Hello there! I have some exciting news to relay to all you lovely Lazy Owl followers. We’re currently working on opening a new business and launching a new brand, Paper + Spark!
Paper + Spark is the fruition of a dream I’ve always had – to create a line of paper goods specially crafted for other entrepreneurs, busy moms, and all-around creative hustlers like myself.
P+S will offer fresh, fun, and functional everyday essentials for your desktop, workspace, and home. Our goods are colorful, motivating, and inspiring…but most of all functional! We know you don’t have time or space for extra clutter in your life.
If you already follow Lazy Owl, I’d encourage you to check out some of the P+S goods that are designed just for small biz owners, like these goodies:
Give our shop a look and I’m sure you’ll love our colorful bold patterns and motivating goodies.
To sweeten the pot, we’re offering all Lazy Owl readers a 10% off discount from now until the end of 2014. Use coupon code LAZYOWL10 to receive 10% off your entire purchase.
We’re also currently offering a giveaway to win your own binder designed by you!
Also, I’d love to hear if there are any paper or office goods you’ve been dying to see as a creative biz owner. What sort of office goods would make your life easier as an entrepreneur? Let’s work together to get your idea made!
You can follow Paper+Spark on facebook, instagram, or twitter, and sign up for email updates & discounts here. And don’t worry, we’ll soon be publishing more great content, articles, and resources here on Lazy Owl too!
Hi guys. It’s me here today! After I converted this blog over to WordPress from Blogger back in 2012, I gave it a much more refined and defined feel and revamped it as a place where other creative entrepreneurs could access business resources, download free printables, and learn about relevant topics to improve their business skills.
I’ve really enjoyed growing this site, writing about all these fun business topics, and learning as I go along. The journey has been great thus far! But I’ve gone through a lot of changes in my own journey as a creative entrepreneur and in my personal life as well. I’ve gone from working as a full-time CPA to a work/stay-at-home mom of an 8-month-old baby girl.
I’ve never really enjoyed writing too much about my personal life or myself, it just doesn’t come very naturally to me, but it’s been challenging and a bit confusing for me to have this website, a pretty public forum, and NOT share any pieces of my life other than only the tiny corner of the me that is Lazy Owl Boutique. Thus, I’ve decided to add a new periodic series of posts, which for now I’m calling Work/Life Balance, that will serve as a more personal outlet for me.
If you’re like me, you probably follow a handful of really awesome lifestyle blogs, and if you have kids, maybe even some mom blogs too. I know you don’t come to our site here to learn about makeup, cupcake baking, or parenting,… you come for the business resources and tips (I hope)! My goal is not to turn this into a lifestyle blog or spend days chronicling my baby girl’s motor skill development. However, I do think (and hope) that it’ll be refreshing and interesting to add a personal touch to my site, and that you can relate to the challenges of running an at-home office and business alongside a household and a family. Even if you aren’t a parent or working from home, I think we can all relate to the constant hustle and juggling of trying to make it as a creative entrepreneur.
My hope is that this new article series will reconcile my innate need to include a more personal side to this site (which before everything else, is really simply a blog!) with the helpful educational tidbits you’ve already come to expect from Lazy Owl. A lot of my favorite blogs in the handmade business realm are written by ladies that do a wonderful job of giving their readers a peek into their home/personal lives as well. I think this is what makes them relatable, interesting, and successful. I find that I trust their business advice and experience more since I feel like I know them a bit better as a well-rounded person, and not just an entrepreneur or a faceless blogger.
I hope you agree, and I’m really looking forward to this new venture! If you find the new article series boring or pointless, I also don’t mind if you skip them and just read all the free business goodies 🙂
2014 has been a busy year thus far! Trying to juggle mamahood with maintaining Lazy Owl and staying productive with work has certainly been a challenge. Add some travel and events to that list, and we’ve been on the go since January 1!
the mess of my desk
I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now, and just wanted to give you a little update of what you can expect here at Lazy Owl in the next few months!
