New Year's Resolutions

Yes, this year I'm declaring what they are - resolutions, not just intentions. I only have two.

1. Do something about the needlework drawer in my coffee table.

My coffee table is fabulous, I designed it and my dad built it. It's a large chest on wheels and it has four large drawers. The upper right drawer is where I keep my stitching stuff and in the last year I've only added stuff to it and not taken anything out. So my intention is to finish things this year and have that drawer be neat and tidy - not a dumping ground when company comes.

This has been brewing for a while - I've already refused to do the fall workshop last November from my guild or sign up for a correspondence course for this winter/spring with my guild. These two activities took a lot of my stitching time the last 18 months so I'm trying to redirect my focus.

The plan at the moment is to finish three pieces quickly that are really close to being done. Then focus on the piece I'm stitching for my CSB's youngest son - he'll be one in a few days so I'm seriously late with this one. After that I'm hoping to finish the large canvaswork piece that was my guild's workshop piece from November 2010.

I'm sure there will be interruptions along the way, but that's okay as long as something is done about the needlework drawer in my coffee table.

2. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice expecting a different result." What am I doing where I don't like the outcome?

I play a lot of Angry Birds and quite often I find myself doing the same thing over and over again - using the birds the same way and the outcome doesn't change. So I remind myself that I'd repeating myself expecting a different result. What else am I doing the same thing?

So this resolution is about being aware of when I'm unhappy with the results I'm getting and asking myself what I need to change to get a different result. I hope with this one what will happen is that at the end of the year I will be doing things where I'm happy with the result I get.

A bit of a side bar to this one - I sometime get into the thought pattern of when I get all these ducks in a row I can do/have what I want. Once again I want to rethink some of these. Is there another way to accomplish my goal?

There you go - actual resolutions even if they don't meet the SMART objective rule. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) However I think this will work better for me. Let's see.

Bandwagon Hopping

So there is a movement online called the WIPocalypse started by Measi at Measi Blog and I've known about it since she started talking about it, but kept filing in the back of my mind as interesting. The momentum built and built and I was still thinking about it. I would have to post regularly for an entire year and for those who have followed this blog faithfully (why would you, when I don't faithfully blog) know that I wander off frequently for long periods of time.

But now, the deadline is days away and I think about it more and more. I hate "pressure" with my stitching - it seems to make me stitch less. However the rules for this one is simple - 1. Make a list 2. Post what you've done each month. Okay that sounds doable especially since you don't even have to stitch what's on the list in order to post.

The potentially challenging part is posting pictures since I've been taking most of my pictures with my phone lately. My phone and my computer are currently not talking to each other. So I have a few options to deal with this 1. Convince my phone and computer to talk to each other - I need to do this for more than this. 2. Post directly from my phone. Maybe this would be the secret to getting me to post more often.

So in conclusion, there is nothing stopping me from doing this other than me. So I guess I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Watch for a post, hopefully soon of my current WIPs and the LIST.

Failure and Accomplishment

Failure is the result of experimentation. Failure happens when the results don't meet the expectations. Failure is when you try something new and it doesn't work. I made ganache today and instead of getting a nice smooth chocolate sauce, I got lumpy stuff with oil on top (now that's it's in the fridge, the oil looks like butter). I'm pretty sure it's because of the chocolate I used, but have no idea. If anyone out there has any suggestions I'm all ears.

I also experimented with the cheesecake I made today. Basically I looked at the recipes I had for cheesecake and said none of them will do, so I'll try something else. I have no idea if the cheesecake turned out, but I know it won't be covered in ganache. (I really hope I'm spelling that right - Firefox doesn't think so, but it's suggestions aren't what I want either.) I'm going to have to try the cheesecake in the next couple of days because I'm planning on serving it to other people on Tuesday and if it didn't work, I'll need to move to plan B.

The accomplishment part of the title up there is one of my good intentions. I wanted to clean up my RSS subscriptions this year. In the process of catching up on my blog reading after being gone for 2 weeks (which incidentally is taking me 2 weeks) I've been working on this. I've done a first pass and any blogs that changed location, I made sure I was subscribed to the new location and then unsubscribed to the old one. I also put all the blogs that haven't been updated in a couple of months in an archive folder. Sometime in the next few weeks I want to go through the archive folder and any blogs that I don't know why I subscribed and am pretty sure I wouldn't miss reading them if new material showed up.

The trip to Mexico was great. Here's one of my favourite pictures.



