26 before 27: 9 month update

I can't believe that I only have 3 months left to wrap up my 26 before 27 goals! I thought I'd share my list with everything that I have accomplished crossed out. I do have a few things left; some which I don't know how or if I'll be able to finish. I've made little notes next to some of the goals, because there are some that I've officially taken off of my list.

See my first post [HERE].

First update [HERE].

Six-month update [HERE].

Friends & Social           

1. Meet Amanda in real life

2. Visit my Seattle girls

3. Attend Ignite Boise

4. Reach over 600 followers on twitter - I'll be happy if I reach 500, I'm 14 away.

5. Blog consistently and increase my blog followers [100+] - I have 35 followers. I'm fine with that. :)

6. Host a giveaway on my blog - maybe when I reach 50 :)

7. Meet one or more twitter/blogger friends in real life

Faith

8. Read the Bible cover to cover - I'm almost done!

9. Participate in the Women’s Bible Study at church and be prepared for each class

Finances

10. Get out of debt and save money, create a monthly budget

11. Move out of my parent’s house

Photography

12. Get current on my photo albums

13. Take photos with my Holga and get them developed via the Darkroom

14. Be the top seller for Bella Baby Photography in Boise - I'm no longer working for Bella, so this is no longer relevant.

15. Become a certified Bella Life Photographer - Ditto (see above)

16. Brainstorm photography concepts and create two personal photo series

17. Take a photography class

18. Expand my personal photography business through senior portrait sessions and family sessions

Fun

19. Go on a date

20. Make a dress

21. Have a movie marathon

22. Build a fort/tent inside on a rainy day

23. Develop my personal style, do the 30x30 challenge

24. Complete Red Velvet’s Blog E-Course & Dream Job E-Course

Life/Misc.

25. Maintain organization in my life, personally and work-related

26. View the following documentaries: Beyond The Bottle [Miir] and Finding Kind [Kind Campaign] and donate to each organization

26 before 27: 6 month update

I have 6 months left before my birthday and I thought it’d be a good time to do an update on how my goals are coming along.  You can see my first update HERE.

These are a few things I’ve accomplished since then and ones that I’m currently working on.

2. Visit my Seattle girls: I was able to take two trips to Seattle last fall, in both September and October.

October trip - with Megan & Aimee at a Sounders game

3. Attend Ignite Boise: I went to IB7 with my parents, faux aunt and cousin in October.  I’m looking forward to IB8 in April.

7. Meet one or more twitter/blogger friends in real life: So far I’ve only met one twitter/blogger friend in real life and that’s Brandy [blog / twitter].  We were lucky enough to meet after Ignite Boise.  It was about time!  I hope that I’m able to meet a couple other twitter /blogger friends in the next 6 months.

8. Read the Bible cover to cover: I mentioned this in my last goals post, but I’m excited to say that I’m on track to finish in 6 months.  I highly recommend THIS plan to read the Bible in a year.  It’s been going great.  I’m pretty sure this goal is going to be on my list again next year.  Right now I’m reading The Message translation and I think I’ll go through the NIV translation next.

12. Get current on my photo albums: My sister and I have been attending my mom’s monthly crops to work on our albums.  We finished our 2007 albums and I’ve been slowly working on wrapping up all my traditional albums.  There’s a lot left to journal, but I’m getting through it.  In two weeks we’re going up to Camp Perkins for a women’s crafting retreat.  I’m looking forward to getting away and hopefully getting 2008 done.  Check out Creative Memories HERE to learn more about digital solutions for your photos.  It's not about "scrapbooking" it's about getting your pictures in albums to enjoy.

13. Take photos with my Holga and get them developed via the Darkroom: I shouldn’t have spent the money, but I finally bit the bullet and sent in some rolls to get developed by the Darkroom.  It was so fun to see my images.  I’ll be sharing some of my favorites on here next week.

14. Be the top seller for Bella Baby Photography in Boise: This is something I've been struggling with and is one of my top priorities.  I get paid solely on commission and I've been struggling financially.  I'm putting steps in place to become better at selling.  In the next week or two I'll hopefully be shadowing some of my fellow photographers to learn all I can from them about improving my selling techniques.

15. Become a certified Bella Life Photographer: I’m “pre-certified” as a Bella Life Photographer.  There are a few steps left to become officially certified, like shadowing the lead photographer and then submitting a few more sessions for critiques.

17. Take a photography class: I’d like to take [this portrait class] online via Improve Photography.  I’m hoping to save enough money to take it in the next month or two.

20. Make a dress: I didn’t make a dress, although it’s still on my list.  This past weekend Heather and I had the house to ourselves and deemed it “craft time.”  I drafted a pattern for a skirt and then made it with some gorgeous fabric that a friend gave me.  I'll share pictures of the skirt in an upcoming Wardrobe Wednesday post.

