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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Happy New Year :-D

Hey friends. It's a gorgeous Saturday morning and I feel compelled to swing by here, dust off a few cobwebs and let you know I'm alive and well. Happy new year!

I've spent a lot of time in the past analyzing the concept of new year's resolutions. I'm not going to do that this time around - I'll just tell you where I landed. This year, I decided to stick with the idea of "intentions" rather than firm resolutions/goals... but rather than stating specific intentions (which, really, is like goal-setting without being SMART and none of the follow-through) I decided to go with words. Two words, actually (well, three, if you're being persnickity): efficiency and problem-solving.

Basically, I'm trying to keep these words in mind every time I feel challenged, frustrated, bored, dissatisfied in every day life. And you know what? So far, it's working out pretty awesome and the Mister is totally on board. We've tackled a bunch of sources of day-to-day stress and focused on behaving a little more like grown-ups. I'm not sure this is the place to report in detail, but needless to say I'm feeling a bit more in control of my time and hopefully the trickle-down effect will be more sewing/knitting in 2013.

(There actually was quite a bit of sewing/knitting that just didn't make the blog at all towards the end of 2012... so I'll try to be better about documenting the coming year. I miss that.)

So, for now, just a quick update on what I'm working on:

_MG_2743

Noro striped scarf. Originally this was meant to be a pattern-less project I could just tote to knit group and not worry about making mistakes or losing my place, but recently I've become a little obsessed with it and I'm dying to wear it. I'm making it nice and long so I can wrap it twice around my neck. I've run out of Cascade with about 8 inches to go, so it's off to the yarn store with me today. Last night I actually wore it all evening watching movies with the knitting needle still holding the stitches on one end! Like I said: can't wait.

Hope everything is good with you and yours this gorgeous new year.

10 comments:

  1. I can see why you are eager to wear that scarf. I love the rows of white between the varigated colours, it sort of spreads them out nicely.

    I also like the idea of intentions vs resolutions. Goals seem to leave me looking at what I didn't accomplish rather than what I did.

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    1. Yeah, I know what you mean about goals --> failure.

      I think what I'm finding about the intentions is that, because it's so vague, I can't exactly succeed or fail... it's more just a tool about how to approach things and it's leading to other successes because of that... but, while I'm sure I could "fail" at it, it would be pretty hard to measure. Yet somehow it feels easy to measure the success. Maybe that's why I'm liking it so much, haha.

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  2. The colors in this scarf are so beautiful! It's going to be lovely!

    Glad to hear you're well! I like the idea of approaching the new year with intentions rather than goals. It sounds really healthy to work on a new mindset and approach to life, and really doable (since you've boiled your ideas down to three words). Happy New Year!

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    1. Thanks! The funny thing is that after I took the above photo the blue never showed up in the skein again! It still turned out pretty though.

      Happy New Year!

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  3. Pretty scarf! I didn't make any resolutions this year because I remember reading your posts in the past and totally agreeing with you about how they just don't work for me... But I like the intentions idea :)

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    1. So far I think the key to the intention thing is to keep it really simple/vague so that you can keep it always in mind... as opposed to a detailed list of vague goals that's easy to forget about.

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  4. Beautiful scarf! I like your intentions...much more down to earth than resolutions... and stress free I suppose. Looking forward to see a fantastic year for you! xx

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    1. I think it just depends on the year... this year, I knew I needed something broad in scope but fluid in nature, if that makes sense. We just need to claw our way out of this feeling of powerlessness we've gotten mired in!

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  5. It sounds like your approach is already working out! There seems to be a lot of bloggers (maybe it's in the scrapbooking genre especially) that have been working with "one little word" for the year, and I find it interesting to read about what that word does for them when they carry it with them in their daily-life. My favorite is Elise Blaha, so I'd encourage you to check out her experiences. With that said, I'm trying to focus on exactly "intentions" this year - so I guess that's my unofficial word-of-the-year! I think it's a great way to keep yourself aware. Looking forward to hearing more later in the year how it's working out!

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    1. You know, I think I stole the idea from them actually. There is a lovely local blogger than I follow who I think, now that you mention it, posted her "one little word" before I posted this. So I bet I took some heavy inspiration, there :D

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