Looking forward to a new year....

Hi. I hope anyone that reads this blog had a happy new year. My girls were both ill, so we spend a peaceful night at home snuggled on the air mattress in the basement with a fire in the fireplace watching movies. It was peaceful and at 9 PM we pretended it was midnight..... did the countdown and everything. My friend (whose house we were supposed to go to with the kids) brought over hats and horns which was SO NICE! And sparkling grape juice. It was fun. And they are feeling much better today.

Ok, now for a work based thing (sort of work based...)  I want to MAKE SOMETHING this year. And I want to help anyone who needs motivation MAKE SOMETHING, too. There are so many people I know who REALLY REALLY want to MAKE SOMETHING, but they get too caught up in being super organized, being "caught up", or wanting everything to be perfect before they make anything. Please, get over that need with me and MAKE SOMETHING for your family this year. I will help you.

I am working on a newsletter I hope to mail out a newsletter (you can sign up for my newsletter on the right tool bar of this blog if you are not on my list already) which invites you to MAKE SOMETHING this year. If you want to get things made rather than worry about perfection, you should sign up for this (by commenting on this blog post). I will happily email you every Monday night in 2009 to see how you are doing. I am a big fan of "Make Something Monday" which I tried to do in 2008.  It does not have to be Monday, it does not have to be fancy, it can be anything at all. Printing one photo, writing one story, uploading photos, adding memories to a digital book, simply capturing one memory....  week by week, one at a time. No pressure, no big expense....  just people motivating each other to MAKE SOMETHING for their family.

If you want to join my little MAKE SOMETHING group, email me at klsb@comcast.net OR post a comment on this blog (PLEASE put your email address in the post because I cannot usually find your email otherwise). I am not exactly sure how I will be able to set it up yet, but I will figure that out this weekend. I just wanted to let you know I was planning this to start next Monday.  So be starting a list of little things you can make. Just one little thing every week and we will all have 52 little things by this time next year. Ahhhh, that idea makes me happy.

I think I had success (when I counted points and showed up for my weekly meetings) on weight watchers because someone KNEW I was supposed to be there weighing in at my meetings. Because someone wrote in a little book if I had a successful week or if I needed to try a little harder.  I loved it. It worked for me when I stuck with it. (by the way, when you STOP counting points, STOP working out, and begin eating everything in site, the weight comes RIGHT BACK ON!).  I want to be your check point...  I want you to let me know what you are working on and how I can help you MAKE SOMETHING this year.  I think I will ask a couple of friends if they can donate a couple of prizes that will be raffled off to those trying to MAKE SOMETHING.... I think I will try to create a pdf of a check box that allows you to print it out and then you can put a check mark or a small sticker into the boxes for every week you MAKE SOMETHING. I am not sure yet. If you have an idea of how I could help you get motivated, let me know. I just wanted to let you know what I was thinking about today and invite you to MAKE SOMETHING this year with me. I look forward to seeing what we all create together.

Happy 2009. It is full of potential and anything is possible.