A new look for our website! I recently joined Handmade Tickle as a beta member, from the creators of the well-known site Everything Etsy. Thanks to this new community, I’ve moved my blog over from wordpress.com to self-hosted site. Now I’ve got tons more customization options, but the list of new things to learn is quite overwhelming! You can expect a more exciting site soon, but please bear with me as we grow and tweak! (Side note, if you are a blogger/maker like myself, I highly recommend you check out Handmade Tickle!)
More new content! Yes, I’m planning a whole new editorial content around the long-dormant Creative Accounting series, with some other topics sprinkled in as well. It’s tax time for your small business again so let’s talk numbers, and let’s make it easy!
An e-book! That’s right, I’m working on Lazy Owl’s very first e-book; it will be centered around our first Crafting a Business 101 Series, which was a guided process for creating a business plan as a creative entrepreneur. The e-book is based on that series of articles, but will include many pages of new material, extra printables, and more in-depth guidance and advice. Goodies galore!
What do you want to learn about this year? Let me know in the comments!
I was inspired by this post to reflect on the year 2012 and what I’ve accomplished. I agree that it’s all too easy to think back on the year and focus on all the things left undone, all those goals I didn’t reach or things I didn’t achieve. Sure, we can always do better, but that’s what planning for 2013 is for right? Let’s take some time to focus on all the things we did achieve this year.
Surpassed my goal of having more than 100 Etsy sales in 2012, I actually had 240+ sales this year (and it ain’t over yet!)
Became a part of a local store in Houston, Roundtable Goods, and networked with lots of amazing local artists
Revamped my new website and began writing a little bit more regularly
Participated in several shows, including my first wedding show
Finally put up a few of my “backburner” or “dream” products up for sale in the shop, like a yarn wreath and mixed media necklaces
Quit my day job and switched to a new part-time teaching job to have more time to spend on my own business!
It’s important to boost yourself up with positive thinking every now and then (or all the time really, haha). Take some time to reflect on the year and all the great things you accomplished. Feel free to use the printable worksheet below.
Because I feel really strongly about doing everything you can to live out your dreams and have your dream job happen for you! At the end of the day, after all the excuses, the only thing holding you back is you.
Last year I read an amazing, life-changing book called The Art of Nonconformity. If you’re contemplating making a life change, job change, or just have this gut-deep feeling that sticking out your 9-5 day job for the next 30 years is not going to work for you, I highly, highly recommend this book. Really, I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
I can already tell this is going to be a long and wandering blog post. I stayed up late last night catching up on an old friend’s blog; she has some very emotionally raw, vulnerable entries. While that’s not necessarily the style or purpose of my blog, I think a little opening up by myself has been called for. Why should you want to listen to what I have to say when you know so very little about me or what kind of person I am? So now I’ve been inspired to have a little bit of “share time”.
I went to college for six years. School has always been something I’ve been really good at for some reason. I think I’m good at memorizing, so that helps. I’m a rule-follower and I rarely missed a class for those six years. I started out as an Electronic Media major; my dream was to be a film editor some day. I loved filming my friends just goofing off, then creating fun musical montages from the footage. That was my thing. I interned as a copy editor for a tool and gas company, I took journalism, advertising, and PR classes, and I went to the UK for a semester and studied film. It was all very nice and easy until about 2.5 years into the program I realized it would be very, very difficult for me to ever find a job utilizing my Electronic Media degree. I never quit at it (by the time I decided to change I only had a handful of classes left to fulfill the degree’s requirements), but I decided to go into something much more practical, accounting.
This is why I am often talking about how I am such a weird mix of left brain and right brain. My logical, practical, numbers-crunching side is always at war with my creative, dreamy side. Looking back, I can see that my adult life thus far has been a continuous struggle between being practical and making “sensible” decisions and taking leaps and jumps and trying to express my creativity. It’s a constant tug-of-war!
