Focus on the Positive #11

My goodness! It's harder than I expected to get back into helpful habits! I had this sign on my door for at least two months:
BOM stands for Block of the Month.

 I've been doing a terrible job of updating info in our binder at Minnesota Quilters. I haven't been spending much time in my studio since Titus came into our lives. (Yeah, blame the puppy!)

After looking at it for so long and just feeling bad, I decided to move on. Since I want to spend time in my studio and get some sewing done, I decided to make my focus be something I truly wanted to do instead of something I thought I ought to do.

What a difference that makes!

I put this on my board just over a week ago:

Although I only got into my studio on three out of seven days, I spent enough time to experience a sense of accomplishment. Hooray!

The 2017 Mystery Quilt was a huge deal for me last year, but I couldn't keep up when May hit with all its end-of-the-year busy-ness. I did some catching up in October when I spent a week at the lake, but I was stalled since then.

I finished the July clue! I cut out the August pieces. I sewed 36 half-square triangles. Woohoo! It feels good to focus on accomplishments and not be stalled on a "should" goal.

One Thing? (Focus on the Positive #10)

Well. Time does have a way of slipping by.

Here's what's been on the white board for the past month-plus of my life:

We got the railing done (for his dad), but Louie wasn't super happy to spend the Saturday after Thanksgiving putting it up in the drizzle. Now it's done! It has been a help to Lou.

I'm still pulling stuff together for the fiduciary accounting, but may just wait until the 1099s are mailed . . .

I did what I had to do for Block of the Month, but never finished the January block (Kathie's design) and the February block was too big . . . and I should get up to my studio and make the March one! In any case, my favorite sewing thing this past month was making Angela's Christmas stocking. I really like how it turned out!

I go through phases in my focusing on the positives in life. I'm trying to stay prayerful and praise-focused. There is so much to be thankful for! Truly, just "making it" to Thanksgiving break was huge. Then getting to Christmas break. But here it is, January 1st, and there is so much I want to do still!

I have lots of to-do lists and goals . . . and I've done my official goal-setting for 2017. (Perhaps in another blog entry, I'll share that process.) For my "One Thing" and positive focus, I'll be using a plan my sister Louise came up with. It's called the Friends and Family Fun Encouragement Experiment (aka Triple F and Double E).

I'll blog separately (and weekly?) about that!

One Thing #6 (Focus on the Positive)

So Louie just told me he doesn't want to be blogged about . . . I'll just record mine, I guess, since it's important for me to respect his wishes and I want to keep doing the "One Thing" with him. There's an accountability piece (even though he never asks me how I'm doing on mine) and it feels as though we're doing this together (like exercise buddies work out together).

Anyhow, I'm way behind! Writing this on 8/2/16 . . .

For July 18-23, my goal was to research and make a list for the basement bathroom "fixes." Did it!

This has been bugging me for ages! The floor tile grout is dirty and I've tried different cleaning strategies, the ceiling has some trouble spots, the wall tile grout has issues, . . . and I really want to deal with things before we're dealing with mold, water damage, etc.! So just reading online, looking at some of our tiling resources, etc. helped me generate a page of things to try.

For July 25-30, we were up at the lake and my One Thing was planning my Personalized Learning presentation for our Summit on Aug. 1 and 2. I did brainstorming and initial planning, but didn't really pull it together until yesterday morning! My presentation was at 2:30 yesterday afternoon and it went pretty well. (When I told Louie it was good, but not great, he commented that it probably would have been better if I'd done the work on it BEFORE we went on vacation, as I had originally planned.) Of course he's right, but that doesn't mean I want to hear it!

For August 1-6, I want to make a dinner date with Brad and Amy. I've been meaning to do this for about a year . . . and it's just a phone call! Perhaps I'll just go do it now.