2014 Bloggolutions- Year End (part 2)

The second five goals that I had set for myself weren't as much card related as the first five. You won't see any add this many cards into the collection goals here. What you will see are the other things that I felt needed some attention. Mostly these were self improving goals that I had to improve on.

6- Continue to improve my artwork for the artelopes

I personally made some huge gains in not only the artwork on these. The ideas at times were much better than anything I ever imagined. During the year I drew some ideas up that I wouldn't have dared when this first started. One of the things that has been a big help is the daughter barely if ever contributed. When I dreamed up the idea to do these she was all for it. Then things slowed as she just doesn't want to do any. I've even offered to let her do some original ideas unrelated to the team. Yet she has still been cold to doing any of the drawing. I had five request for her with free reign, and ended up doing four of them myself. The fifth I'm waiting on as it is for a team with a snake logo, and she wants to draw it in the worst way. 

Considering where my skills were in 2013, and how they are today. I'm giving myself a 7 for this goal as there were times I had trouble dreaming an idea up, and went simple. In 2015 I'm hoping to keep the forward progress in not only my drawing, but the ideas. 

7/10

 7-  Show more blogging love

The idea for this goal was to leave comments on other blogs.The amount I had set aside was 52 comments, or just one per week. My main downfall with this one, and still is. I will read blogs in both the morning before going to work, and in the afternoon after work. There have been many a time I read a great post in the morning, but didn't have the time to reply before leaving. Instead of commenting like I had planned it would get tossed aside, and never get done. If I'd have went back, and done those comments this goal would have been done easily. 

Something to keep in mind for this goal. I didn't count any comments that were pertaining to contest entries. All these were letting the blogger know that their post reached me. While I did do 39 comments, and am giving myself an 8 due to the 39 comments. I think on a certain level I failed, and will continue to work on doing better in 2015. I enjoy getting comments more than anything as personally it says your post spoke to someone. There are so many factors on visits to one post that I don't put alot into post visits. What means something to me is when your post touched someone so much that they had to let you know. A simple nice cards can say much more than you think. I failed at times to share that feeling with another writer, and need to get better about not failing at that.

8/10

   8- Get all three of my hobbies organized

While my posts at the end of the year slowed way down. The one thing that did get worked on was the organization of the three hobbies. Helping to make all this happen was the new hobby room.

Baseball cards- I managed to get these more organized than they have been in years. There are still some strides that need to be made for a full on organization. What I did get done more than anything is making sure all cards this year were put into their respective place. Included in all this were Nolan Ryan cards that have been sitting in a box for a few years, and are now at home in the Ryan binder. Some sets that weren't in binders are now home to binders. Considering what things looked like at the start of 2014 the baseball portion is a huge success.

Business cards- Starting the year off I had a huge stack that needed to be put in the binder for their respective sport. In December all those were where they belonged, and was a complete deal. Next was getting my wantlists for all the different sports up to date. It had been a couple years since I sat down, and did every sport. An example is the NBA Developmental wants was filled with teams that had been defunct for a couple years, and missing the new teams. Sports business cards weren't the only updating that needed done. I had a bunch of my other categories with cards sitting in a stack that needed to be put in the binders. Those were all completed, and made crossing business cards off the organization list.

Pocket schedules- Going into the year I hadn't been adding the newer stuff that was missing on the wants. In 2013 I had some teams that I never wrote for schedules. Adding business cards that were missing became more of a focus, and the teams I collected schedules from were missed. This year I did a much better job of refocusing on not just getting the schedules for my teams, but adding some missing business cards. Due to not writing as usual the lists needed updated as did the adding of newer schedules that hadn't been put in binders. Another, and much trickier part was getting every single trader out of the shoe box of unknown. To do this I had to go through, and put them in with the other traders for the team, and work from there. Much like the other hobbies this was a complete success.

10/10

 9- Continue to improve my writing

This is my constant working on goal. As a blogger I should be attempting to improve my writing every day. Last year I had a series of things that needed work. This year was more of a general just keep improving. Hopefully you all out there feel I did that.

7/10

 10- Double the amount of blogs listed on my blog list

If there was ever a goal that should be simple to complete this is that goal. My reason for this goal was just as simple in theory. There are blogs out there that aren't listed on the Sports Card Blogroll. Instead of just running across these blog every so often. I wanted to get the blogs on my blog list so I could find them every day.

When I started the year the list stood at 23 blogs which meant I needed to add 23 new ones to double up. Yes, I reached this goal slowly over the course of the year. I do believe there are some blogs out there that don't get noticed like they should. If you have one to share I'd be happy to check it out, and add it to the list.

10/10

So how did I do for the year?

85/100

Even with goals that were tougher than the 2013 ones I did better. Honestly I'm surprised at how well I did when it comes to accomplishing all ten goals. Yes, there are a few that I could have done better with, and possibly hit the 90 mark, but 85 is very respectable.

Looking forward to 2015, and the goals department. I have some things I'm hoping to accomplish, but you won't see an actual bloggolutions for the year. I'm going to be joining the revolution of people who will let their collections dictate itself. I will be doing a post with some things I'm hoping to do for the year. None of those will be set in stone things like I have done these last two years. So look for these in the near future if you are interested int hat type of stuff.