At the beginning of this year I turned 41 and wrote myself a list of things to achieve in my 42nd year. It was a long list and a bit vague at times. I’ve had mixed success with it but I really don’t mind. Unless I devote my time in the next 4.5 days exclusively to my list, I’m not going to achieve much more so here are my results.
- Knit a pair of socks – no, but I’ve bought the wool and got a pattern!
- Learn crochet – I tried. I’ve also picked up another couple of hints at the Cam City WI and I’ve started taming my hands.
- Organise craft area of office – more than once!
- Improve my jewellery making – I’ve now got handbag charms on my website
- Blog at least weekly – no
- Start adding pictures to the blog – yes
- Learn machine embroidery – Poppy Treffry books purchased
- Scrapbook regularly – not even once
- Bake bread regularly – yes
- Bake with the craftyguidelets weekly – my healthy eating kick put paid to this
- Send birthday cards and presents on time – missed a couple
- Take part in a swap – several times
- Tame the magazine mountain – it keeps coming back!
- Knit a hat – see #1
- Knit gloves – do mittens count?
- Use up my lavender stash – I think it is breeding in the bag
- Begin gardening again – I’ve done some
- Finish soon to be 3 year old craftyguidelet’s birth sampler – no
- Finish her Silvermist costume – no, she’s grown out of it before I’ve even started so it’s going to be a birthday present for a friend’s little girl.
- Make an item of clothing for me – scarf and snood
- Comment on people’s blogs more, as I love it when they comment on mine – yes
- Keep food waste to a minimum – yes
- Cook at least one ‘effort’ meal a week – yes
- Keep up with my housework app – not exactly!
- Weekly craft days with the craftyguidelets – got out of the habit
- Exercise daily – I joined a gym and started going regularly until kids, illness and life got in the way.
- Regularly get fresh flowers – yes
- Start badge making – yes
- Make more time for friends – I’m a bad friend
- Try felting – see #1
- Don’t use the exercise bike as a clothes horse – much improved
- Decorate our bedroom and bathroom – done. Just needs accessorising.
- Buy handmade/local and make more gifts – still heavily reliant on Amazon but getting better.
- Listen to more music – yes
- Sort my office admin area – yes
- Finish the lacy scarf before it gets too warm to wear it – yes
- Meet up with some tweeps – quite a few and they are just as lovely in real life as on twitter
- Clear my sky+ backlog – yes
- Make more desserts – see #10
- Start Christmas preparations in July – no
- Never put off until tomorrow something I can do today – still not conquered this one
What happened? It’s all to do with the title – Too many pencils. I was told this a little while ago when I went for my second attempt at CBT. You can hold a certain amount of pencils comfortably, but keep adding them, it becomes more difficult and you are more likely to drop them.
I am a Guide leader, I help at my daughter’s Rainbows so they don’t close, I help out at her school, I’ve founded a WI branch, I am a wife, mum of two and run craftyguider.com . That’s a lot of pencils before I start adding any more. And if anything out of the ordinary happens like illness, my whole pile of pencils topples out of my hands.
Craftyguider was started to fundraise for the Guides by selling off all my extra crafted cards and projects. However it has overtaken my personal crafting and I find myself looking for things to go on the website rather than doing projects for me. I am therefore changing my approach and worrying less about it as a business and more of an extension of my hobby.
I am also going to start saying no. Even though I enjoy being busy and I love volunteering, there are only a certain amount of hours in the day. I would like to help out more in school, and it would be easy to fit in and do, but that’s not going to help with my ‘me’ time.
So for 2013, there aren’t going to be any more lists of things to achieve. I am going to concentrate on my family and my health and happiness and everything else can just sit in the pencil case.
So many of us are guilty of this and, I can say from personal experience, you are not the only one to have the pencils topple all over you x I think the difficulty comes in being able to say, “No” so I wish you well with this and will be interested to see how you got on in your last post of 2013 😉
I think I learned the ‘too many pencils’ thing years ago so don’t set targets very often as not achieving them feels a bit like failure. Age has taught me to just get on with life. Of course I have weekly targets like ‘the ironing needs doing before….whenever’ and new things crop up, like running the Clandestine Cake club in my area, doing product reviews etc.
You sound to have a lovely full life and that is wonderful. You get so much done.
Long may it continue!
Honey, before I say anything else, I want you to know you are NOT a bad friend! You have been there for so many members of our little Twitter family through thick & thin, despite having your own stuff to deal with. I know I’m not alone in saying that is VERY much appreciated.
Love the idea of the list, but also love that in 2013 you’re going to concentrate more on you, the family, being well and being happy. That’s all any of us can do.
Wishing you a very Happy New Year – think 2013 is going to be a good one for all of us!!
Love always
Stace xxx
I also have too many pencils! And you’ve inspired me to make a list for my 37th year, before I have to go back to work after my maternity leave and all the pencils fall down again!
H x
I think you did pretty damn good – and you are very far from a bad friend, you’re always there when you’re needed 🙂
Think your 2013 plans are very sensible – I hope it’s a gorgeous, healthful and happiness filled year for you and yours! xxx