The little boy is my nephew, who I've decided his Internet name will be Stinker. He pays more attention when I call him that then his real name. There may be more stories about Mexico in the next few days, but don't put money on it. Stories that could include the fact that one of my closest friends was only miles away one day when we were there and we should have completely hooked up, but neither one of us knew how close we would be to each other. Of course there is another story about how difficult it is for my family to get home from Mexico. Second year in a row we spent a night in a hotel in a city we had no intention of going to. But for now - good night all.

I'm Not a Vegetarian

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

My line used to be I eat more vegetables than vegetarians eat meat. I have since then added more vegetables to my regular diet. Tonight's supper was meat-free. Strange.

I made Burgundy Mushrooms from The Pioneer Woman Cooks today. I was going to make them on Wednesday, so Tuesday evening I pulled out the cookbook to check out what I needed to get for groceries to make it. I wasn't even reading the instructions when my eye caught the words "cover with lid and simmer for 6 hours." I read it again and then the next step which was "uncover and simmer for 3 hours." I knew then that it wasn't a weekday supper recipe. I would have to save it for the weekend. This morning I got up and put everything together and on the stove.

Nine hours later I was having supper. It is recommended to serve with crusty bread to sop up the juices. I served it over couscous. The mushrooms are really yummy and I can see making them again. This serves as my good intention to cook from a different cookbook each month. Now I know the internet rule - if there is no picture, it didn't happen.

For the most part I'm happy with how I did with my good intentions this month. One craft project completed, one new recipe tried and some Christmas ornaments made. The photography good intentions didn't work out as well, but there is always room to improve. Next month I won't worry too much about my intentions, with the intention of trying again in March.

Accomplish

So what's been going on since the last post? Not much, hence the lack of posts. I've made some more of the Christmas balls I showed in the post. I've now used up all the appropriate cards I had saved from last year. I've made 18 so far. I still don't know where I've stashed previous years cards, so I'm not going to worry about making more for now. I may make more if the cards show up in the great craft supply organization planned for later this year.

I did not consider the Christmas card balls as my intention to complete a craft project a month. I did complete my planned project this evening. Using the instructions from here I made a zippered pouch. You can see my results on the left. The most difficult step for me was the stapling of the second side of the zipper. However the material was quite forgiving in the matter of removing the staples and trying again.

So my criteria for a successful project include how easy was it to accomplish, did the results match my expectations and will I make it again. Like I said, I had trouble with one step, but other than that everything went well. I am pleased with the result - I did not choose fabric that I'm completely in love with (the colour is more burgundy that the picture is showing). The result is quite satisfactory and met my expectation. I will be making more of these. First of all I bought a remnant of fabric from WalMart to do this and I have lots left over, so might as well use it all up. I also have an entire roll of Duct Tape to use. So the cost of future pouches will be more zippers.

I still intend to cook something out of my cookbooks this week. I've decided on making a recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook (website). I was going to try to do it this evening, but the snowstorm has kept me really close to home so haven't had the opportunity to buy all the necessary ingredients.

As for my other good intentions, I haven't been taking a picture a day, maybe I'll do better next week. In fact all my photography intentions have not been successful. But there is still time this year. I've kind have decided to not sweat some of this until after getting back from my holidays in late February. I'm also waiting for some research materials so I'm allowing myself all year to meet my intentions.

My vacation in February will also be a vacation from my good intentions. Since I will be gone for three weekends and the last weekend of the month is already booked with other obligations I will not be pressuring myself to accomplish stuff, especially when it concerns my hobbies. Hobbies are supposed to be fun, not add additional stress to ones life.

Now it's time to decide what to make for supper and then settle in for an evening of stitching, TV and a few chores.

A Little Bit of Christmas

I think the best time to make Christmas decorations is in January. There is no pressure to complete them now, since Christmas isn't for another 12 months. You are not busy with other Christmas prep like decorating, shopping, baking and finishing projects that are to serve as gifts. The only downside is that you can't display your cool new Christmas decorations for 12 months. I get bonus points since the main material I'm using are old Christmas cards - using, not storing - huge bonus points.

These are the ones I made over the weekend. I'm not very fast, mostly because I'll do some and then I'll get up and check my computer or get distracted by the TV show (or have to change the channel).

