2016: The year of keeping expectations low.

Unlike the last couple of years, I am none too sorry to see 2015 come to a close. For me, it immediately got off to a bad start, and although there were certainly a lot good things that happened, it never seemed to fully recover. I think the lack of blog posts this year was a reflection of that. So I welcome 2016 with caution because while it could certainly be better, it could also be worse.

This year I decided not do to any projects, although I am going to try journaling again. For the third time. They do say that third time is a charm, right? In any case, I'm not calling it a "project" because that would surely doom it. I did make some modifications to my approach that will hopefully keep me interested and enthusiastic. In the old way I was doing it, there was a lot of room for both drawing and writing. I'm not a real touchy-feely kind of person, so all that space to write about my innermost thoughts just wasn't working for me. Since most of my days are pretty routine, there was typically little to report other than:

• Got up. 
• Drove to work (Stopped for coffee somewhere in the middle).
• Did some work. 
• Ate lunch with Mel C. 
• Went to a lot of meetings. 
• Drove home. 
• Picked up Lauren. 
• Took the dogs out. 
• Made dinner (Or picked up take out on the way home). 
• Watched television. 
• Went to bed.

It's not really worthwhile to write that over and over again 200+ times. So now I just have a small square which should be enough room to hit the highlights. Additionally, in the old way I was doing it I had to illustrate a two page layout. Not only was it intimidating to have to keep coming up with new ideas that my meager drawing skills could handle, my drawings often took up all the space on the days where I actually had a lot to write about. With this layout, the artwork is on its own separate page, so I have a lot more flexibility and less space to stress over.

I guess we'll see how this works out. So far I like it, but then again, it's only the third day of the year.



Otherwise, we've been very lazy in 2016. I haven't even left the house since New Year's Day.



Marcus's resolution for 2016 is to spend time on the couch (which, incidentally, he's not allowed to do).

 

Cookie's resolution to is to snuggle more in the new year.



I'm not sure how that's possible, but it's always good to have goals.