I made straight A’s throughout all my accounting classes, even the grad-level ones. The summer after I got my Masters, I sat for the CPA exam and passed all four parts on my first attempt. I interned for two summers at a prestigious public accounting firm, and started there full time soon after I got married in 2009. I set myself up on the road for long-term corporate success. I’m not trying to toot my own horn or anything, I’m just establishing that I invested a lot of energy into creating this “corporate” life for myself…and that I thought this was the path I “should” be on.
I had already heard how awful and soul-crushing public accounting was supposed to be, but I told myself I was ready for it. This was where the cream of the crop was supposed to end up. This was where the lucky top-of-the-class students with their freshly printed CPA licenses are supposed to go and soak up learning and knowledge and make a name for themselves. I dutifully wore my heels and my ironed skirts and blouses to work everyday for exactly one year and six months before I admitted defeat.
I wanted to quit within six months of being in the workplace. I worked in an environment where people regularly went into the bathroom to cry. There was a lot of yelling, phones being hung up, late hours, long hours, weekend hours…the saying “sh** rolls downhill” was repeated a lot. The goal was to get to the top of said hill. But it was just not a good place to be. I knew that, but I also thought that I was really lucky to be there, right? I felt guilty for not feeling grateful for the “privilege” of working there. I wanted to leave, but I doubted myself for a long time…what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just stick it out like everybody else? Was this just what being an adult meant? Was this just how working full-time was? Were all jobs like this? Doing something you didn’t really like everyday to make ends meet?
I finally gathered up the courage to quit. Happiness is a choice, and if I didn’t choose it for myself, then who would? I took a job in corporate accounting. My new job was such a breath of fresh air. The people were nice! There was smiling in the workplace! I only worked 40 hours a week. I began to develop hobbies. I had time to explore my long-dormant creative side. I started Lazy Owl Boutique. I trained for a half marathon. I became an active member of my local community. Life was better, but after a few months I still had that nagging feeling in the back of my head that this was not what I was meant to “do” for the long term. I had so many ideas and outlets I wanted to explore and delve into as a new entrepreneur. I just didn’t have the time or motivation. Reporting to my cubical for 8 hours a day and staring at spreadsheets began to seem like a waste of my time when I had so much else on my list. I sat in front of a computer all day, but at the end of the week, I couldn’t really explain to you what I’d done, what I’d accomplished or created, or how I’d contributed any good to the world.
Quitting my corporate job was more difficult than quitting my first horrible job in public accounting. I knew I had a well-paying, stable job in a great environment. Was I totally crazy for wanting to leave that all behind? I spent 6 years in school and had a CPA license. Wouldn’t I just be flushing all that hard work down the drain if I quit to pursue a JEWELRY business? How do I tell my family that I’m quitting to sell things online and write a blog? What would people say? Again, isn’t this what adults were supposed to do? Sacrifice free time and work hard to rise up the corporate ranks? Live for the weekends? Why were my priorities so seemingly screwed up?
Well, as you may have guessed, I did it. I quit my day job and took the plunge into the scary, mysterious world of working for myself. I struggle everyday with making this work, and getting this baby off the ground, but I haven’t looked back for a second. And I’m loving it. I make my own schedule, I am my own boss. I have the flexibility to work when, where, and how I want to. At the end of the day if I fail, I have no one but myself to blame. I KNOW what I accomplish and create each and every day. I can create things with my own hands and put them out into the world and feel like I am contributing. I work with purpose and feeling instead of in zombie cubical mode.
I will admit… I am still working on growing confidence in myself and my abilities. When people ask what I’m doing with all my free time, I sheepishly attempt to explain that I’m working on providing bookkeeping and other business materials for creative small business owners. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
I honestly do not know yet if I made the right decision to quit a stable job and pursue this dream of being an entrepreneur. But I will tell you something, if I don’t try, then I will never know. So now’s my time to give it all I’ve got. We owe ourselves that, don’t you think?
