You're in 'the middle', Genevieve

Probably one of the greatest things about setting out on new adventures and aspirations is the newness of it all, the excitement on embarking towards something unknown... and then the thrill eventually wears off. You get stuck in the actual work and methodical, tedious tendencies of achieving those new goals. I'd have to say I'm there right now and have been there for a bit. It has its ups and downs, but overall it can be overwhelming.

Sarah and I were discussing this a few weeks back and I distinctly remember her saying, that us as a generation are so used to instant gratification that sometimes we forget how to actually fight for what we dream to be. It's so true. You want the fame, the success, the relief of having a finished product in front of you, but the work that it takes to get there, in reality, is daunting.

One of my favorite entrepreneurs once said, "If something comes easily and without sacrifice, it's rarely significant."

So here's to being caught in 'the middle' as Sarah phrased it. It's not at all glamorous, but it's necessary to get to where we all aspire to be.

Here are some updates on my goals... since everything doesn't make itself in a day...
Personal Goals:
1. Submitting a piece to Relevant Magazine: To be honest, I had kind of forgotten about this one and then suddenly became pretty inspired to write a few weeks back. What developed was an article on the power of forgiveness. I just submitted this a few nights back and am waiting to hear back. I won't be crushed if it doesn't make it on to their online magazine. And if it doesn't, I'll still post it on here to gain feedback and maybe aspire towards another article or CD review.

2. Being a good owner to Mr. Keith Moon: I've started dog training with him over the past few months, and let's just say, it hasn't been easy. We're on to group classes and I'm sort of nervous, because he's definitely got an aggression problem.

3. Going to Australia: I'm half way there as far as money saved!

Church/Spiritual Goals:
1. Being heartfelt and genuine in my role as a worship leader: We have an all night of worship with my church coming at the end of January. I'm excited to be in on the planning of it and participating in such a great experience.

2. Participating in more community service events and creating a bigger presence of giving in my life: I've started going to a Bible study every Tuesday night with my church and am loving it! The great thing about this group is that we make it a point to help in our community once a month. This month we're going to help with a Christmas party for Save Our Youth and have fun with under privileged kids:)

Musical Goals:
1. Playing/performing more: My wonderful friend, Ms. Leslie Brown, is having her CD release in January. I'm jumping on board as one of her back up singers and am loving this opportunity:)

2. Recording an EP: I finished 5 songs and am finalizing everything creatively in that realm.

Career Goals:
1. Pushing myself at my current job: I've been taking on more responsibility, am booking more shows, learning about budgets and have put in a proposal for them to pay my way to go to SXSW. Cross your fingers for this one!

Entrepreneurial Goals:
1. Making Hear Us Loud happen: I'm currently in the process of registering everything as a sole proprietorship and getting design ideas finalized in order to print in three weeks:)

Jackie - I'm living alone!

 [Note: This photo has nothing to do with my blog post, it's simply to show off Sarah and I's costumes for the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie. Amazing, right?]

I've written this post three times now. The first one was right after I moved across the hall and it was raving about how living alone is the only way to go. I had tons of motivation, I was being creative and getting lots of things done. I even picked a photo from Home Alone of Macaulay Culkin jumping on his parents bed saying, "I'm loving alone!"

The second time was couple weeks later after I came down with a stomach bug. I was alone and completely bored without a tv or Internet to entertain me, and I was missing my mom and Sarah who always take good care of me when I've been sick. I also learned that it's important as a single person to always have ginger ale around because I was in no shape to go get some when I needed it most.

Now it's been about six weeks and I think I've settled into a groove about what living alone looks like.

I'll start by saying, I think it was a great choice for me right now. It's nice to come home and be with just me. I've never been the introverted type, but I feel like I'm in the middle of one of those seasons that brings change and growth and all this alone-ness is giving me the opportunity to invest in what that looks like.

However [and that's a big however], I also find that living alone means a lot of accountability to myself. If I waste an entire evening [or week of evenings] lying on my couch doing absolutely nothing no one knows or even notices... just me. If I don't eat good meals and eat ice cream for breakfast no one knows... just me. If I live like a slob or don't wash the dishes for weeks no one knows... just me.

Maybe I'm late to the game, but I feel like all this living alone stuff is an entirely new way of experiencing all this deciding what my life should look like and what is worth the investment of my time.

Anyway, since this blog is about goals, I thought I'd update you on my financial goal. As of today, I only owe $1772.27 in credit card bills and $300 to my dad for my car. And I'm feeling pretty good about it since I started the blog with $3,300 of credit card debt, $1,100 of medical bills and a $700 debt to my dad. For us math nerds that means I've put $3,027.73 toward becoming debt free in the last 7 months!

My progress on this is probably going to slow down because I lost my second job a couple weeks ago [which I'm not entirely upset about since it was really stressing me out], but I still have hope I can get it all paid off by the end of 12 months.

I have other things to update on, but since I'm trying to get in 52 posts and I'm grossly behind, I'll save them for next time. Until then...