scrubjayspeaks

Challenge #4: In your own space, create some goals.

Hmm... I usually do a fair bit of goal setting at the start of the year. Or, well. Not necessarily goals, per se. Assessment. I don't do New Year's resolutions, but I do like to see where my projects are at and spend at least a little time thinking about where I'd like to head.

This year--or more accurately, after *last* year--that feels presumptuous, to put it mildly. Imagine the wild hubris of thinking things will be able to happen according to plans. With the added time and energy constraints of work kicking off the year with absolute madness, I haven't really done any thinking, let alone planning.

One thing I've found works for me, though, is tracking. It's not setting a goal, merely recording what happens for a given metric. In practice, though, monitoring a thing tends to result in my doing more of it. To that end, I'm keeping track in a little spreadsheet of all the books I read this year.

My reading habits are so sporadic, trying to set a specific goal for number of books/pages/whatever in a year would be an exercise in random guessing and futility. But if I just keep track of what I read and when I finish it, I'll probably end up making it through more books than I otherwise would.

One thing I would like to do this year, but which is so lacking in concrete plans as to hardly qualify as a "goal," is get my various (nearly) finished drafts posted. I've got a sequel to an MCU fic that has been written for the last...uh...five years? It just needs revision, and I'm not even sure it needs a particularly heavy hand on that count either. (Depends on how perfectionist I'm feeling, I suppose, which is currently rated at "five years' worth" of perfectionism, so.)

I've also got an original piece that, long story short, has been professionally edited, has cover art made, and is two-thirds of the way coded. I just need to finish the layout for the pdf version and upload the blasted thing. For money! A thing I theoretically do! Somehow!

I do have one, tiny, formal goal for this year. I want to take more pictures. I'm absolutely rubbish at managing to drag out my dSLR, even though I really enjoy using it. There's a decent camera on my new tablet, though, and I have that thing with me much of the time. (I don't have a smart phone, so I've never really gotten into the modern habit of snapping shots of everything around me.)

So my goal is to take one picture a day. Doesn't matter what device I use, what it's of, or if it's even remotely worth looking at. The sole requirement is that I point a lens at something and make the shutter operate at least once.

On the same principle as the tracking, though, I'm hoping that just forcing myself to think about something on a regular basis will indirectly get me doing it more. In this case, I might remember to get my digital camera out more often than at first frost, birthday beach trip, and Halloween, my traditional three times for remembering to take real pictures.

There's not a lot to do in my garden during the winter normally. The butterfly garden is all dead, and it's not time to plant the next iteration of it. The succulents don't need a lot of water, and they're all closed up in the cold frames/under tarps/hiding in the office to survive the cold. But after weeks of ignoring the garden, I finally got around to watering them and replanting some things.

( Below cut, click to embiggen )

Found a friend amongst the succulents when I uncovered them today:

( Click to embiggen! )

(crossposted to tumblr)

For my birthday, my family went to a new section of beach. It had been recommended by the local rockhound group as a good location for finding shinies. It was a very pretty beach with a mix of sand, pebbles, and larger rocks, with lots of driftwood tossed up as well.

I'm still sorting my treasures, so more photos may follow. For now, here are the birds who were busy feeding while we collected.

( Under the cut, click pictures to embiggen... )