Coming full circle now, this is why I brought up The Art of Nonconformity. Perhaps as a creative entrepreneur, you can relate to my story. Maybe you’ve been there in the past or maybe you are there right now. Why are so many of us afraid to take the plunge? What is holding you back? Money? Guilt? Self-doubt? Fear of being different? Fear of what other people will say? All of the above?
inspirational quote – free printable
It’s easy for us to buy into the concept that “good” or “smart” people work hard for thirty years at an okay job, play hard on the weekends, and save up for retirement. This is just how life is supposed to be, right? That is what you’re supposed to do. Well you know what, this is YOUR life. At the end of your time here, are you going to say, “Gee, I’m really proud of all those awesome spreadsheets I made for my manager?” or are you going to say, “I wish I had spent more time doing the things that made me feel alive, I wish I had spent more time with my friends and family, I wish I had done something that really contributed to my community and made the world a better, happier place”?
Maybe you are saying, Janet, that’s nice and happy-feeling and all, but it’s really not practical. I have to have a steady income to support myself and my family. And maybe you are right, you’ve got to do what’s right for you and your own. But don’t sell yourself short. You don’t know what you are capable of until you try. And if you never get rid of your safety net, you might never really work as hard to make your creative business work for you as you would otherwise.
One thing that really helped encourage me to take the plunge was asking myself the question, “What’s the worst that could happen?”. I quit my steady job, I try to make my business work, and I fail. I lose money. I make an ass out of myself. Everyone tells me “I told you so”. You know what? If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I will go back to full-time work as an accountant. At least I will be able to say I tried. Is it really the end of existence as you know it if you quit your job? If you fail? We convince ourselves that we can’t handle these changes and we become paralyzed with fear. But really take some time to think it all the way through. If you quit your job and later fail at making your own gig work, what would happen to you? Would you have to live in a cardboard box by a dumpster? I doubt it.
Staying in a job you aren’t 100% passionate about isn’t being fair to yourself…it’s taking the easy way out. It’s hard to break away from the world, to go against the grain, to pour your blood, sweat, and tears into making your job and your life something completely authentic and completely your own. The people that stay in their “okay” jobs are really the ones who are taking the easy path, the path to mediocrity. Is that what you want for yourself?
I have seen too many people sit and sit and sit in jobs they hate, or even jobs that are just mediocre. You will eventually become numb…you will spend your mediocre days doing mediocre, soul-numbing work until you don’t even realize that you aren’t truly LIVING, you’re just coasting. Life’s too short for that. And more importantly YOU are worth more than that. No one is going to swoop in and make your life fabulous for you, you have to do it yourself. So stop doubting yourself, stop wondering if you are crazy, and just give yourself a chance. Give yourself a chance to follow your dreams and make your business work. What’s the worst that can happen? More importantly, what’s the BEST that can happen?
I will step off my soapbox now. It is just important to me for anyone out there doubting yourself to know that you should TRY. You are worth it! Happiness is worth it!
Remember that post about planning out our goals for 2013? Well, we need to get some specific, measurable goals laid out. Just like with the creative business plan, I like to start thinking about things from a big picture point of view, then slowly zoom in to the nitty gritty details.
Before I come up with my specific 2013 goals, I’m going to brainstorm what my ideal work day looks like. Then I can work backwards to see what exactly I need to accomplish with my business to be able to have that “ideal work day” every work day! Make sense?
8:30 – 9:30 – Wake up, have morning coffee and (healthy) breakfast whilst reading daily blogroll, taking notes on any business ideas or inspiration that interests me. Commenting on my favorite blogs and doing some social networking!
9:30 – 11:00 – Fill and package outstanding Etsy orders. Respond to customer emails and questions. Work on updating inventory and sales records. Evaluate supply and inventory levels. Re-order supplies if necessary. Do other Etsy admin tasks as needed.
