Welcome to the weekly installment of Mama’s Building Rome / Building a Life Worth Living. If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.
To get there, I’m using the Building Rome setup from Green Embers to break those major goals into smaller, more manageable pieces that I tackle on a weekly basis. Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, Financial, and School goal that tie back to my personal Building a Life Worth Living project.
From last week:
Creative – Finish the knitting project I started a few weeks ago.
I wasn’t able to finish, but I made really good progress. I thought about trying to push myself to finish last night, but then I decided that I’d spend a little time on a totally different creative project.

That’s a nanoblock dragonfly. One hundred and forty pieces and he’s roughly 6″ long. The wings actually move. Took me a little better than an hour.
Stress Management – Make myself some new CDs for in the car and listen to music at home when appropriate.
Done! I made 5 new CDs and now the little holder I keep them in is full, plus one.
Health – Continue the daily showering/brushing/flossing stuff AND start keeping track of my food intake, as per shrinky-poo.
The showering/brushing/flossing bit was just fine. I even added in brushing every night. I started doing good keeping track of my food intake, and then on Friday I got frustrated and murdered an entire bag of innocent peanut butter M&Ms and said fuck it to the whole works.
Financial – I’ve decided (with some encouragement) to open a Red Bubble store. I’ve got all of my drawings scanned, I just need to upload them, decide what stuff they’d be appropriate on, and write descriptions. That needs to get done this week. This would potentially take care of the goal to bring in additional income.
There are 10 designs in my store and they’re actually being viewed.
School – Get the book finished, get my assignments done early and do them properly; work ahead if possible.
Done! I got the two assignments for the week done and turned in on Wednesday. (one was due Thursday and the other on Sunday) AND, I was able to work ahead which is a total bonus.
For the coming week:
Creative – Brainstorm ideas for my “big creative project” goal and try to settle on one so that I can start planning. So far I’ve got 2 possibilities, learning to silversmith and a filet knitting piece. The silversmithing I’ve never done, but there’s a class offered at the community college. My best guess is that will run me about $200. The filet knitting piece looks really neat, but quite daunting. It’s done with laceweight yarn on small needles and doesn’t include a chart to reference, just written directions.
If any of you have suggestions for something that might fit, I’d love to hear your ideas. The exact goal is “Plan a long term creative project that incorporates a new skill or a skill I haven’t perfected yet. Start the project and finish it before my 40th birthday.”
Stress Management – Walk on the treadmill at least 15 minutes on Monday and Wednesday before dinner.
Health – Keep up with the shower/brushing & flossing teeth, and tracking food via the app. Work to keep my number of calories for the day at or under my recommended limit, which means making smarter food/drink choices. (I’m using a free app for my Droid called My Fitness Pal, if anyone is interested. The best part is that it has a barcode scanner.)
Financial – Don’t spend money except for Rxs or necessary groceries.
School – Turn assignments in early. Make a plan for working ahead again.
Bonus Goal – The theme for this week is Love, so I’m going to see if I can’t find a way to spread a little extra love to those around me.

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