OUR COMMON HOURS

Kelli Ann Wilson January 10, 2014

2 // 52

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: You told me that there are no girls you can talk to about games and art. It won’t be like that forever. Right now you’re swimming in a very small pond, but someday you will make it to the sea and find there are lots of fish just like you.

Zane: You are a fearless explorer! After spying some snowmobiles on our walk the other day, it is now your heart’s one desire to own a “blue one” of your own. It gives your mama a heart attack to think about what the future will bring!

Kelli Ann Wilson January 3, 2014

1 // 52

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: You are changing so fast…too fast for me sometimes. But, I will do my best to keep up with you.

Zane: Those wide, wondering eyes! There’s nothing that escapes their gaze.

Kelli Ann Wilson January 1, 2014

2014!

2013 was a great year, and I’m a little sorry to see it go…but I’m always excited about the possibilities that come with a new year. Last year I made 13 resolutions, and only stuck with half of them. This year, I’m going to try and narrow my resolutions down to things that I REALLY want to make happen. Quality vs Quantity, ya know?

So, here they are:

// Read Some Classics. I just made a list of books I’ve always wanted to read. I figured I’d start with ten, and if I get through all of these, I can always read more:

Middlemarch, by George Eliot // Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen // Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens // Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte // Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte // Emma, by Jane Austen // Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott // Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy // Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo // Sense & Sensibility, by Jane Austen

// Do the 52 Week Project — “A portrait of my child once a week, every week, in 2014”. This is pretty self-explanatory. I believe it originated with blogger Jodi Wilson (of Che & Fidel), and many of the blogs I read participated in 2013. I didn’t catch wind of it until a couple of weeks in, and since I hate starting in the middle of things I had to wait for the New Year to begin! I take so many pictures of my kids that this shouldn’t be too difficult to achieve.

// Take Some Classes. Any classes, about anything. They can even be free. Now that I am done with school, I am scared that my mind will atrophy. I want to keep learning, always keep learning. I’ve got my first one lined up — Arrow & Apple’s Study of Light photography e-course. I’m really excited to learn more about using available light to take better photos.

// Leave My Savings Alone. I have a savings account that gets twenty dollars put into it every week. I constantly find myself transferring money from it for things I supposedly “need,” but really just “want.” By December 2014, I’ll have $1,000 saved if I don’t touch it.

// Write Lots of Snail Mail. This is something I have been working on for a couple of years now, but I really want to concentrate on it this year. If you’d like a letter from me, please add your contact info to my address book –> click here.

With only five resolutions, I expect to see a check mark next to every one of them on December 31, 2014! I hope you all have a wonderful New Year’s Day!

Kelli Ann Wilson December 31, 2013

year in review // 2013

From “In Memoriam [Ring Out Wild Bells]” by Lord Alfred Tennyson:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

I can’t believe we’ve already reached the last day of 2013. I feel like I was just making this list! I did an update back in July, but I have made more progress since then. Here are my resolutions from last January, and the progress I made toward completing them:

1. Paint the basement and put up the curtain walls.
✓Completed! There’s still more work to be done down there, but I am really happy with the progress I’ve made so far. I’ve also blogged about this project here and here. Here’s a before & after picture:

2. Work on creating my “mom cave” so I can be creative without distractions.
✓I’m checking this off even though the plans changed quite a bit. After doing a lot of thinking, I decided that I would rather have my stuff upstairs (since I am kind of scared of being in the basement alone — don’t laugh!). So, my “mom cave” turned into a “cloffice” which is in our bedroom. I blogged about it here.

3. Finally finish college and have a graduation party!
✓I DID IT!!! I’M SO PROUD!!!

4. Read all of the books that I got for Christmas, before next Christmas.
✓I’m pleased to say that I finished this goal! I know that reading four books in a year isn’t much of an accomplishment, but when you have two kids (1 toddler, 1 homeschooler) and you’re going to school and doing lots of reading for that, it’s difficult to find time to read for pleasure. Here are the books I read for my goal:
The Courtiers, by Lucy Worsley
Giants in the Earth, by O.E. Rølvaag
Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset (by far one of my top ten most favorite books of all time!)
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey, by Isabel Fonseca

5. Write letters to my grandmother once a month.
✓I think I’ve done pretty well at this. I never wanted to make it compulsory; I just wanted to be better at communicating.

6. Stick to the budget I created last fall, which was completely disregarded in December…
☹Sadly, I wasn’t very good about sticking to a budget. Maybe someone has software suggestions?

7. Schedule time to be alone, time to be with my kids (individually), and time to be with my husband.
☹It just didn’t happen.

8. Put up pictures in the hallway.
☹I haven’t done this yet, but I have sort of changed my mind about what I want to put there, so…

9. Work on Lillia’s ballet performance scrapbook.
☹☹☹ Still need to do this!

10. Grow some stuff! (Vegetables, flowers, whatever strikes my fancy).
✓I grew about 4 or 5 sickly tomatoes on some hand-me-down plants I got from my parents — it still counts! I also experimented with moving some of my perennials around. Nothing died, and I learned more about transplanting. PLUS, I discovered that we have a crabapple tree growing just over the fence in our yard. When the crabapples were ripe, I harvested them and then kindly asked my mom to make jelly out of them (which she did — thanks, Mom). While I didn’t technically “grow” the tree, I did take care of it and harvest its fruit — it counts!

11. See my friends at least once this year. I miss them.
1/2 ✓I did see one of my friends this year on Halloween, but that was only 1/2 of the friends I wanted to see LOL. I am going to see them this coming year. It’s a must.

12. Learn how to use my new camera — techniques and composition.
✓I think I learned a lot this year. Plus, I got a new lens — a Nikkor 50mm 1.8G. It.is.awesome. I recently subscribed to Kelby Training so that I could start watching instructional videos. Plus, my mother-in-law got me an awesome book about composition, so I’m going to work my through that.

13. Work on the Anna Maria Horner feather quilt (the only craft on this list, for a good reason).
☹Ha! Never gonna happen.

Hmmm…7.5 out of 13 isn’t terrible — it’s 50%. I completed half of my resolutions. Well, there’s always room for improvement, isn’t there? And, while it may seem like I’m a bit of a slacker in the “getting things done” department, there’s a lot of things I accomplished this year that weren’t part of my list of resolutions: I homeschooled my daughter; I lost about 15 pounds (I never make losing weight a resolution, but it’s nice when it happens anyway); I found a ton of new-to-me relatives (love you all, cousins!), and started a Facebook group and website all about my Copeland family; I had my DNA tested and analyzed and learned that I was not 100% European; I blogged; I took 11,694 pictures (holy moly!); I parented the heck out of my kids. I’ll be back tomorrow with my resolutions for 2014!

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year’s Eve!

Kelli Ann Wilson December 26, 2013

christmas // nighttime

Our second Christmas at my parents’s house was really low-key, which was great. The kids had all day at home to relax and enjoy and decompress from their first Christmas, so spirits were high and everyone had a great time (there was even some Christmas-themed BINGO!). It was wonderful to spend time with my family; I really wish I got to see my brothers more often.