How’s your new year going so far? Mine has been busy but busy with overthinking! It’s one of my specialities. You see, I was all prepared to start a new flock of chickens and start planning the garden. But then I started thinking about how we share this space with fishing guides and guests for the busy season and how many times I worried about the chickens last year. And then there’s the whole start up cost of the flock, not to mention the cost of building raised beds. And then I started thinking about our finances and how we really want to move into our own space. And then I decided that it wasn’t a good time to have the garden or the chickens. It took a while to come to terms with that but I’m okay with it now. Mostly because I started thinking about setting goals for 2019 and what all I wanted to accomplish other than chickens and gardening.

So in that long round about way, here are my goals for 2019:
1. I want to learn, learn, learn! I want to become a better soap maker, cheese maker, knitter, gardener, canner, preserver, and baker. I want to learn new skills such as pasta making, beekeeping, and foraging. I have a pretty good foundation in most of these but I want to learn as much as I can. I’ll read books and attend classes as I can find them. I’m already signed up for some classes and will continue to search out other experiences.
2. I want to learn to eat seasonally and locally. We’ve already explored our options for local beef and pork. We are going back to the place where we used to get our meat. And I’m happy about that. It’s a local farm that has great prices and great products. I’ve known the farm for many, many years now and am not quite sure why I stopped going there. But I’m happy to be going back. And that milk pictured above? It’s my first foray into drinking raw milk. I love it. I thought it would taste different but it doesn’t. I’ve already made goat milk yogurt and a combo goat/cow cheese. I started a cheese called oxygala that one of my instafriends who lives in Wales gave me the recipe. I also want to try to shop at local farm markets and farm stands more.
3. Focus on my health. Need I say more? Doing all these things that I’m listing, along with just being active, will definitely help with my overall health.
4. Focus on our finances. I was doing pretty good with budgeting and then I feel off the horse and have had a hard time getting back on it. Not working for a year certainly didn’t help, but now I have my part time job and my little homesteading business. So I’ll focus on setting a budget and sticking to it along with growing my homesteading business. I’m exploring local options for selling my knitted products and my homemade beauty products. Feel free to take a look at my shop.
5. Look for local events–both free and for a nominal fee–to attend. Our little town has free concerts in the summer that we haven’t attended before. I’ve already signed up for a essential oil make and take and a pallet paint and sip. I also started a knitting group that meets twice per month. So exploring these kinds of opportunities will not only get me out of the house, but also helping support our local communities.
6. Being more frugal. I guess I could put this under ‘focus on finances’ above but it seems to be its own category. As in, learn to be more frugal, stop spending money needlessly, make do with what you have, and don’t be so wasteful. I’ve already started this journey as well, but I’ll admit–this one is hard. I’ll do something like not bring my reusable coffee cup with me and then get a to-go cup of coffee! Not the end of the world, but really I want to be better about this stuff. Even better than bringing my own cup–bring my own cup of coffee!!

These are things that have been important to me for a very long time but I just don’t do them for whatever reason. Mostly laziness. But sometimes it requires more time to seek out these opportunities and it just becomes too much. But this year I’m only working part time and we are focusing on our finances so seeking out local opportunities will be more financially responsible. I’ll continue with my journey and then report back occasionally how how I’m doing. What goals did you set for 2019?