2013: The Year of Awesomeness

I am not a fan of resolutions. If I want to resolve to do anything I will make that change throughout the year. Last year I posted the 12 for 12 Goals. I did the majority of them.

13 for 13

In no specific order of importance...

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1. Sell 150 items: 
Sell 150 items to outdo 2012's 99 items sold. That is 12.5 items a month. Hmmm, better get more stock.

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2. Weekly Blog Posts:
I have not been writing weekly posts. I would like to do a post a week or more.

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3. Read a Book Per Month:
I keep saying I need to read more. I have a stack of books. No excuses. At least once a month I will read and post what I read.

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4. Track my Food to Lose Weight:
I started 2012 using the app on my phone and I did lose weight. With recent knee pain and knowing that fertility is related to weight this is a much. Plus it would be healthier and nice to have more energy.

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5. Monthly Adventures:
The husband and I have been saying how much we enjoy going on adventures that are more than 30 minutes from the house. We also want to limit our spending. If we plan for shorter treks the other three weekends that would be great. We could look forward to the big trip each month.

 

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6. Get serious about starting a family: 
I have been charting my cycle. I have tried the ovulation check once. I am now 40. I need to get serious.

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7. Save Money:
My savings account is now down to $24 with Christmas and needing money to cover bills. I need to pay myself first and build up a savings.

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8. Watch More Movies:
I have been watching far too many bad TV shows with people who shouldn't be celebrities. I have always had a TV addiction. I want to switch that addiction to watching movies. I found my attention span drop to 30 minutes at a time. I started watching more movies in recent months. I am trying to watch old movies and from my long Netflix queue. I loaded up the DVR with movies.  Just this morning I watched Butterfield 8. Not thrilled with it, but I am wishful about the others waiting for me to watch them.

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9. Improve at Work:
I want to get more organized. I have been so good at staying on top of paperwork, computer entries and seeing all my "clients." In the past month I have accumulated a mile high pile of filing and gotten behind on my entries. Although my supervisor doesn't seem concerned about this it drives me crazy. I was thinking of going into work on New Years Day since the husband is working, but that would take gas and take away from my personal time. I need to find another way to get it all done.

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10. Take a Real Vacation:
We want to take a vacation that does not involve going to see family. We have never done this. We need to save for this type of trip since it does not include our usual free housing. We have seen plenty of family members in 4 states in the last few years. It is time we go somewhere where it is all our schedule and what we want to do.

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11. Try Something New:
I have been slacking on trying new things - whether it is food, an activity or something to better my life. Definitely need to try to do something new at least once a month.

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12. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: 
I already do many things for this topic, but I can always do more. I recycle, I try and re-purpose items and reduce my waste. I want to find new ways of reducing what we have as well.

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13. More home improvement: 
There are still plenty of projects around the house - the kitchen and the master bath being the largest. We did paint the second bedroom and put up my long awaited shelf. The floor (that we have the tile for) still needs work. The closet needs organizing. The second bath needs work and painting. A little work at a time will get more done this year.

Completed Goal - Selling

Although there is another week left in the month my selling year is at its end. I am proud to say that I sold 99 items in my first year of selling.

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I started selling on Etsy in January this year. I didn't sell much. Then I started listing on Ebay more and more. I started listing on Half.com the loads of books that I have accumulated over the year, Ebay ended up being the majority of sales.

I didn't add up all the sales by money. I ended up using the Paypal money for a clock for my kitchen, two vacations and I am planning to take the money left in there right now to re-invest into buying items to sell.

I was hoping for selling 100 items. I am still amazed that I reached 99. I had no goal as far as number of sales or how much money I wanted to make. reselling was about trying something new, utilizing everything I have learned from other blogs. I wanted to give it a go. It helped out with money, getting better at how to sell online and decreasing the amount of stuff I have at home. Even though I have a shelf full of books to sell or give away I have plans for them. Online selling is a bit of a guessing game for me. We have bought things just to sell and they sold quickly and others are still in the sell pile.

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I am excited about taking some profit money and going in search of deals. I like selling books and 8 tracks because they are so easy to ship. I LOVE media mail. I am getting better at packing and shipping other items. I have lost money a few times on inaccurate shipping costs. I am better at utilizing the free listings every month on Ebay. I am not at the status of opening a shop. I still want to trudge along and try to sell more.

The husband has been very helpful. He helps me mail the items during the week since my work hours changed to where I get off work at 5 and all the post offices are closed. He also has a good eye for items to resell. He is a bigger deal finder than I am. I am hoping to expand to items he is more knowledgeable about. 

Completed Goal - Painting

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I know I already posted the end of the year 12 in 12 update. I got ahead of myself. We completed another goal. We painted! I have been pestering the husband about how easy it would be to paint the spare room/second bedroom since all I wanted to do with it is add a shelf around the room. Last weekend we bought half the brackets for the project. Since we were low on funds, things to do and had lots of time he started painting on Saturday after running errands.

We broke out the cans of paint to figure out what goes where. After separating the kitchen colors we decided on a color for the room. The husband decided to do an accent wall. So we decided on the lightest green with the accent wall a blue/green. We picked a blue/grey for the bathroom. We still have a sage can of paint for something in the future.

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The husband got very into painting. He did most of it. He left the low parts for me. It didn't take long after he cleaned the walls, pulled the nails and used the Spackle. It looks great. The husband kept saying how much he likes the accent wall with the green. I told him that was my present from him. It is the ideal gift and something we had been planning since we moved.

I am hoping to have the money in the next payday to get the wood and the rest of the brackets for the shelf. It will go around the room. It is taking the place of the large shelves that were in the room. They will hold our many cars and the board games. It should be able to fit toys and maybe the hand puppets I have in a box right now. Maybe some of our vintage electronics will fit up there as well. I won't know until it is up.

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I am very excited that the room is coming together. I am trying to talk the husband into getting rid of the small bed that is in the room. We don't have guests, although my oldest niece says she wants to visit in the summer. I am trying to convince him we could use the air mattresses if we have visitors or find something that fits better in there.

Once the shelf is up, everything can be arranged and the curtains can be hung. I cannot wait until it comes all together. Then to get the closet organized. The husband's tools, camping stuff and odds and ends are in there.

I haven't been able to get a good picture of the small room with the paint. I will try once we have it complete. The paint looks different in different light and at different times of day.

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Spirit of Suwannee - Festival of Lights

Last weekend we went to the Spirit of the Suwannee Festival of Lights. We hadn't been before so we had to check it out.

I do love lights.