They are quite simple to make. Cut your cards into strips. I cut my strips anywhere from 1 cm to 1" and came out to 8 to 20 strips. Punch holes in the top and bottom. I've been using Martha Stewart's hole punch and it works well. It might be the reason these have been slower. I hurt my wrist putting away my trees on Saturday and it's still twinging a bit today. The punch isn't super wrist friendly. The put a couple of fasteners (brads) through the holes, making sure they are thick enough to go through all the sheets. The longest ones I've found were at an office supply store, but only in brass. I picked up a bunch of others at Michaels, but I have to be careful how many strips I have for those because they are not as long. All that's left is bowing the strips of paper and spreading them out to create the ball.
These are the four I made today. I only have 3 cards left to do then I have to find where I stored the previous years cards (in anticipation of doing this project).

These qualify for mention in the good intentions category. Specifically the intention to make more Christmas decorations. It does not count as doing one craft project a month. I have another craft in mind for that intention.

Good Intentions

So New Year's Day (Official Day of Good Intentions) and some people make resolutions and some people resolve not to make resolutions. I'm not that fond of making resolutions since I suck at self-discipline and I don't want to feel bad about myself. I'm also not good with plans, but they are necessary at times.

For the past 6 years while doing school part time I would have summers off at least from the school part of my schedule. This last June when I knew I wasn't going back to school in the fall, I didn't make plans for what I wanted to do during the summer. (Please note, the last time I attempted to blog was early summer, obviously a summer plan that year.) That meant that anything rattling around my brain didn't really get articulated with a deadline and nothing got accomplished. The thing to note about self-inflicted deadlines - I mostly ignore them. However some time after the deadline, I get what I want done. So I need the deadline to make my plan feel more real to me.

Don't worry if the previous paragraph makes no sense. I said I was endlessly fascinated with my mind. It doesn't mean the rest of the world is.

So these aren't goals or resolutions, but what I'm calling good intentions. Sort of like a plan. With a timetable. Subject to change on whim. I am female after all. But there are categories.

Computer
1. Blog. Part of my reason to blog is to record progress on the rest of my good intentions. Hopefully all the posts won't start with "Well I didn't get a done or b done and forget about c, that's never going to happen ..."
2. Weed through the music on my computer. I have picked up stuff from various places over the years and some of it I never listen to, have never listened to, don't know why I have it. So it needs to go.
3. Load all my CD's onto my computer. I know, most people did this about 4 years ago. I know about the trends, but the last thing anyone would call me is trendy. These two intentions have a reward attached to them. I want an iPod Classic to load all my music on.
4. Go through my RSS feed list. Google Reader tells me I have 331 subscriptions. Some I never read the new posts and others that are completely dead. So I need to get rid of the deadwood. (Yeah, yeah, I know this used to be one of the completely dead blogs.)
5. Learn enough about web pages so my blog template doesn't look so dorky.

Photography
I'd like to get good at photography, but that's not going to happen without some effort, so...
1. Learn something new about photography once a month. Potential topics here include camera settings like aperture, or styles/techniques like macro photography. I really would like to take wonderful pictures of my projects and the children in my life.
2. Learn more about photoshop by doing a photoshop tutorial a week or fixing a photo a week.
3. Post pictures related to last 2 intentions on blog.
4. Take more pictures. I'm think this means to trying to do Project 365 which means taking a picture every day. I took one today, if I don't forget I'll post it at the bottom of this really long post. (Incentive to keep reading.)

Cooking
1. I have a lot of cookbooks that I've never made anything out of. So my plan is to cook something from a different cookbook at least once a month. Maybe bake something once a month as well. So then I will try something new every other week.
2. Post results on blog.
3. Invite people over so as to cook for more than just myself all the time.

Crafty
1. Lots of ideas for craft project, very little follow through. I intend to plan/complete a different craft project each month. I have hundreds of ideas stored, so I just need to start trying different stuff.
2. Organize craft supplies. I have just about everything I need, except for the work table. Which since my craft room is also my living room will be the coffee table. My dad is building my coffee table, so once that is done there is no excuse left for not organizing the craft supplies. (Coffee table includes storage.)
3. I love Christmas trees but I haven't made ornaments for several years. I want to make some this year. Especially the idea I have for using old Christmas cards. I'm not making any goals for how many need to be completed, just that I want to work on this.
4. Needless to say I'll be posting the results to my blog, hopefully.

Thus ends the thesis, let's see how this year turns out.

Here's how it started:This is where I slept last night. Grandma spent the night so I gave her my bed and was too lazy to blow up the air mattress.