Ironically, many people begin this allegedly most auspicious day in a decidedly less than auspicious way ... with a raging hangover. I'm not one of them, but I seem to be living with one of them. (And it's not Tyler).
I've thought it over, and have two yearly goals to add to my list. They're the kind of things that don't really need written down, but I decided to anyway, because everytime I look at the list, it will remind me what's really important - more important even than 'getting things done.'
The first is "enjoy life." Yeah, it's true, sometimes I actually forget to do this. One of the reasons my creative projects tend to languish is I get so caught up day to day in stuff I think I 'ought' or 'need' to do that I forget to take time for the things I like to do. I read somewhere once that it's best we get over this mentality of "I'll enjoy whatever as soon as I get whatever else done." The in-basket of life is never empty, the to-do list never completed. If I wait till I have all my 'chores' done to do something enjoyable, it's never going to happen.
The second one is "simplify my life." I've been a big proponent of the voluntary simplicity movement for a long time, although I have had varying degrees of success at it. It is a large part of why I'm working part time, even though that puts a pinch on the finances. Hey, when life's really simple, you don't need as much money. I said then, and still believe, that having time is more important to me than having the money. (Major home repairs notwithstanding ... but that's a blog post for another time).
Simplifying isn't just something you wake up and decide to do one day, and from then on your entire life is immediately changed (although the mental shift can create an instant change in how you see everything in your life). Ironically, it does require some effort initially, and then some constant (if hopefully minimal) maintenance. Especially if one is in the habit of accumulating tons of stuff, or committing themselves to doing far more than there are hours in the day to accomplish.
To me, simplifying my life isn't that big a deal (which works out well - simplify the simplification process). Clear out the clutter, and simplify the things I feel I "have to" do each week, so I have more time for the relaxing, enjoyable things I want to do. I've been working steadily to reduce the mess and clutter in his house, and that will be an ongoing thing. In fact, I finally - finally - got the upstairs hobby room done a few weekends ago. I didn't take a 'before' picture, but trust me, it was a disaster. Before I did this, there was so much stuff piled in the center of this space that you couldn't even see to the far wall. Organizing this area did involve sacrificing a lot of stuff ... stuff I didn't need or want anymore, or was probably never going to use, but had stubbornly hung on to "in case I need it." Hobby stuff seems to be the worse culprit for that mentality. But without that sacrifice, I'd have never had the space to do this. So it was worth it, because I find this room absolutely beautiful now, enjoy spending time there, and can easily find the stuff I need to work on any projects I do want to do.
I used to have a table permanently set up in this area, but it took up too much space. Now I have a folding table which is leaning up against the wall off to one side, and when I need it I can easily set it up - and when I don't, it's out of the way (and not accumulating tons of junk that it's easier to leave laying on the table than to put away).
I think the main point of focusing on the simplification to me is linked to my first list addition - enjoying life. When I keep my life simple, that is what gives me the time to enjoy the things I want to do, but often haven't made time for.
I'm not sure what all this is going to entail yet, but having it on the list is a constant reminder to not overcomplicate things, and whenever possible keep things simple.
In other news ... this is the current status of the log cabin blanket.
I was able to take a picture last night when I finished and bound off a color. I am truly astounded that I've worked on this for a year, and it's no bigger than this. Granted, I didn't work on it non-stop for a year, but still. I originally wanted it to be bedspread-sized (why? I have no freaking idea). But now I'm down to being happy just using up most of the rest of the yarn I bought specifically for this project, and then calling it done. I haven't bought a lot of yarn just for this, but I did buy some, and the thing about it is, it's all acrylic yarn, usually in single skeins. I don't keep much of a yarn stash (see that 'simplifying' thing above), and I don't anticipate having much use for single skeins of acrylic yarn. So I'd like to actually use these for what they were intended before I call this blanket done.
The strips are going to start getting interesting though. The last one I did, the peach on the left-hand side, I didn't have enough yarn to make it the full 9 purl-bumps high, so it's smaller than the rest of the strips. This really doens't effect how the blanket works - you just work around that patch the same as all the others when you get back to it. But as I use up partial skeins of yarn, I'm probably going to run into that problem more and more. But that's okay - this kind of thing will look fine whatever I do.
I'm going to work on ploughing through that over the upcoming weeks, and hope to finish it by the end of February.
One big bonus of working on this thing in the middle of winter - I can spread it out over me while I knit, and it is very warm.
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