11:00 – 1:30 – Run to post office, run other errands. Take the dogs for a walk. Have lunch. Take a break or go to the gym (hey, I said ideal day right).
1:30 – 4:00 – Work on website & blog. Draft and post new article(s). Brainstorm new topics and series ideas. Social media marketing and networking.
4:00 – 5:30 – Photograph new Etsy listings, list online.
5:30 – 9:00 – Break time! Do household chores, eat dinner, spend time with husband, etc.
9:00 – 10:30 – Crafting time! Work on new jewelry items or whatever else I’m crafting up.
Bedtime at midnight.
Ok, so it was actually quite weird for me to write all that out on an hour-by-hour basis. It made me feel like there’s so much time in a day, but in reality I am always scrambling to fit all these things in. I don’t know if that schedule is actually livable for me, but my goal is that during my ideal day I would love to be able to squeeze in:
Time to research what’s going on in the blogosphere, on Etsy, and with other Etsy businesses (this is my biggest problem, I find content I want to delve into, open it in a new Firefox tab, but then end up with 60 open tabs that I never seem to have time to go back and truly read)
Write for the blog
Generate meaningful content for my website, market and connect with other businesses and potential customers, promote Lazy Owl to my target audience
Create new products, photograph and list them
Take time for myself and for my family – be outside, exercise, be healthy, have some fun!
Run errands and do household chores without falling behind
Support local businesses and connect with my local community
Realistically, I can probably not do all of these things in one day. But now I know what I would like to do with my time, and what is most important to me. That is half the battle. I can make goals to get closer to be able to have this ideal day now!
Everybody in the blogosphere lately has been talking about prepping your business for 2013, listing goals, making plans, filling out timelines, etc… It’s hard for me to think about beginning a new year with my Christmas goggles on, but there’s no use denying the inevitable (unless of course, the Mayans were right, then I’ve got nothing to worry about).
So, I agree. In the next couple weeks, I’ll be sitting down with pen in hand to think about my plans for next year, and more importantly, specific, attainable, and measurable goals for Lazy Owl. For me, 2011 was all about just starting. 2012 was about figuring things out, what worked and what didn’t work. My overall theme for 2013 will be to grow.
Are you ready for your creative venture to grow? Then come join me! Via our Crafting a Business series, we’ll explore both meaty detailed business concepts and motivational thoughts, giving you the research, tools, and inspiration you need to grow your business in 2013.
My goal is to grow Lazy Owl a little bit every month, every week, even every day. You can do it too with your Etsy shop or whatever your creative business may be. Small steps leading to big changes. Let’s talk about pricing methods, let’s really research SEO and tagging, let’s improve our photography skills and our customer service offerings, let’s explore our target market, let’s have more fun! You’ve already taken the plunge to going into business for yourself…now let’s really make it work! A creative entrepreneur should be willing to be constantly growing, learning, and improving.
I made myself the above print to hang in my crafting studio to remind me to do just a little something to help my business (and myself) grow a little bit each and every day! It’s a marathon, not a sprint, right?
Stay tuned for more articles, tidbits, worksheets, and printables for the rest of this year and throughout 2013. I welcome you to join us by subscribing to the Lazy Owl newsletter to get updates directly to your inbox! Just enter your email address in the little box to the right.
Well then! First of all, welcome to my updated website. I’ve transferred the blog over to wordpress and finally gotten my own domain, lazyowlboutique.com. I’ve worked a while getting everything over here prepped and I’m ready to release the site to the world! It’s pretty bare bones right now, but updates will be steady over the next few weeks. Check out my About page to learn more about my big plans!
Things on my end have been crazy for the past few weeks. Long story short, I’m taking a dive off the diving board of stability (and sanity) into the deep end of riskiness…on a whim, I applied for a part-time accounting instructor job at a local technical college. I had planned on staying at my current full-time accounting job for the foreseeable future, but for some reason teaching at the college-level has always called out to me. I originally looked for a teaching position when I quit public accounting, but it seemed impossible to find something that didn’t require previous teaching experience.
