My Goals For 2026 – Week 6 of 52

Get Back To The Basics + Learning to Unplug

It was another good week for staying away from rabbit holes and staying off the internet in general. 

We were driving home the other day and we passed a man with a small camera around his neck. It looked so out of place and yet, so right. 

I currently have 4,642 pictures on my phone and I have no idea how that happened. Just the idea of having to go through and weed them out is exhausting.

In The Kitchen

Things are going swimmingly with my one hundred dollars a month pantry challenge. 

I made a batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough, homemade tortillas AND a loaf in my Dutch oven cinnamon raisin bread. 

It feels SO GOOD to be back in the kitchen again and making food from scratch. Something I haven’t done a lot of in the last year or two. 

Fingers crossed I can keep it. 🙂

This is a photo of my husband washing the dishes. A super rare occurrence. So I thought I’d share. 😉 

Kitchen Goals For This Year

• Master the pear frangipane tart from Standard Baking Company. 
• Put my Weck jars to use.
• Use two bins of beans.

Rug Hooking

On Friday I listed 10 new rug hooking pieces in my Etsy shop + 3 new patterns/kits. Yee-Haw! This winter has been a productive one so far, that’s for sure.

As much as I love playing in dirt, an abundance of indoor time is nice too. I think so far this year I’ve already made 18 pillows. How crazy is that!?

I’ve been spending my days dyeing wool, drawing patterns and my evenings hooking and listening to audiobooks. Right now I’m listening to Come Fly The World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke. 

The book is just okay… What are you reading/listening to? Anything good? 

I have a bunch of books in my queue, but sometimes it’s just easier to keep something, anything on in the background while you work. 

Rug Hooking Goals For This Year

• Finish drawing out all my patterns, making kits, dyeing wool by March 31st.
• Release 10 new rug hooking patterns/kits.  {3 down 7 to go}
• Hook 27 of the patterns from the “someday I’ll hook these” bin. {2 down 25 to go}

Go New Places – See New Things

Look at those temps baby! We’re getting up into the 30’s now. Spring can’t be too far behind. 

That being said, the HH still wants to hop on a plane and escape to somewhere warm. I’m like, we seriously have 7 weeks to go! Warm weather is on the way.

Suck it up.

Travel Goals For This Year

• Travel someplace {internationally} that I’ve never been before.
• Travel somewhere in Maine {overnight} that I haven’t been before.

Walk And Stretch More

I saw someone out running yesterday and thought they were crazy. Who goes running when it’s 20 degrees out? 

How can that possibly be good for your lungs? 

I told the HH it’s too cold to go walking. It needs to be at least 40 degrees and sunny before I’ll go. I have standards. Not freezing my face off is one of them. 

And really, do I even need to seriously train for the half marathon in May if I’m just going to fast walk it? I’m not worried. 

Walking/Stretching Goals For This Year

• Get into some sort of stretching routine
• Fast walk a 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon {signed up for a half marathon}

Garden

I’m not a big fan of roses, but cottage roses are absolutely GORGEOUS!  A friend of ours sent a beautiful bouquet and I’ve had a smile on my face ever since. 

Don’t you think they’re beautiful? Now I want to plant sweet peas and buy a David Austin cottage rose bush {or a vine}. 

Maybe a soft pink or a yellow one?

Garden Goals For This Year

• Rework the driveway and garden areas 
• Go crazy and plant a ridiculous amount of flowers 
• Step out of my comfort zone and plant some flowers I’ve never planted before.

Paint

And last but not least… I’m making progress on my last Van Gogh paint by number I bought off Etsy. I really like how the yellow sunflower is coming along. 

I think the flowers look better with thick, goopy paint. There’s probably a proper name for the style. Does anyone know what type of painting that’s called? 

Once I get my last sunflower painting finished I’ll be able to “install” my Van Gogh wall upstairs. 

I was thinking about painting the The Roulin Family series for another wall. It might be a good summertime “evening” activity. We’ll see.

How are YOUR goals coming along? Are you making progress? I hope so!!

Have a great day everyone, 

~Mavis

Painting Goals For This Year

• The Van Gogh wall
• The gallery wall down stairs
• The captains wall in the hall
• Trim and walls