Luna's Baublebilities

I hate always failing at my New Year's Resolutions. Often I pretend not to make any but end up keeping a secret mental list of untrackable and therefore unattainable goals. This year will be different. I have just a few main goals and I'll be blogging about them so hopefully I'll be able to keep track of my progress and actually succeed at something.




#1 goal - more important than anything else - is to establish a habit of caring for my body. I am beyond the upper healthy limits of weight for my body size and I have very little energy for most physical activities. Also, I have been sick at least one week out of each month this year and this winter, one sickness has blended into the next one since mid-October. I know that regular daily exercise will change the state of my body dramatically. I intend to exercise every day that I am not incapacitated for at least half an hour. I'll log my progress each week here. This week, I exercised on Monday and then came down with the flu. I'm feeling better today so I need to spend some time with a video or the treadmill before the day ends. (I welcome anyone who wants to be part of an exercise club or support group that reports regularly here.)




My next goal is to learn how to effectively manage all aspects of my business without allowing them to overtake my life. I am working with a schedule of daily and weekly tasks that include product development, production, photography, posting items, shipping, bookwork & financial management and blogging. I hate spending most of January going through all of the previous year's receipts and categorizing everything for my books. An hour or so every other week this year should help me eliminate that problem next year. I am also developing an inventory system so that I know when to re-order and eliminate my sloppy guestimation system for tax reporting.






























For this blog, I intend to post regularly, including the following topics:

- my progress with my exercising/health goal
- new tutorials for fiber and jewely arts
- new development in my shops
- Etsy Bloggers Street Team monthly topics
- My participation in Sharon Boggon's Stitch Explorer 2009




I'm not sure what the schedule for blogging will be yet and I'm sure I'll post fun stuff about my family fairly regularly, but I'm really more interested in creating a journal of my professional growth as opposed to a family travelogue. Molly Bryn is very interested in blogging, perhaps this year she will start a family blog.










One thing I am very concerned with professionally is how to keep my business moving forward without becoming simply a reseller on Etsy. I love selling beautiful beads and findings and that s certainly bringing in a beter cash flow than my jewelry and scarves but the time I've been investing on that is eating away at my time for family needs and creative time. If I can't create with the stuff, it is no fun to have thousands of beads and hundreds of yards of silk lying around!





That is part of the reson I ant to participate in Stitch Explorer this year. I really love embroidery and I have so many fond memories of atching my sweet Grandmother embroider beautiful things that i want to make it a regular part of my life, rather than just something I drag to Church conferences two or three times a year. Taking on an embroidery project like that should teach me new skills while allowing me to use my beads and silks in small amounts for embellishing my project(s). maybe some of my projects will turn into profitable product lines, otherwise, they will be portable pressure-free creative outlets.

Speaing of time for family needs - it is almost time for lunch. Scattered about the page here are some photos of my new beads and some earrings I worked on last week. They are not all up in my shops yet, but they will be by the end of next week!