26 before 27: Monthly Update

I’ve been busy the past 6 weeks working on my 26 before 27 goals. I created this binder to help me organize my goals.

I wanted to give you all a little update as to how I’ve been doing on them. It’s been a little hard to prioritize because I want to get them ALL done NOW. Here are a few goals that I’ve been working on:

1. Meet Amanda irl – We’re trying to schedule a good time for her to fly out here to Idaho. Tentatively scheduled for December.

5. Blog consistently and increase my blog followers [100+] – Yikes! This one is hard. I’ve been trying my best to plan out and schedule my blogs. I’m starting with blogging consistently and then will work on increasing my blog followers.

8. Read the Bible cover to cover – I’m really excited about this one! I’ve been reading my Bible every day since July 31. I’m using THIS PLAN I found online. In order to keep it organized I used 7 different paint samples as bookmarks and labeled them with the days of the week. I keep a copy of the plan folded in the front of my Bible to refer to specific chapters for each day. It works great! I love the plan because I get to read different passages everyday.

12. Get current on my photo albums– This is extremely challenging, but I did attend my mom’s crop this month. I have a lot to catch up on, but I think that I need to wrap up my traditional albums first. This might take some goals and planning to make sure I complete this goal.

14. Be the top seller for Bella Baby Photography in Boise– While I wasn’t top seller for Bella Baby in Boise last month, I did reach my highest sales ever. I honestly don’t think that I will be able to become the top seller without being a certified Bella Life Photographer.

15. Become a certified Bella Life Photographer – I am making plans to [hopefully] submit a gallery [or galleries] this month to be approved as a Bella Life Photographer. The gallery that I submit will be critiqued and it might take a few rounds before I’m actually approved.

18. Expand my personal photography business through senior portrait sessions and family sessions – As you may know, I launched a facebook page for my photography. This was something I was very nervous about. I’m very self conscious about my work, so this was a huge step for me. I photographed my first Senior Rep last month. I have a tentative senior session this month and will hopefully book some more sessions from those. I also have two family sessions that need to be scheduled in the coming months!

25. Maintain organization in my life, personally and work-related, via filing system – I put this off for most of the month because I knew it’d be challenging. I got a whole bunch of new file folders and organized my existing files, cleaning them out as I went. I have a new system for my files, including an “In Progress” folder where I stash the things I need to go through, rather than piling them on my desk. I think it’s going to work very well! I’ve also been trying to use my planner in a more efficient way. I also just downloaded the Wunderlist app on my MacBook Pro. I think it’s going to be awesome in helping me get organized! 

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26. View the following documentaries: Beyond The Bottle [Miir] and Finding Kind [Kind Campaign] and donate to each organization – I was able to see Beyond The Bottle documentary TWICE! You can view it HERE. I might be able to see Finding Kind if/when Amanda comes to visit, because she has a copy of it. It might take me a while to be able to donate to either cause but I’m excited that I’ll be able to cross it off my list in the next couple months. 

give me some sugar

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I've been out of the loop (or loopy) the last couple days. Monday I had my surgery for this. I got a call from the doctor today that it was benign. I'm still pretty sore and absolutely HATE how the pain meds make me feel. I'm trying to only take them before bed because the spinning drives me crazy. I've been up and around more today and went out to lunch, but I'm still pretty tired because I haven't been sleeping great. Heather got a funny video of me waking up in recovery. Apparently I've been watching too much Grey's Anatomy because I kept talking about Christina Yang and what she would do or let me do if she were there. Haha! I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to post it on Youtube. We'll see... ;)

I thought the rest of this week was going to be busy with work, but it turns out I'm only working tomorrow. Then for most of February it looks like I'll just be working two days a week. Normally I might be kinda bummed that I'm not working more, but I just got an email the other day that my Midpoint Review Presentation is scheduled for Friday, March 4. I've started to freak out a little, since all of my stuff needs to be in San Francisco two weeks before my presentation. That gives me a little less than three weeks to be ready. AND Spring Semester starts on Monday! Ahhh! So the days I'm not working or doing school work I will be super busy prepping for the presentation. Well I'm off to make a timeline and plan of all the things I have to do before then. Here goes nothing...

May Day

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has been crazy! Jenny is visiting for the weekend and we've been having a lot of fun! I have 3 weeks of school left, so I'm trying to finish strong. Starting Monday, Heather and I are working at the National Interagency Fire Center for two weeks at the Return Warehouse. It's a summer job we had after freshman and sophomore years in college. They needed some temp people for special projects. Needless to say, posts will be very few and far between until the end of May. Hopefully I'll have/make time to at least blog some pictures from my week in Seattle, pictures for one of my final projects and pictures from Jenny's weekend here. In the meantime I'll leave you with two photobooth pictures from this morning. The three of us had wayyyy too much fun with it. Happy May Day!