New Year's Goals for 2015

I hope you are having a fantastic start to 2015!

I'm linking up with Erica for my goals for 2015.  I figured that if I put it out there, I just might stick to it a little more.  I'm not one to make a new resolution every year, because I often fail at them.  Instead, I'm creating some goals that I've already been working on with hopes that I'll see them to fruition.

My primary concern for 2015 is going to be having the financial freedom to send my daughter to college without it being a burden.  Luckily, she is receiving scholarships and money has been saved for her, but we will still need to work extra hard this year to live as we have and still feel like we can give her the extra money that will inevitably be necessary.  For me, that becomes a huge TPT goal, as well.  All of the extra income from TPT will help tremendously.  So, instead of having a more passive role (as I have for the last two years), I'm going to try to become more involved in creating more products and promoting myself.  That is my biggest weakness.  I'm not a self-promoter at all.  I guess I need to get over that.

This school year, I took a huge leap of faith and started a new job.  I have loved branching out and teaching ESOL for my district.  I really want to learn more about how to help ELL learners.  So, starting this spring, I will be taking a college class to begin meeting the requirements to obtain my ESOL certification. Not looking forward to the added workload, but I am looking forward to learning more.

Although my husband and I started eating healthy (mainly vegan) in 2014, we started to slip as the school year began.  Last fall, I saw posts by Rachelle (What the Teacher Wants and For Blogness' Sake) about Whole30.  I read the book, It Starts with Food over the winter break and have slowly been cutting sugar from my diet.  I officially started Whole30 today and I'm so excited to see what it can do for me.  I know how much better I feel when I eat better.  Now, I just have to stick to the plan.

I'd really like to become more organized at home.  If you've been around a while, you know that I thrive on being organized at school.  Kristen (Ladybug's Teacher Files) and I had a weekly linky one summer dedicated to organization, after all.  But, at home...that's a completely different story.  Over the break, I tackled one of my trouble spots.  In our kitchen we have what I call the "Dumping Ground".  I'm sure most of you can relate, right? Our dumping ground was the counter.  Then, I tried to move it to the cabinet above the counter to try to alleviate the mess on the counter.  But, then the cabinet turned to this mess:

So, I decided that I needed to do a complete "Catch All Cabinet" overhaul.  I was inspired after reading a post on Organizing Homelife about creating a Kitchen Command Center.  (You should check it out.)

Take a look at what I was able to accomplish in a few hours.  I just hope I can keep it looking like this.  When it starts pretty, sometimes that helps me.  

So, what are your goals for 2015?  Need inspiration?  Check out Erica's linky: