my Vision board? How about a vision list?

So my friend from High School (Natalia) has in the last little while become a really inspired/inspiring mom.  She gave birth to her little Tiana just a few weeks before Mikey got evicted from the Mom motel and (I think) little Tiana has changed her mommy's life.  It seems Nat has become really excited about being a mom and wants to tell everyone else that being a mom can be amazing!

 She's started a business called Tutu Mama and now she's doing a series of vlogs for moms where she is basically trying to light a fire under our bums for whatever inspires us.  Great idea.  I love how energetic and inspired she is!  Way to go Nat! 

Well anyways, she has been asking her blog readers and vlog viewers to make vision boards on pinterest or the old fashioned way a la collage.  Since I neither have the desire to register for another (probably cool, but at this point unpractical for me) time vacuum, and I don't own a plethora of magazines, I'm going to make a rather bland....Vision list!  Ha ha!  Sorry for being so boring Nat.

Here it goes.
Things I'd like to be really good at...or good at again.

Making time for prayer and meditation. Gosh it was so easy in college wasn't it? I just need to drag myself out of bed early in the morning so I can worship my amazing God. It's ridiculous how lazy I am in the morning, really.  If my children could form more coherent sentences to describe my morning behavior, I'd be in trouble.



Playing piano, guitar, sax, flute, violin. - It saddens me a bit to think about how much I used to practice and play some of these instruments and probably how lethargic my fingers and embouchure have gotten in the last few years.  C'est la vie.  My arms are stronger from toting babies around and my vocals have improved from singing many a lullaby.  There's hope yet.

Making sourdough bread. - I know I can feed a sourdough starter, because it bubbles happily.  I know I can make good bread with conventional yeast.  But gosh darn that sourdough just does not taste good, look good or have good texture.  But I WILL get it.  Gah.  Tips?

Blogging more frequently...... Ha ha ha!  I don't know if I actually feel a need to get better at this, or if I just feel bad for the people who have me on their blog roll.  They probably think I've given up, but alas, every 3 or 4 months I do blog.  Hopefully it won't be so long until my next installment.

Couponing.  I am totally inspired by my friends who are saving loads of cash or getting paid to buy stuff.  I know it would be a great asset to our family's budget if I could get toothpaste, toilet paper, or Kleenex for free.  One of these days when I get life a teeny, tiny, bit more organized, I'm going hunting on blogs for those organic and all natural coupons.  Gosh I wish they had coupons for organic produce.  Ha ha! 

Putting pictures into albums or frames.  Some of you from high school and college who saw my room will probably remember seeing photos taped to the walls in creative shapes.  No, I don't still do that in our apartment, but now the poor pictures just sit in boxes, or even worse, in folders on the computer never to be printed out.  At least they're on facebook, right?  I have been blessed with so many amazing experiences in my life and I have taken a lot of pictures of those experiences, but gosh no one else is seeing them!  I suppose it'd help if I could hang a picture straight.  I don't know what it is.  It's like cutting paper, I can't cut straight either.

Canning/jarring fruit and other stuff.  To be honest, we don't have a pantry so this isn't really do-able at the moment unless I want to stock Mikey's closet with jars full of peaches and tomatoes.  But after reading food blog after food blog about canning and "putting up" summer fruits, it makes me want to seize the opportunity and stuff things into jars!  When we have more space, and when Jon and I learn to break things less often, this will happen.

Reading!  I used to read so much, but at the end of the day all I seem to want to do is veg out.  We have so many amazing books on the shelves that could probably really help out my spiritual life and general human maturity.  Seriously, we have a pretty nice looking Catholic library in here and so far Jon is the only one making use of it!  The most reading I've done in the last few months is thumbing through my Medicinal Plants of the world book (reference book, not exactly a book you delve into) checking out herbal remedies. 

It's not an incredibly exciting vision list, but that's as far as my "dreams" go at the moment.  Not exactly glamorous, but exciting in their way.  I don't know about you, but perfecting a stellar sourdough boule would be crazy fantastic! 


But here's another short list of things I will be doing, for sure in the near future.
-Making cheese.  I found a recipe for paneer/queso fresco/cottage cheese on saveur.com that looks super easy and I'm going to make it.  Did you know that those were all the same thing?  Yeah, me neither until I watched a few youtube videos tonight.

-Putting a bunch of photos into an album.  My fabulous friend Annie gave me a coupon code for Snapfish last week.  It's one of those photo sharing/printing websites.  I printed out a huge load of photos from when Clare was born up until now and they will finally be out for viewing pleasure in our living room!  Woohoo!  Thanks Annie!



Any tips for my aspirations?