Happy New Year!

The holidays are winding to a close. I’ve had a fun-filled, travel-filled, family-filled, love-full holiday season. I hope you all did too.

Most bloggers typically post a year-in-review type post this week. But I’m lazy and woefully behind on blog posts so I’m skipping that tradition. Not that it was ever my tradition anyway so it’s all good.

Lists and resolutions are also always popular this week. I like lists so that I can do. (Plus it is a lazy writer trick to make a list instead of actually trying to form coherent, grammatically correct paragraphs which is often a challenge for me anyway.)

The following are my goals and resolutions for 2013:

Sewing/Crafting Goals:

• Continue to whittle away at my fabric stash by sewing up existing fabric in the never-ending stash conversion to wearable garments project.
• Make more pillows for the living room.
• More machine embroidery projects. My new machine can do some amazing things and I now have Bernina V6 software. My goal is to learn as much as I can about it and master more Machine Embroidery skills and maybe even some digitizing.
• Yoga clothes. I signed up for a 7 week yoga class starting in a few weeks. Yoga clothes are expensive but with the skills I learned last spring in making bathing suits, I think I can knock out some cute tops and pants in no time for a fraction of the cost.
• Embroidered yoga mat carrying bag. I want to embroider these chakra designs on linen for a bag to carry my mat and other stuff to class.
• Finish the king-size scrappy string quilt for my bed.
• De-stash, sell, use or otherwise reduce the yarn around this place. Like fabric, it has grown to ridiculous quantities.

Household Goals:

• Clean out and purge the following areas: mudroom, sewing/laundry closet, guest room closet, garage and shed.
• Plant pumpkins in the area where the play-set used to be.
• New living room sofa – the one we have now is very nice but it has a few issues. We bought it from a friend this past year but it isn’t meeting our needs. It is leather and the seat cushions don’t stay in place. You get in it and can’t get out. It has sucked the dogs and/or Emma down into its deepest recesses numerous times. Until we can afford to replace it I resolve to try to fix the velcro that is pulling away from the bottom of the cushions so that they will maybe stay in place a bit better. (I’ve been saying this for about 4 months now!)
• Community Garden Plot. I’ve been putting this idea off for about 15 years! When we lived in town I had a beautiful vegetable garden and I canned my own veggies. When we moved out here I didn’t have a sunny spot for a garden and the girls were little and I just didn’t make the time or effort. I’m going to go to the park district in March and reserve a plot for this coming summer. Even if I just get some fresh tomatoes and basil I’ll be very happy. The plots are about a mile away from our house and adjacent to a forest preserve where I like to walk.
• Work on living simply and intentionally. As my goals to use and reduce my fabric/yarn stash suggest, my life has gotten too full with STUFF and I’ve lost sight and room for new and fresher things.

Personal Goals:

• Yoga. As I already mentioned I signed up for a Fundamentals of Yoga class at a local yoga studio. Even though I’ve done yoga for years, I thought a “real” class at a studio would be a good place to rekindle my love of yoga. Most of the classes I’ve taken in the past have been at gyms and the teachers were usually fitness instructors who had taken some classes in teaching fitness based yoga rather than true yogis who understand the full spectrum of yoga and what it all means.
• Walking. I want to continue my meanderings and wanderings at local parks and forest preserves.
• Eating. No weight loss goals, even though I definitely need them. Instead I’m focusing on eating fresh and as homemade as possible this year. I think the garden plot will help  motivate me.
• Get massages. I have a couple friends who are massage therapists. One friend does Thai Massage and she really helped me out this summer when my hip/lower back went cablooey. I want to start getting regular massages to continue to work on my back and neck issues in conjunction with regular yoga practice and visits to my NUCCA chiropractor.
• Deepen my spirituality. Read more books, explore different beliefs, meditate more. Maybe even go back to church or find a new church that meets my needs better.
• Continue Random Acts of Kindness year-round.
• Regularly reach out to people in my life and tell them what I love/admire about them.

Family & Friends:

• Continue to work on my relationship with Steve. We’ve come a long way this year but we still have our moments. 2014 will mark our 25th wedding anniversary so this year will be all about building up to that monumental achievement so that when we get there we can be stronger than ever.
• Host more dinner parties and play matchmaker to my friends. Not in a romantic matchmaker kind of way but instead I’d like to introduce different friends from different parts of my life. I have an eclectic mix of friends from many different areas and I’d like to start getting them together and see what interesting conversations and new friendships can develop. I think smaller groups, sharing a meal together, is the perfect way to do this.
• Continue to find new things to share with friends. Go places, explore new interests, share my discoveries with friends. Recently I’ve discovered the simple joy of meeting a friend for breakfast. As much fun as big parties are with a large group of friends, small one-on-one get-togethers really help strengthen and deepen friendships.
• Make the time to visit my siblings, parents and nieces and nephews this year. This might be the summer to reinstate the family camping trip!
I’m sure that as soon as I hit the Publish button I’ll think of many more things to add to this list but I think it is a good place to start. What kinds of goals, resolutions or plans are you making for 2013? Whatever they are I hope they bring you fulfillment and joy.