Yada Yada Yada

Been feeling lazy recently. No new layout for me this week. Not even a card. But I managed to alter one bottle which I failed to take a photo of since I left my cam in Mandaluyong. Tsk tsk. Because of that, I also failed to take photos during our family gathering last Nov 1 at our place. Too bad because I have been wanting to take photos of my cute 1.5 year old nephew and my 6-month old niece.

I also realized that it's been a while since I made my last digi layout. But I have not stopped downloading digital kits for reasons I have yet to understand. It's been eating precious hard disk space so I transfered all of them into our external hard drive. So now I don't even know what I have.

I've been thinking lately. It's almost the end of the year and I remember the wishes I listed in the January Kaya 9 challenge. It's so frustrating that I was not able to do most of the things listed there.

1. to strengthen my faith in God and deepen my relationship with Him through daily prayer and reflection on His Words. I will seek His will in my daily life and surrender all my cares to Him. This is number 1 in my list because this is supposed to be the most important. However, it is also the most difficult to do, specially with all the distractions around me (or are they excuses?). Bottomline, I am still very much work in progress in this arena.
2. to become a better steward of God’s abundant blessings. I will use my scrapbooking budget wisely, making sure I would buy only the things I can use. I will scrap at least 3 layouts for every P1,000.00 spent on scrapbooking items so that I won’t become a hoarder.
I tried to do this in the beginning, but it's so hard!!! Next time, I will make a more reasonable target regarding this.
3. to take better care of my body as it is the temple fo the Holy Spirit. I will make healthier food choices and exercise more. I will lose at least 20 lbs. through natural means.
Well, I am now at least 10 lbs heavier than when I actually made this layout so make that 30 lbs to lose! The good news is that I finally took a bold step by enrolling in a gym very recently (my membership starts Nov. 1) and I've made 2 visits already! I signed up with 2 other friends who have been consistently pushing me. So far so good. They are so motivated so at least no one will indulge my lazy spells.
4. to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation by visiting at least one new destination this year and try one new activity.
Done. I went to Donsol and swam with the whale sharks.
5. to celebrate my friendships by being better connected to old and new friends. I will remember their birthdays and make sure that I greet them on the day itself.
I'd say I passed this but I didn't get a perfect score. I got in touch with a lot of friends, gave out birthday cards and greeted them. I can still improve this for next year.
6. to learn a new skill like scuba diving, or wakeboarding, or take voice lessons, and maybe even dancing.
Hmmm...can't think of any new skill I've picked up. Getting a diving certification has been in my list for a long time but I've been procrastinating.
7. to make our house a more comfortable dwelling place. I hope to renovate the kitchen and my scrap area.
Almost done! The kitchen has been completed and my scrap area is in the works. It should be completed in two week's time at most. We've also bought a new set of pillows and some 400-thread count linens. We had a new set of curtains made for our living and dining areas. And best of all, we got wi-fi! LOL!
8. to double our savings this year.
Done! Granted that we had a low starting point (we bought a car in December 07 which depleted our svings), it was still really tough given our home renovations plus other expenses (see item 9).
9. to buy a DSLR & hone my photography skills.
Buying a DSLR - Done! Honing my photography skills? Well, maybe not. I wanted to enroll in a photography class but well...I didn't.
10. to get pregnant this year.
While I can argue that this isn't up to me, I didn't exactly do my part. First, I didn't take care of my body. We (together with hubby) also got so busy at work that we didn't make time to visit our doctors for a work up. We decided to postpone this for next year.

Sigh. The sad thing is that the things I managed to do are the more trivial ones.

Lesson learned: If the challenge calls for three wishes, stick to THREE! And pick the easy ones! LOL!