In the year to come

I’ve tried various approached to new year resolutions over the years, but I’ve never really found one that I was happy with. India knight provided me with the reason in this marvellous piece from The Sunday times .
Basically we change when we are ready and not just because it is the first day of the year. I also think that we need to practice making changes. We try to make a change and fail and then maybe try a dozen times or more before we are ready to actually make the change because by then we’ve found a way to work with it.

So I am not making resolutions this year. Instead I have put below a list of things that I may or may not do this year. Ideas, dreams and maybes. The important thing is that I have written them down so that when I am ready to do something or make a change I already have thoughts about what it could be.

Do the 2009 Moonwalk; Learn how to listen; dress like a rock chick; Grow vegetables; Plant raspberries; Get a tattoo; Learn 10 songs on the bass; Take singing lessons; Refashion rather than buy; Restock my etsy store; Clear out everything from cookbooks to coat pockets to cupboards; Finally get rid of the last boxes that came from my parent’s house; think positive; Do NaNoWriMo; Make a crazy quilt; Adopt an older person; Learn to raise one eyebrow; Comment on more blogs; Book a foraging course; Decide what to do with prettylittleparcels.co.uk; Write more letters; Organise photographs; Buy an album every month; Research my family tree; Take moments to just breathe.

Monthly updates

Have not been abandoned - I'm just trying not to be so hard on myself while training for the Moonwalk (sponsor me at www.bmycharity.com/v2/babeinabra).

Additionally I appear to have hit a couple of snags with meeting some of the other targets. See, I need a pan of some kind to put my t-shirts in in order to dye them. I've been unable to locate one so far and can't see any point in buying a new pan just to dye things in. My parent's are moving house so I've out them in the alert for any suitable receptacles that they may be binning.

The 'not buying' is becoming much more of a habit. I've been buying more food from the market and shopping for small quantities of food when we actually need it rather than doing a huge shop once a week at Tesco. I still count my blessings everyday.

Come the start of June my moonwalk obligations will be out of the way and I intend to revise my targets and post the new list here.

My monthly update

Managing to do this post in timely manner is definitely a good start. So here is my progress for this month and my to-do's for March.

Use what I have

• Still no clothes purchases
• Resisting buying excess food
• Utilised an old laptop bag to make a portable craft bag (all the little pockets come in really handy)
• I am still not buying glossy magazines and I do think this has made me want less. I started to keep a list of things that I wanted to buy in January and some of them would have been very easy to justify. Of course, vacuum storage bags would be a good thing to buy. A big bag would make carting all possessions around much easier. But as time as gone on I abandoned the list because I didn't seem to be generating the same wants. I'm currently reading (borrowed from my local library) The New Spend Less Revolution by Rebecca Ash.

EBay/ Freecycle at least one item per month

• 5 items sold on EBay this month. It is so nice to be freeing up space in my study.

Count my blessings

• Still loving this one. I have so much to be grateful for.

Be more mysterious

• Trying to keep quieter but I've found an urge to share the joys of positive thought. Perhaps I'm denying my true (non-mysterious) nature?

My to-do’s for February

• Post at least one picture on this blog completed - no excuses now for not adding more http://prettylittleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-gift-bags.html
• Redesign my home page Completed - I'll try and make a few changes every month http://www.prettylittleparcels.co.uk/
• Post target update at the end of the month completed - this is it!

My to-dos for March

• Dye two t-shirts that I have in my projects to do bag. I have the dye I just need to find a vessel to put it in. This project has been waiting ages to be done.
• Make 4 gift bags and tags to photograph and sell.
• Scan 25 photographs from the old family photo album.

Have a great March!

February here I come

Here’s my update of the changes for 2007 that I posted a few weeks back

Use what I have
I think I have conquered my glossy magazine addiction. Other good things to report are:
· I have not bought any clothes.
· have been taking lunch (and on occasion breakfast) to work.
· made my dad a birthday card and some fudge and popcorn to go with his birthday present.
· Sorted through the fabric and half finished sewing projects lurking in my study. Hemmed a skirt, finished turning an old pair of trousers into a skirt and made some spare curtain fabric into napkins.

EBay/ Freecycle at least one item per month
I listed 3 items on eBay in January. I sold one, didn’t sell one and the auction on the third is still open. I also sold my Mum on the joys of Freecycle.

Count my blessings
I so enjoy doing this one. It also ties in well with this amazing book on positive thinking I’ve been reading called Excuse me, your life is waiting. Written by Lynn Grabhorn, this is well worth a read, so get to your local library.

Be more mysterious
Not really sure how I’m doing on this one. I think it’s probably also about listening to other people more.

My to-do’s for February

Post at least one picture on this blog

Redesign my home page. It really needs re-doing and I've been learning a bit more about HTML at this marvellous site http://www.w3schools.com/

Post target update a the end of the month (unlike this month)

Those aren't many targets for February, but better to set small targets and exceed them than aim too high and lose heart.