January Cure and more more more

Two things I am about to embark on for January I hope will make my presence here rise.
I promise not to try to be perfect at any of them. When I try to perfect at things they don't get finished, or written about. This year I am going to try to learn how to be a better work in progress. That is my one resolution, and to let what may come of that come.

There are other things that make me feel better about taking this time to be a work in progress. I will get to them in more detail in time, but the highlights are...

I am taking some time away from work, not all of my time, but enough.

In this time I will be taking two classes from Grant MacEwan's Arts and Cultural Administration program. Last semester I took one; Accounting. I was very happy with how it went and I am really looking forward to having the time this semester to really focus on continuing my education. Last semester when I was totally overwhelmed with the learning curve of my new job and coming home to finish work or study every night, my counsellor recommended I look at this program and work as a Master's Program, with an end date and a finite goal. That has helped a lot.

This semester I will be taking Business Computing and Human Resource Management. Two things I am really excited to know more about.

But the things that I hope will bring me here blogging more are two challenges, one for the year and one for the month.

Grateful For: This little girl, who is my whole world.

For the year I plan on undertaking a #365Gratefuls project. When I took my job at SKAM, I promised myself I would not become the full time theatre person that lost perspective and hated what I do. I promised to remain grateful for all that I have. But I haven't. I grumble and I complain. I stay home instead of seeing theatre. I don't cherish my time with Rob like I used to and I curse our big house and the work it takes. So this year, every day I will have to identify something I am grateful for and take a photo. I will post them to Instagram daily (or at least catch up quickly if I miss a day) and here when I get to it. I am looking forward to looking at the things in my life with grateful eyes again.

For the month of January I am going to finally participate in the January cure from Apartment Therapy. I have meant to join for the last few years but always get around to it to late. And my nomadic lifestyle stopped me from caring to make anywhere a real home for a while.

I will post more about this later today or this weekend, but Rob and I have whittled down our list of projects for the house and its making me really look forward to getting started. I love that this weekend's assignment is to buy flowers. I marvel at how fresh flowers seem to always be in season

Grateful For: Time in my beautiful home.

here and that there are flowers at every corner store, but I never stop to buy any. It will be very nice to clean up the dining room and put flowers on the table before having Rob's family over for dinner tomorrow night.

And company tonight as well! I am going to try my hand at making fancy Italian Stuffed Pork Tenderloin for Rob's birthday and his friend Ryan is coming over to celebrate. Nothing like eating what other people tell you to eat for two and a half weeks to make you really appreciate cooking in your own kitchen again :)

I also might attempt to join a 2nd Book Club. If any of you are also following Annie, you know that I am part of a Ladies Book Club in Victoria and I love it. It has been the first group of people I have found here that feel like the right fit for me and I love love love our Book Club nights that are now expanding into movie nights, board game nights and other social ventures. But I also know that I am capable of reading more than one book a month and would like to challenge myself more this year. I have started my new Goodreads Challenge for the year. Last year I challenged myself to 14 book and read 16, so this year I hope to read 18. So I plan to read along with A Beautiful Mess , who are my favourite bloggers. Their first pick looks right up my alley. I also hope to read all five Canada Reads contenders this year before the debate in March. Last year I almost got them all read, but after the fact. I have had Maddaddam on my shelf for months now, and I am excited to re read the first two books in the trilogy before reading it, so I'm glad Year of the Flood is one of the contenders!

Whew. May this year be a year of doing things for me.