A Vision Reborn in 2020

For awhile I haven't been blogging. Life always seems to get the best of me and this year wasn't any different. After leaving Hobby Lobby, my full time job back in November 2018, I decided this past January to work on getting my photography business off the ground after dreaming about this for over two decades. 

January and February were all about setting up Facebook pages, websites and getting my portfolio set up. I literally spent all my spare time focusing on getting it launched. In June I officially started taking paid customers and things just took off from there.

Within that time period, I photographed everything from back to school portraits for the homeschooling community, Sparkettes of Montana group shots, 911 Hero Run, Homeschool Soccer Team, Families, Youth, Senior High Graduates, Maternity, Couples, Business/Commercial, and Real Estate photography. I had an amazing first year and look forward to where God leads me in 2020. 

What does this mean for Ladybug Chronicles. I absolutely want to focus more on posting about my second love... Health/Fitness/Running and DIY projects that I have neglected to work on this past year.

My goals with this blog is to share healthy recipes, fitness tips, DIY projects, and life fun!

If you have followed my blog at all over the years you know I love to have One Word that gets me through each year. This year I have decided to use the word VISION. I thought it very fitting since we are entering 2020... Get it 20/20 vision... hee hee!

So what does VISION mean to me for the coming year?

The word Vision stokes the idea of sight. To be alert, to see and not to be blind.

This means a lot of things for me. Personally, physically, mentally, business-wise, and family-wise, & money-wise.

Personally:
I want to take this year to visualize my personal goals. On December 22 my youngest turned 18 and he is looking to leave the nest here soon so what does this mean? Empty-nest. After 25 years of parenthood, with 15 of those years were homeschooling my children, having them around full time. So this is an adjustment period for me that I need to take the time to visualize this next season of my life while working on me projects. Finishing my running race t-shirt quilt, crocheting my temp blanket and learning how to use my Cricut machine. 

Physically:

I have neglected my daily runs and working out because I have put work first. This year my vision is to make this a priority with participating in the 2020 Run the Year Challenge and making sure I eat healthy, wholesome meals and really watch my calorie intake. JUST MOVE MOVE MOVE! I have 20 lbs to lose and this is the year it's coming off!

Mentally:

Mentally I need to pay attention to how this empty nest time period will affect me and how I will channel that to more positive areas in my life including working on my friendships and marriage. These two have been such a blessing to me this past year. I have grown so much as a wife to my loving and devoted husband of 22 years and have formed a beautiful, positive bond with my best friend. I couldn't be anymore blessed.

Business-Wise

My vision for my business now has changed since I started this past year. I had so many wonderful clients come my way and got to photograph so many different areas of photography. During this time though I have fallen in love with real estate and commercial photography and business branding so this is where I will focus most of my time in 2020. Building a client list of real estate agents so I can do this full time. I also fell in love with Senior High, Maternity and Couples so this will be an area of my business that I will do on a part time basis along with professional head shots to compliment my business branding sessions.

I believe to be the best in your field you can't do it all. So I live by that.. I want to be able to focus all my time/energy in being the best real estate/business photographer, to be efficient, and to produce the best quality photos for every agent that contacts me.

Family-Wise

I have had a rocky year with extended family. My father passed away in July 2018 and I haven't recovered from that fully. During this time period, my mother decided to move closer to my brother leaving a 12 hour gap between us. We have never been close, but I have always prayed we would so her turning towards my brother as she always does, stings. So my goal this year is to work on the family that I can love and support. My three children and my husband. They mean the world to me, and they equally care about me. That is what is important. I need to visualize the positive things instead of focusing on the negative and things I don't have control over.

Money-Wise:Debt Free

We have had the vision to be debt free for almost two decades now. Our only debt is our mortgage, owning everything else. 18 years ago my husband and I went through a financial course by Larry Burkett, he is similar to Dave Ramsey, helping us to be financially free. What an amazing adventure we have been on so far. Our debt free journey is all about paying off our home. Before moving, we started actively paying down our mortgage, when my husband and I said we want to pay it off, but not THIS house. So we purchased this one in May 2018. Within that time period of 17 months we have chiseled over 10 years of our 30 year mortgage off. Our goal is to have this paid off in 5 years... 

So that is why I chose VISION for my One Word 2020. 

My GOALS for 2020:

DIY projects:

I have a lot of home projects that I can't wait to dive into this year. I will blog about them as they get done..

Fitness goals:

I will be sharing here as well. All about my running adventures and goals as well as my fitness routine. Successes and failures including my progress with Run the Year.

Healthy Living:

This is another passion of mine. Eating right because 80% of your effort is your diet while only 20% is your exercise so if you don't have your diet under control you can't make up for it in the gym. I plan to post recipes that we've enjoyed and some healthy living tips that I have gleaned along the way. We are down to just the two of us now, so portion sizes will need to be adjusted. Get to learn how to cook for 2. 

Country Life:

We purchased our acre in the country back in May 2018. We have some projects to do outside that I will share as we tackle them. I am on the fence on whether we will jump into true country life with getting some chickens. The jury is still out on that because hubby and I are looking to do more traveling...

Organization:

With a new home comes new organization. I love to organize things and share what works and doesn't. This home has so much more storage than my previous home and after living here for over a year I still have drawers that are empty. I am looking forward to making each drawer and cabinet work and to utilize all this amazing space to make this house our home. 

Thanks to all the loyal followers that have stuck around over the past year. I look forward to putting the effort in making this blog something you enjoy to come back to... See you all in the New Year...