New Year Goals

Here we are again, starting a new year. The sun is shining, there is plenty of snow, still pretty clean and white from last Monday's blizzard -- that bodes well for the new year in my mind.

2010 was actually a good year for me. I'm still working harder than ever at my job (at one point this past fall I told my boss that I felt like Ginger Rogers -- dancing backwards and in heels), but it seemed like I was able to balance things a bit better overall. So, let's start with a review of last year's goals:

Health Goal: Reduce anxiety. Or, at least manage it better - maybe with exercise? yoga on a regular basis? I'm doing pretty well with this one, I think. I still reach for a "sleep aid" about once a month -- usually when the moon is full -- but overall I'm handling the stress better and able to leave work stress at work. I have been doing yoga once a week and am committed to continuing. New goal: Get more exercise. That will be easy to accomplish since I'm not very good at doing it at the moment. And, continue to participate in Weight Watchers at work -- I lost 9 pounds in 2010 and hope to lose another 8-9 more in the new year. And, learn how to keep it off!

Financial Goal: Maintain my financial sanity in the face of at least one son living off-campus next fall. Don't exactly know how this will play out, but will try not to be anxious about it (see above). So far, so good. 2011-12 will be the real test, when both sons are living off campus. On the home front, the Lenten financial fast went well (not perfect) and I'm thinking about doing it again this winter (not waiting for Lent). New goal: I'm considering finding a financial advisor to work with this year so we can start to get serious about retirement planning (gasp!).

House Goal: Make real strides on reducing the "stuff" we have. More about that later, but it will involve a combination of getting rid of things and finding better ways to store what we keep. Lots of movement on this issue. We had a stay-cation in April and cleaned a lot of stuff out of the basement. Nate took all of his bedroom furniture with him to his apartment, so I was able to make Zeben's room into my office and fiber storage room. Nate's room is in the process of being re-decorated and will be our guest room. We took the leap and had our front porch renovated. All 7 windows and the door were replaced and insulation was added. We spent a lot of weekend time painting outside and in during the fall and it is beautiful! It used to be a dumping ground for "stuff" and we are committed to not putting all of it back out there -- just two new chairs, a bookcase and small table. And, my father is working on a piece of furniture to put our stereo system and my knitting clutter into in the fireplace room. New goal: We need new bookcases for the living room and need to go through all of our books, cleaning out a lot of stuff we don't need to keep. I need to order yet one more roll of wallpaper to finish the upstairs hall and finish Nate's room. We have window trim to paint in most rooms. As we've painted and papered, we've just been stacking up all of our framed stuff and not put things back up, so we need to go through all of that and put things back up. And, we need to do more work on the basement and garage :) Slow but sure progress would be nice!

Other Goals: Make quilts for Nate and my mother. Blog at least once a week (noting that my last blog entry was a year ago!). Make more effort to have a social life instead of hibernating when not at work or with family. Mom's quilt is finally done!! I was determined to finish it before the new year and spent a few hours yesterday sewing the final border on. I just need to find some great backing and then get it to the machine quilter, get it back and put the binding on. Now, I can get started on Nate's quilt, finally. Blogging, not so great -- more on that later. And, we have enough of a social life -- I think the "hibernating" is what helps me stay on an even keel with the demands of work.

Knitting Goal: Work on those UFO's (unfinished objects for non-knitters). While I did request and receive yarn for Christmas (including a surprise gift of Sundara silk lace weight that thrilled me down to my toes!), my focus this year will be on finishing projects instead of starting new ones and using yarn I already own for anything new I do start. My progress on this one wasn't terrific. The new yarn and new projects are always more interesting than the ones I've put aside. I think this is still a good goal and I will redouble my efforts to make progress. At least this year, I've already got the projects all in once place so shouldn't have to look far for something to do. New goals: A few weeks ago, someone who doesn't know me asked me if I knit every day and I told her that I pretty much do. It is my way of calming down and, at the same time, being productive. So, I'm going to try to record my knitting in a more organized, consistent way. Hopefully that will lead to much shorter and frequent blog posts. I'm also going to try to take more photos of my projects and post them here.

I think that is about it for New Year's goals/resolutions. It is nice to be looking forward to the new year with a good past year behind me!