The decision to take a part-time job was both exhilarating and excruciating. I don’t have kids…I have no seemingly “legitimate” reason to not work full-time. Sure, I’ve always said if I had more time I’d pursue this, I’d put this idea to work, I’d spend more time making Lazy Owl a more successful brand and business. But you don’t quit a stable good job to sell things on the internet. CPAs don’t go to school for 5+ years to make jewelry and sell at craft shows and write blogs…that’s just crazy. That just doesn’t make sense. It’s honestly been one of the hardest decisions I’ve made in my life. And I’m still not sure if it’s the right one…but I’ll never know if I don’t try, right?
So here I am. Last full week at work before I begin working 2 days a week teaching and 5 days a week trying to make Lazy Owl a success. I know a lot of people think I’m crazy or irresponsible. And I can’t really blame them. I can’t help but feel guilty that I am doing this. It feels selfish. Luckily I have an amazing, supportive husband who fully believes in me chasing my dreams.
I do feel a little unanchored…I won’t have an office to report to 5 days a week, I won’t have monthly responsibilities at the office and I won’t have someone managing over me. I’m just floating out in space. The only person responsible for my schedule and for getting things done and accomplishing goals is ME. I will have time to work towards the goals I’ve set aside for months. If I fail, there are no more excuses. I can’t say “there’s not enough time” anymore. It’s an incredibly freeing yet scary feeling. But I’m ready! I’m ready to come out fighting. I’m ready to make this work, to prove to myself and to everyone else that I can do this. Bring it on!
To celebrate, I’ve been dabbling in the land of creating printables. My goal is to begin offering printable worksheets and other items related to small business planning and operations. So stay tuned! For now, I just made a more “artsy” printable (I am an accountant, so please bear with me here) with a quote that has really inspired me lately. It’s actually a Jason Mraz lyric, “Leap and the net will appear”. I think that’s exactly what I’m doing (or hoping for!) right now in my life. So please, feel free to click the download link below and have your very own free inspirational printable! Please note that the downloadable file below is slightly different than the one pictured on my bulletin board shown above. Frame it and hang it in an area where you need a little kick in the pants! Let me know how you like it!
Long time, no see! So sorry for my prolonged absence. And boy, do I have a lot to update about! All in due time.
June was a very busy month with me simultaneously planning a family trip to Italy and the opening of a unique, all-handmade shop here in the Houston Heights with a gaggle of other ladies. We left for Italy June 21 and I was working (and tearing my hair out) up until the very last minute. I kept reminding myself that I am totally blessed to be stressing out over two such wonderful things – a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy with my family and the opening of a store with Lazy Owl Boutique products included there.
So, rather than dive into all these wonderful things at once, here’s a short recap of our Italy vacation!
We flew into Florence after a horrid Air France flight. Non, merci to Air France! Typical to Italy (or Europe in general?) we were greeted upon landing with the news that the airport’s ground and baggage crew was on strike that day. No worries! We eventually made it to our hotel and spent the evening wandering Florence, checking out the beautiful Duomo, walking to the Arno, and having our first Italian dinner.
I must admit, one of my favorite happenings in Italy is watching the guys in the big cities that sell hats and purses on the streets react to the police. They scoop up everything they are selling and just bolt. A guy selling hats in Rome was running away so fast he was dropping hats behind him. We almost got a freebie! This scene happened many times during our trip and was always amusing.
Anyway, our stop in Florence was short, as the next morning we got on a train to Riomaggiore, one of the five villages of the Cinque Terre, a rugged piece of coast along the Italian Riveria. Riomaggiore was wonderful, with breathtaking views from every angle. Our apartment was right on the harbor looking down at the sea. We ate some wonderful seafood and fresh fruit and enjoyed walking along the coastline. I even got to check out an authentic Italian beach, where everyone was laying out on bolders and rocks rather than sand. Didn’t look very comfy to me!
