Planning for 2012

Really, it's more like planning for January, as there are several things I'm going to try this month. I discovered internet challenges last year and have found myself seriously drawn into them. (Anyone remember the A-Z Reading Challenge I posted about? I picked out a list of Andre Norton books and managed to read 4, I think. My husband wound up moving his collection into the antique secretary that his older sister returned. And then stuffs got piled in front of the door, and well...I can't easily get to them anymore. (At the moment, it would be a major excavation to get to the secretary!))

The first challenge I was crazy enough to agree to isn't even an online one. Someone at work tossed out the suggestion that we put together a team for the 2012 Athens Takes It Off challenge, which runs 10 weeks. Looking for a some encouragement to get back into my healthy, sugar-friendly eating, I mentioned it to my husband. He thought it was a good idea. That was all the encouragement I needed and so I signed up. Now if I can just figure out when the weigh-in is...

Just click if you'd like to find out more about Athens Takes It Off. I'll try to post regular updates and hopefully you'll encourage me to stick with my eating goals, which is really what this is all about for me. (Apparently I dropped quite a few pounds just by being mindful of what was going in my mouth...and then I got that sore throat and it all went out the window.) Feel free to play along on your own and see what healthy changes you can make in your life during those 10 weeks - you can share them in the comments section on here if you'd like and then we can cheer each other on.

The next challange is also one of mindfulness. I'm going to give the "river of stones" a try. For this challange, you need to properly, or completely and wholely, notice something and then write about it. There are bunches of ways you can share, or not. The whole point is to take that moment in time to notice something fully and to record that noticing, and to do that for 31 days. I'll be sharing some of my small stones over on the Laural Reufner blog, but you can find out more here if you'd like to play along.

And one final challange, because things are better in threes, right? This one is a creative, fun challange and I'd love to have you join me. I'm making a pair of earrings every day during January. For the second year, the editor of the Beading Daily enewsletter tossed out the challange to create a beaded pair of earrings everyday in January. While I'm not sure I'm making the kinds of earrings she had in mind - I don't do peyote or right angle or herringbone beaded stitches - I'm still making earrings. Heck, I might even make some as gifts for during the year or for Christmas. And I was so excited that I've already started. My husband gave a gift certificate to our local beading store, Beads and Things, and I guilt-free splurged on the stuff to make a pair of earrings with pretty kyanite drops on them. I just couldn't wait. (That's them in the photo uptop.) So last night, I had to make a second pair of earrings as well. (I'll actually post a tutorial on those earrings soon.)

I think a creative, month long challange off and on during the year could be lots of fun and I'm trying to think up some other ideas that would work well. So far, ornaments in July are sounding like a pretty good time. Why should January have all the fun?