Every week, I’m looking at my goals for the year and going over my progress one at a time in an attempt to help me achieve them. I intend to do these on Fridays, but you know…

1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule stay on top of our new homeschool schedule and attend social events
We have been struggling with wanting to send our kids to school so they have a ‘normal childhood experience’ and with wanting to keep them home because we have seen the benefits (both academically and socially believe it or not) that have come from homeschooling. We have finally found a hybrid alternative with an online virtual school. We finished up our last day with the LAUSD’s ISP program on Friday and we start the new program today! We have chosen this both because while the kids are still at home and have our full support, they are lead by teachers online which is especially helpful for our oldest who is in his last year of middle school and will soon be tackling subjects I’m a little rusty with. Trigonometry, anyone? And also because this program has field trips and social events with the whole group which is really the only thing lacking in the program we are were using. There is a high school graduation ceremony and even proms, sporting events and dances. Who knows if they will want to do any of that, but having the option is what matters. I’m changing this resolution because as far as I can tell, you can’t get ahead of schedule with this program. If one of the kids understands a concept already or catches on right away, they are able to move on to the next concept. Once we start I will be better able to know how to word this goal!

2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail and a little letter
I think I will make a little page to keep track of the birthdays and the cards we send out to see it coming together. Last week we sent out cards to my dad and Melissa. This week we sent out cards to my husband’s long time friend Jon and the first friend I made online (waaay back in 2001) Nichole. I should note that these four always get birthday cards. I am usually really good about this until sometime in March or April. Then I tend to totally forget about it. I know, terrible! So far, so good!

3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
It is so embarrassingly behind! I haven’t touched it at all this year. :/

4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
I’ve been keeping up with just writing a line about what we did each day! This will be especially cute next year so we can look back and see what we were doing a year ago. Cute! I got index cards and a date stamp, and have been pretty good about making notes every day.

5. quit social media that’s not blog related basically I just wanted to quit Facebook
I currently only use social media as ‘soverydomestic’ and so most of what I post and do is blog related (though really, since this blog is mostly about what I make and do, it’s kind of the same thing).

6. blog 3-5 times a week
I blogged 4 times last week!

7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography
Next week? I didn’t even think of this much this week.

8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014
Week One
Week Two
Week Three

9. bake a cake every weekend
Week Three – Neapolitan Cake

10. participate in sockdown 2014
This month’s techniques are lace and intarsia – and since I’m still working on my Ravenclaw Pride socks, I went with lace. The pattern, Anna, is a 10 row repeat with something a little different on the first row! You knit two stitches together, leave them on the left hand needle and then knit just the first stitch and slip both new stitches off. What? Really simple and looks good. It has a 33 row cuff which is something that would probably dissuade me from wanting to knit these socks, but once I saw the cuff coming together I loved it!

11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt
I have knitted about 10 more puffs for this blanket

I also planned to replace alcohol with coffee, I thought it was a great idea and then my husband who drinks alcohol only once every few years, suggested we start having a drink with dinner. We had both recently read about a slew of health benefits to having one drink a day. So maybe we’ll alter that to having one a day and try to make it fun? I should note that 27 days into the new year and neither of us has had any alcohol so who knows which way we’ll go with that.