can tote around and reference in over a year. Why? Well, my business could never invest in one because my family had to come first. They still do come first. I am shopping around for calendars and am thinking about this printable from I Heart Organizing.

To add to my list of things to do as to why I can’t sit down and design all day… I also started going back to the gym. My gym at home that is. Years ago back in highschool I was really fit with a nice little 6 pack thanks to running and tae-bo. I started exercising with my tae-bo tapes around February of 2012 and lost 20 lbs in about a month and a half. It was hard work constantly counting calories and working out. All I had time for was working out and family. Then, I ventured off and started a business. On top of that, my husband started a business.

So while Jeremiah worked his day job and a part-time job, I was winging it in full-time single mom style with a work at home business. I’ll admit it, my healthy routine disappeared. Exercising vanished. We put our house on the market, which started a stressful house hunting experience where I ended up gaining 10lbs of those 20lbs lost.

Recently I started up those tae-bo VCR tapes. I was seeing a difference on the scale. After three days of falling off the wagon by not working out or recording calories, it threw off my game. I’ve learned that once I start I cannot stop or else I will never get to where I use to be.

..and you can see in my profile picture that I can lose a few pounds. ☺

So this year it’s all about organizing my personal life while trying to make the most out of the few hours I have to work on my business. I have big, huge, beautiful ideas that can knock your socks off with wedding stationary, but.. I have to put myself and my family first. Without my family, I have nothing.

What are your 2013 goals? Do you use a daily planner? Tell me about yours.