Action(s) for 2013

Now that we have been in our house for six months I feel like I can have a clear head again. The unpacking, updating, painting, this-and-that of moving into a house is time consuming and we’ll be doing it for awhile.

However, my studio is basically complete. All I need to paint is a baseboard on the wall that I did not paint white and the painting is complete. The general organization is done and I just need to buy some frames to hang some art. Hopefully I’ll be acquiring more art and creating more art to hang on the walls in the future.

Since that is done, I have a creative space to linger in, make things, and to write. I know, you don’t need a space like that to do anything creative but it certainly is a nice thing to have. I’m excited! I have a lot planned that requires my action, the word I’ve chosen for this year. There are several things I will take action on:

• Finish my Florida Trail thru-hike book. It’ll be two years here in a few days since we started that hike, I think it is time to get the book finished and done with. What needs to happen? Finish writing about the hike, edit, add in goodies and background on the places we walked through. That will require some research but first I want to focus on getting our story written. I go back and forth about writing about this hike. It wasn’t some life changing hike and it probably won’t be as adventurous sounding as other trail memoirs but I’m hoping I will be able to convey the mental, physical and emotional aspects of thru-hiking.
• Start our Appalachian Trail hike book. I wasn’t planning on this one but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to write it. I didn’t want to write it initially because there are many, many AT books already out there, but I can at least start it and see how it goes. It won’t be finished this year as it isn’t my priority.
• ART! I want to draw, paint and draw some more. I’m planning two separate AT series and would like to start a third series of garden drawings or paintings.
• Photography….Chris and I had a discussion about where Wildscape Photo is going to go in the next year and it turns out he isn’t interested in currently focusing on that. I’ve been kind of lingering with it, wanting to do something but waiting for him and now that I know he isn’t setting his sights on it heavy this year I’m going to be starting out and doing it on my side. So, that means I will probably start listing photos on Etsy within the next month in order to get some kind of selling going on. We registered our name with the state last year (2011) but I really need to get on the up and up with sales tax and that good stuff. So, if you are a photographer or artist and have any insight into it, particularly in Texas but anywhere would help, I would *love* some advice. I’m going to be dropping the portrait aspect of it, while it interests me I just don’t have the time to chase after clients and to do that right now—but that said, I wouldn’t turn down anyone who actively emailed me with interest. I’m just not making it my priority.
• Running 1 mile 5x’s a week. I like to run but I always tend to get ahead of myself mentally and then get down on myself when I just can’t run a lot of miles. A mile, some weights, stretching….just some action on active routine, that’s all I want. No goals for marathons or 5k’s….

Small, actionable steps towards bigger goals.