And a very Merry Christmas it was

Christmas in Kemptville has been lovely this year. We got a large dump of snow right before Christmas, as I predicted to my mother who was worried up until late last week, as they hadn’t had any snow at all up until then. There’s literally close to 3 feet out there – I dug out the snowshoes and took ’em for a run today. The pile of dirt next to a large hole in the yard my father dug out earlier in the year, for a pond to be installed in the coming spring, served as a perfect hill to slide down!

Christmas day itself was exciting as well – this year, mum bought me an old, used sewing machine! It’s a Singer, and only cost $30. I’m totally fine with having something simple to learn on, and am already furiously searching on Google for patterns for things I constantly search for on Etsy, and am looking forward to creating.

In keeping with my custom, I will review last year’s goals to see how well I fared:

• Use up all the yarn in my stash before buying more – unless I come across a yarn so unique, I know I won’t find it easily again; this caveat is for trade shows.
  I did pretty well with this one. I did buy some new yarn this year, but not nearly as much as previous years, and really only on my travels to new knitting shops.
• Never have more than one shot of espresso in my daily coffee. More than that leaves me buzzing nervously, anxious, unable to concentrate, often irritable, and with an afternoon crash that I simply want to avoid. Most days, I would like to aim to cut out the coffee completely and stick to green tea – however, we’ll see how that goes in the coming semester, as lack of sleep catches up to me.LOL! Nope on this one – let’s add this back to the pile for renewal in 2013.
• Cut down the time wasted on rss feeds daily: I’ve already unsubscribed from a bunch. If I’m going to spend time on RSS feeds, it should probably be about my industry, and not so much about crafting. After all, I need to earn money – and crafting? Doesn’t.
  This one wasn’t difficult. I simply removed my perma-RSS feeds tab from Chrome, and now I really only go through them on my phone, when I’m really bored and having nothing else to do.
• Cut down time wasted on facebook/email/other often updated mediums – this means closing my perma-tabs that display Facebook and my RSS feeds, and probably also opening my email maybe only 3 times per day, instead of leaving it open all day. This way I can focus better on current tasks, and get more done.
  Fairly successful on this one as well – it’s amazing how much less stressed out you feel when you remove the sound and text notifications for new incoming emails, texts, and anything else that has notifications. You check when you’re feeling up to it – not every time they come in. Information diet continues!

And so, this coming year’s crafting goals:

• learn to sew, and make:
  • legwarmers
  • armwarmers
  • fingerless gloves
  • stretch pants
• learn to crochet, and make:
  • a headband
  • a belt
  • a necklace/necktie decorative accessory
  • perhaps a garter?
• use up as much of my yarn stash as humanly possible for someone whose livelihood is on the computer, and who suffers from chronic RSS, and also carpel tunnel syndrome, who’s planning a wedding, and whose other goals involve learning other crafts in her extremely limited “spare” time – ho ho, that’s a lofty one!
• do more tatting – snowflakes for the Christmas tree? Don’t think I’ll have enough time to do much more than that this year.
• spend as little of my spare time on the computer as possible, considering all the above (I mean one does need to search for patterns, right?!)
• FINISH KNITKAPP!!!!!!! (My app for knitters… coming soon!)

I think that’s enough for 2013, don’t you? Exciting times… (at least for me).