New Year 2017

Happy New Year!

I love New Years!  I love making lists (my husband thinks I'm crazy with all the lists I make!)! I love looking at all of all the things I can improve on(and it's kind of a lot:)) and breaking down the topics and trying to see the day to day differences I can make to try to reach my goals!

I enjoy taking time to reevaluate my life and the improvements I want to make.  There is such optimism at this time of year and all the new things a new year can bring.  Looking back on the past year and seeing the things that went well and the things that didn't go as well and making a plan to do better!

I hope 2017 will be full of excitement and meaning!  I hope that passion for new and exciting things will carry on.  I'm just going to list a couple of my goals that I plan on keeping this year!

1.  Spirituality

I know this seems weird to talk about on a photography site but sometimes I don't know how I need to improve or what would be better for myself and my family.  I feel like spirituality makes us whole in a world that constantly tries to bring us down and pull us apart.   It seems like every time I focus on letting the Lord guide my life things have always gotten better!  I want this year to be the best year yet and I know that the best way to make it happen is by letting my Heavenly Father guide and direct me to the best solutions to my problems!  For me, the small goals to help me achieve the big goal be "being more spiritual" are: better at personal prayer, and personal scripture study, and my temple attendance.

2. Quality Family time.

We spend so much time together as a family but life really gets in the way of enjoying each other!  I tried to start this last year, but I want to do better this year!  I want to do fun things as a family!  Playing games, watching movies, talking, outings are all things that I want to do better at.  School, work and life make being together hard because when we're together there are a milling things we should be doing, but hopefully if we make each other a priority then being together and spending quality time together will get easier!

3. Get Outside

This past year we fixed out Motorhome and started taking our family out on adventures.  This was my most favorite part of the year!  Almost every weekend in the summer we tried a new place to glamp;).  I am not a camper, I need toilets, showers, and sleep.  Camping usually takes all of those away from me.  With three little kids and the dirt and bugs that come along with camping its just too much for me!  The motorhome solved all those problems!  It was so much fun to be away from the internet and phones and really connect with each other while exploring our wonderful state!  It was so great!  I'll be posting about my trips last summer and trying to keep up with the activities we do this year(hopefully).  I am not an explorer.  My parents weren't and that was passed on to me!  All of this is really out of my comfort zone.  I love being out in the mountains but I am also scared of everything, so this has been so good for me, to try to rid myself of my fears and enjoy this beautiful world that has been given to us!

3. Document, document, document

I love photography and taking pictures is sometimes the easiest part of the whole process.  There are so many steps to keep up with photography and I want to break each down and work on all of them throughout this year!
I want to keep a camera on me at all times.  Even if it isn't my big DSLR camera, sometimes my phone will do, but I want to make sure I'm not missing the moments that we love and want to remember!  I do regret not bringing my big DSLR on some of our outings this last year because I didn't want to worry about it and bring it all around but now that I can't print some of my pictures as big as I would like I think I'm going to try to bring it around more often!  I strongly believe any documenting is better then none, and I'm going to try not to beat myself up about how much better I could have been, but try a little harder every time to do a little better!
I want to keep my computer pictures organized and accessible!
The last thing to help me keep this goal is PRINT MY PICTURES!  That is probably going to be the hardest part about it, because printing costs money.  I figure if I save and plan then printing should not be as hard!
The last thing I am going to do for documenting is a 52 week challenge with https://thephotographerselement.com/  I'm hoping this will keep me focused and creative throughout the year!

Wish me luck on my resolutions, and I'm really hoping that keeping up my blog will help me stay accountable!

 YAY FOR 2017!!  It is going to be a great year!!