Se7en’s 52 Week Challenge…

So we took a break, a lazy lounge around at home and feast and rest kind of break… and our year is slowly getting into the swing of things. A new year, filled with fresh beginnings and blank pages… and everyone is blogging about resolutions, goals and of course change.

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While I am all for fresh starts, I am absolutely no good at resolutions. I firmly believe we should be carrying on with the things that work and quietly drop the things that don’t. It is one thing to take a look at things we want to change and improve upon them but, and I speak for myself, we hardly ever look at the things that are going well and say: “A whole lot more of the same…” Then again, there is nothing like a hard written goal for the rebel in me to change complete direction and never look at that goal again. So I am all for fresh starts and new journals, but I am quite happy to leave the goals and resolutions behind. That being said… I am totally a project-kind-of-gal and I love a good challenge… So this is the year I have decided to get the ball rolling and get moving with a series of “52 Week Projects…” You can join us, you can follow along and you can invent your own and let us know what you are up too…

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Se7en+1 52 Week Challenges

  1. 52 Walks, (I am not brave enough to say Hikes): Last year was the year we got rolling… we started the year with a “walk a day” and it worked out so well that by the end of the year we were actually hikers… hikers – us!!! If we can, anyone can. I still don’t feel enormously fit, but oh so much better for getting moving. We can work on our fitness more this year, but I really want to keep our walking going. We are now in the habit of walking places, like to the library, to the store, to the beach… As a reward for all our walking we had a once a month hike. But I would like us to extend our once a month hike habit to a bigger walk each weekend… nothing epic, no Kilimanjaros or Table Mountains each week… but I am sure we can find a walk a little more substantial than our typical daily walk to conquer each weekend.
  2. 52 Board/Card/Beach Games: This was totally the year we slacked off games, which is crazy, we love games. Our kids are playing more games together now than ever, as it happens when they get older, they are able to play games quite happily without it always becoming a battle of third world war proportions. Games are a fun family thing to do and something we enjoy – why oh why haven’t we been doing more games together…
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  4. 52 “Just Because” Books: I haven’t read a lot for myself lately… I know it is crazy, I read fast and I read a lot… but most of the books that I read this past year were review books and not necessarily books that I would have chosen for myself. Last year I really got back into the habit of reading daily, somehow many small children in a row left me somewhat scatty and it took a concentrated effort to get to the place where I could read chapter after chapter after chapter again. So I am back on the read and I have heaps of books waiting to be read and lots of lovely school books that the kids get to read and I “never have time for.”
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  6. 52 Letters, a Letter a Week: I love this idea from Meet Me at Mikes and I totally embrace it. My letter writing has simply fallen away, I spend my writing energy on blogging… and added to the pressure of a written letter, I started to think of them as packages and fill them with treats… letters may have been written and then never posted as I looked for exactly the write gift to go with them. I am going back to writing letters for the sake of writing them… a letter for the words on the page, I am looking forward to this, with enthusiasm… I have a long list of friends who will be surprised by real mail this year.
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  8. 52 Weeks of Organising: In 2011 we blogged 52 weeks of organising, a project a week for 52 weeks… and as I looked at those posts last week i realised just how much we had gotten done, because we had a plan. This past year we didn’t get a lot of things done around the house – it was the year of almost zero maintenance!!! I know I just put my head down and did school, for the most part… but if I know that this week we are going to find all the “lost” books around the house and pack them away, well that is manageable and totally doable. What has happened is, I thought that over our summer break I would get everything back in order and that we would relaunch our year totally organised and good to go. The reality is that I needed an actual break and a couple of weeks of laundry and dishes has actually been enough for me. This week I am going to process the first thing on any 52 Week of organising projects and create a list of projects that really and truly need doing around here… Week 1: Creating The List.
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  10. 52 Recipes All in One Place: When I grew up my mum had an old tattered recipe book, it was really just a blue spiral notebook, but I loved it… it was of the fat variety, with sniping and cuttings and of course flour in the margins and spills and smudges… It wasn’t a fancy PDF, on special reprintable paper, it wasn’t a complicated system of index cards, just a notebook and it was perfect. I have really wanted to take the recipes that we use all the time and put them into one place, the scraps of paper that get stored and dropped and ripped and lost… well I have decided a recipe a week is not too much to write out and pop into a notebook. I was gifted this fabulous blank cookbook and the time has come to create a little family legacy.
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  12. 52 Views From the Deck: We have a photo a day project going on our instagram feed, just a picture from our deck #se7ensviewfronthedeck – posted everyday and hopefully it will add up to a fab collection by the end of the year. Fab collection or not, this is going to be the year that I become friends with nifty 250, and start printing our instagram photographs out.
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    And the Se7en + 1th…

  14. The 52 Week Challenge: And this one is definitely for all of you… there are little things that we really want to learn and do and create… and I keep saying we are going to blog this and that and yet we never ever get around to it. So watch out for a weekly post, we plan to share one thing that we have been wanting to learn or conquer each week. Skills, challenges and conquests… that are not too easy and not too hard: First Aid, Cooking Outdoors, Grocery Shopping, Nature Adventures, Science Stuff… you know life skills, learning skills, exploring skills and challenging skills. We are keeping it simple… “something to learn, something to do, and something to present” for each topic. 52 Weeks of Challenges… Let’s see how it goes.

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20 Replies to “Se7en’s 52 Week Challenge…”

  1. Oh Christi, You are too kind!!! Thank you so much for all your lovely comments… wishing your family the best 2015!!!

  2. Oh Christine, how lovely to hear from you… just totally made my day!!! Wishing you and your family the best 2015!!!

  3. Oh Marcia, You so make me laugh!!! I had a look at the four categories – I am all and nothing, you are going to have to pick the one that fits me best!!! Wishing you the best day ever!!!

  4. Oh Wendy Young, that is the funniest comment, made my day. Week 1 is coming to a close and I may well have to run and hide with you!!! Everything seemed so doable at the beginnibg of the week!!!

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