Daily Dares: Days 60 & 61 and Monthly Evaluation

So another month has gone by, and it is time to evaluate how the DAREs are working!  I spent a long time yesterday, organizing my thoughts and writing out a long blog post, and I got very nearly done, then realized that I needed to completely overhaul how I was going about them!  As much as I like the number 3, and the sense of balance it gives me - 3 tasks, 3 time frames, etc - I think I need to cut the DAREs down to TWO.

So let's just dive right in and I'll try to clear things up along the way...

First, my YEARLY DARES ... 2 months have passed and I've got no set plans to accomplish these and was feeling guilty and overwhelmed at that and not having even figured out what my third will be.  So eliminating a third Big Dare to accomplish this year seems the right thing to do.

1. 12x12 : 12 Picture books in 12 months
   I have seven book ideas, but lots of pictures need to be drawn, and what do I do after I've done that?  I will have to find out!


2. Earn $1000/mo by the end of the year.
   Again, I have no plans on how to reach this goal.  I've been selling my photos and art and creating more art, but I need to rev things up!

MONTHLY DARES ... February's Dares were rolled over from January, and I completed two of the three.

1. Contact a local school district I sub in to find out why they haven't been calling me
   Done.  Still on list for subbing, just hasn't been much need. :\


2. Contact another district I used to sub in to see about getting calls from them again
   I contacted the personnel department and was told they weren't hiring new subs at the moment, but they'd have someone get back to me when they were.  :\


3. By the end of the month send out subbing applications for more local districts.
   I broke this into several smaller tasks, but I think my goal was still too broad. I am going to carry this over to March, but make it more specific.

I'll get back to these Dares later...

DAILY DARES!  Let's rearrange these...

1. Pass one French lesson on Duolingo each day
   This one has been going peachy keen.  I still want to do more taking notes, but I think I am also going to add one lesson from a French course on memrise.com as well as the lessons on duolingo.com to speed things up.  I feel like I'm just refreshing my memory and playing and I want to be learning...


2. Create a rabbit a day
   This month I fell behind near the end of the month and still haven't finished my rabbits for 2/21 or 2/24, but I am confident I will finish them before too long.  However, I still think this Dare needs reevaluating as well.  My original intent was just to create every day, but I made it be specifically a *rabbit* every day and on some days this has not been joyful.  If I've already spent the day creating, I don't want to feel obligated to create some more; therefore this Dare is going to revert back to my original intent: Create one thing every day!
   
   So anyway.. Bunnies!
   
   First, the sketches from the 27th...
   
   Click to embiggen...
   And then yesterday's bunny:  ROAR!  Not sure why it looks so... bumpy?  The paper wasn't very textured...
   
   Click to embiggen...
   And today's bunny is courtesy of fotocrush.com; check it out & make your own!
   
   Click to embiggen...


3. Make 7 phone calls per week
   16/28 calls were made this month.  That's an average of 4 calls a week.  Better than half, but it's not accomplishing my goal, which really isn't to make a call every day, but to become comfortable with using the phone.
   
   Jacqueline and I talked about it, and she came up with some great ideas and I am going to implement them all!  What she helped me figure out is that I need to take BABY STEPS.  OMG yes, obviously I was putting too much pressure on myself to make a call. Every. Single. Day.
   
   So first step, one hard phone call a week at a set time. Second, a jar of phone calls to make.  (I'll tell you more about this later...) Not sure how I will work making those.  I also may set more than one scheduled call per week, but we shall see.

This of course means that I'm dropping the calls from the Daily Dares, and creating two WEEKLY DARES!

But for now, I've written enough, and really need to get some sleep, so I'll play some more catch-up tomorrow afternoon when I have a chance...