Today is (I think) the last day of Holidailies, which is a bit of a relief. I’m planning to take a short break here, a week while I’m in Oregon visiting my parents and another week to recover from flying all over the country. Then I’m hoping to be back here posting once a week, maybe more on occasion, but I don’t want to aim for more for fear I won’t do any.

I managed a post for every day of holidailies, even if it wasn’t posted every day (I think I missed one day, but started a day early, so it evened out) which totals 32 days (including this one) in a row of blog posts. I realize this isn’t an enormous accomplishment, but it’s what I set out to do, so I’m happy to have finished it. I’ve also managed to get some (thought by no means all) of the holiday things done that I needed to do, so it’s not as though everything dropped to the side so I could get the blogging done, something I’ve been known to fall into in the past. A few things dropped to the side, but I think nothing important. I got several batches of chex mix baked for gifts, two glitter bottles finished for Ender, the wave bottle finished (thought not sealed) and two drawings done for Matt. Again, none of these things are especially epic on their own, but they are all the sorts of things I often mean to do, and don’t get around to, so I’m happy, and optimistic about my goals for the year.

If you missed my 2011 wrapup here are my goals for 2012:

1. Find time to do something creative at least a few times a week.
2. Submit a short story to magazines.
3. Re-write chapter 1 of novel.
4. Create dummy for picture book, and 2 finished pages. Submit picture book to publishers.
5. Create one simple (even if entirely useless) iPad app.

There are several other cascading goals, and better defined goals, that come from the ones above, but those are a good target for me at the moment, and I’m feeling pretty good about them at the moment. I’m starting out by giving myself small (very small) daily goals such as getting a sketch done, or spending an hour doing some editing. Re-focusing my efforts in this (these) direction(s) should help get me back into doing what I want to be doing, and what I need to be doing. I think daily blogging has been a good step stone for that, and helped me get some of my thoughts organized.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed holidailies. Off we go.

Giveaway Winner

I did a shirt credit giveaway December 19. The winner is Sherck with the suggestion: “Stare at it until you can see the Magic Eye picture (I swear it’s there, and I can’t believe they would put that on a onesie).” Sherck, I’ll get in contact with the shirt blanks company when I get back from Oregon (in about a week) and figure out how to get you your $25 credit then. This is my first giveaway with an outside company, so forgive me if I fumble a bit.