After a few days in Riomaggiore, we rented a car for a drive through Siena then onto our farm house in Orvieto, Umbria. I knew this day would be the most challenging, and unfortunately, I was right! I got extremely car sick on the way to Siena (that city will probably always have a negative taint in my mind!), my husband got pulled over by the police not once but twice in one day, my mom set off the fire alarm at the rest stop we went to, and I’m pretty sure we drove through two dreaded ZTLs (traffic fine zones) trying to find the parking lot in Siena. But oh well, all memories I’m sure we’ll look back fondly at someday…right?
We made it in one piece to our agriturismo in Orvieto, and I think this was our favorite place by far. The pace for the next few days slowed down as we got to take in the hilly countryside and relax some. It helped that the rooms were large and the water pressure was good too! We explored the little hilltown of Orvieto and did lots of driving through the hills of Tuscany and Umbria. One day we got to go on an amazing wine tour in the country, and then explore the tiny village of Civita up on a cliff.
We eventually had to sadly say goodbye to the country and (happily) return our rental car for the train ride into Rome. Rome! What can I say? It was amazing to be there, but I guess none of us are really big city people. It was crowded and it was hot! We went on a very educational (but hot) tour of the Colosseum, and a nice (but extremely beyond crowded) tour of the Vatican.
So, that’s our trip in a nutshell! I miss yall and now I can’t wait to tell you all about the new shop in Houston and what’s next for Lazy Owl! Hope you enjoy the Italy pics.
Hello! Welcome to 2012! Obviously I did not intend on taking a nearly two-month long vacation from the blogosphere, but December and the holidays turned out to be busier than I thought. I hope that all of you had a peaceful (and successful, if you are a fellow Etsian like myself) holiday season!
With the beginning of every new year, I like to follow the trend of setting some goals and coming up with a resolution or two. This year I read an article about the 101 Things in 1001 Days Challenge. 1001 days is three years, so coming up with 101 goals in 3 years gives you the time and opportunity to do some serious long-term thinking and planning.
I then stumbled upon the awesome website, Day Zero, and decided to set up my very own 101 things list. You can see my list here. I still haven’t thought of all 101 things, I could only get about 80, so I have some room to grow. I tried to come up with a mix of fun things I’ve always wanted to do and serious goals I need to do, along with a few things that I’d love to happen but don’t know if they are possible (like weigh 140 pounds…ha…ha….).
I welcome you to create a Day Zero list with me to motivate yourself to meet your goals for the next three years.
Here are a few of the items on my list, many of them pertaining to Lazy Owl Boutique. They say you should make your goals quanitifiable and specific, so you can see I chose a specific number for many of them.
– Learn how to sew
– Cook a meal in the crock pot (I’ve told you I like never…cook)
– Paint every room in the house (ouch)
– Go to the beach (yay!)
– Learn Italian
– Go to Italy (TBD in a later post!)
– Cook 10 recipes from Pinterest
– Make 150 sales on Etsy (hopefully over the next 3 years, this will be possible, so far I’m at 10 out of 150)
– Write 50 blog entries! Here we go!
– Sell at 5 craft shows (hopefully more)
– Make 30 things from Pinterest
– Read 75 books
– Eat at every Pappa’s restaurant (it’s a Houston thing)
– Make an ottoman/bench out of our old coffee table
– Eat on our wedding china at least twice (since we’ve never eaten on it at all)
– Bake 10 different types of cupcakes, yay!
– Be on the frontpage of Etsy 5 times (I’ve managed to get on it once this year already!)
So, now you can follow along with me as I try to complete this goals over the next 1001 days. Let me know if you decide to make your own list, and we can share. I need more ideas for goals!
Hello there! I have some exciting news to relay to all you lovely Lazy Owl followers. We’re currently working on opening a new business and launching a new brand, Paper + Spark! 
