New Year’s Resolutions and a New Mantra

This year I resolve to:

1. Call my mother more often. 
2. Knit at least one pair of infant or preemie socks a month to donate to the hospital. 
3. Get out and walk more for my health. 
4. Finish at least 2 UFOs (unfinished objects) for each new project I start.

***  Exceptions: designing, new classes, and new babies!

When our kids were still living at home, we had a family tradition of sitting down together on New Year’s Day and making our New Year’s Resolutions. Like most other people, we tried very hard to follow them during January, but by March, not so much.

It was a great idea, but unfortunately we always seemed to have very high hopes for ourselves …..many of the resolutions were rarely reasonable. Since the kids have grown and gone their separate ways, my husband Jim and I have not really kept up the tradition. I want to start it up again, at least for myself.

As the years pass, I continue to better understand my priorities, strengths, and shortcomings. I think my 2010 resolution list is one that I will be able to follow long past March. I won’t guarantee that I will be able to make it all the way to the end of December, but past March will be an improvement.

Baby steps. That’s the way to accomplish things. Biting off more that you can chew is a guaranteed path to failure. I wish I had taken that advice from my cheerleading coach in high school. It’s sad, but I don’t even remember her name, but I’ll never forget the conversation she had with me at the end of my Junior year. She told me that I needed to choose between cheerleading and dance/drama. Of course I knew everything then, after all, I was 17! I wasn’t about to let anyone tell me what I could and couldn’t do. No one was going to put limitations on me! Well, she tried. I didn’t make the Varsity Cheerleading Squad in my Senior year, even though I was Co-Captain of the JV Squad. Boy was I mad. I immediately tried out for the Marching Band’s dance team, and became a Rampage. And of course, I was still in the Drama Club, and taking dance lessons 3 nights a week.

So back to my resolutions. We’re only into the second week of January, and I have called my mother a couple of times, I have created a pattern for newborn socks in Sweater Wizard, and have leftover sock yarn ready. I have walked a couple of times, even though the weather is cold ………and, I’ve finished one FO! A sample blanket for an upcoming class I am going to teach at Knit n Knibble in Tampa, FL. It’s my daughter’s design, available on Ravelry …..The Sleepy Owl. 
LINK:   http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sleepy-owl-blanket
  
This is the smallest version (mine)

And here is the largest – the original (Amanda’s):

  

And, since new babies don’t count when starting a new project ……socks for Liam using my leftover Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino from my Red Beret!

So, finally, 35 years after my conversation with the cheerleading coach, I’m much older, and a little wiser, and realize that no matter how much I want to accomplish before I die, it won’t all happen. Hence, my small, doable list of resolutions. Baby steps. That’s my new mantra.