March Goals

I found my draft post containing my February goals sitting here.  I didn't meet a single one in its entirety.  And now, of course, the bulk of March forms part of Lent, and the focus changes.  Looking at things in context, I can't even just replicate my February goals for March, even though they all still need to be accomplished in some way or another.  The goals that were about getting ready to move - well, we're hoping to have moved by the end of this month.  The goals that were about Getting Things Done (the non-trademarked version) seem inappropriate in a season of reflection.

So: March goals.  And this time I'm going to publish them, and report back in April.  And see how I've gone.

Reflecting

• Remember to breathe - 'breathe' is my word for the year.  I think I might design a little "Remember to breathe" card or two for Project Life.
• Implement two or more ideas from "Beyond Busyness"
• Post on WGC.

Other

• Read books by queer Australian women (and review at least one).  For more on this, see the post on my book blog.
• Chapters 3-6 to Ruth 

A lot of my goals at the moment are future-fixed: "once we've moved I will..." keep the kitchen organised; make meal plans; make bento lunches; etc.  There's this annoying state of uncertainty while we wait for the date on which we will be settling the house purchase.  Until then, it just this awkward state of interruption.

Decluttering 52 things in 52 weeks

Because I always join all the challenges, and because I love the Australian-based Organised Housewife, I'm joining her 2014 Declutter 52 Things in 52 Weeks challenge. It's week two five, now, but what the hey.

Step one was to set our goals. Here are mine, according to the OH's rubric, with my additions/changes in bold.

I want to feel relaxed while I’m at home, and I won't while there's all this clutter and mess and disorganisation.
I want to spend more time writing.
I want an area of the home where I can craft, (especially Project Life).
I want to organise the whole house first.  (Yes, I know this is a problem. Let's go with kitchen in the realistic version.)
My partner always loses her keys.
I want to be decluttered by 1st April 2014.
The most disorganised cupboard in my home is the tupperware cupboard OMG.
Something that I don’t need anymore, but am having trouble parting with is random stuff I collected/bought for scrapbooking, which doesn't quite work for the Project Life context.


To be honest, I'm not sure how applicable these are anymore.  We're moving house soon - hopefully in six weeks, assuming the Titles Office comes through for us - and so while decluttering and organising are still major needs, (and April 1 a nice goal) the timetable and the logistics are completely different.

That said, I'm still trying to keep up with the weekly challenges (sort of).  The first couple - at least initially - struck me as not applying to me necessarily.  At some point I need to get back to my pinboard, but it's not that bad for now.

Tasks #3 and 4, however, are entirely applicable AND useful to us right now.  I haven't done them yet (OMG the heat! Means I get very little done at the moment other than work, watch television and attempt to sleep.)  When I get to them I'll write them up and let you know how I go.

New Year, New Plans

It's been a while since I posted here, but one of my goals for 2014 is to post to each of my blogs at the very least once a month.

And since I last posted there's been a lot of changes in my house/craft/garden/organisey life.

In April - hopefully - Chez Stutters will be relocating.  We're in the process of buying a house, which is rather scary, even if I am used to the processes because of the whole used-to-be-a-lawyer thing.  We're not moving far, but the house will be bigger and give us the chance to organise differently and do a lot of things we're looking forward to. 

In the meantime, we need to declutter, sort, and pack up the house, and do a whole lot of work in our sadly neglected garden (poor garden) to get it up to a standard that won't upset our landlord when we leave.  Then we get to move into our wonderful new house and organise it.  I might even be getting a craft room!

This would be good, because, in October, almost entirely due to the influence of my friend Mel at Subversive Reader I got seriously stuck into Project Life scrapbooking.  I really love this method, which is a lot less time-consuming (the way I do it) than traditional scrapbooking, which I haven't done much of for ages.  There will be posts on this in the future, you can be guaranteed.

Frogging

So, the pattern for the ribbing on the Kobo Cover surprised me.  And I ended up frogging my first attempt, because it was out of proportion to the cover.  I'm onto my second attempt now, although I suspect that the variegation of the wool is going to make this look less impressing than it might otherwise.  I'm still not entirely convinced that I won't end up frogging the second attempt at the ribbing and doing it entirely differently with no ribbing at all.

We'll see.

ETA: Frogging for second time.  GF has given me a good idea for how to alter the pattern for a much nicer finish.  Always assuming I don't entirely ruin the yarn while frogging.

An in-the-middle project

Which, technically is an in-the-middle of an in-the-middle project.

Actually, I really should do a photo of the TARDIS, the Loriblankeet (whose recipient has now been born: his name is Eddy) and the Kobo cover, so that you can see the project within the project within the project :-)

But yes, my very-current project is a cover for Chez Stutters' new Kobo Touch, purchased because we both love our 2nd gen Kobo's, but said 2nd gens are getting old in Tech Time, and JB's had a really good sale on the Touch last weekend.  But the Touch is smaller than the 2nd Gen, by enough that our cases just didn't fit.  And I don't like my Kobo bouncing around in my handbag getting scratched.  So I started a cover, using the pattern that I first tried to use for my iPad cover but abandoned.  It's pretty much all in DC, and with the first iPad cover, that just annoyed the hell out of me.  With this one, I kind of love it.  It makes a very firm fabric and I think will make a great cover for the Kobo.  A fully DC fabric would be too much for most projects, but for this one it seems perfect.

What I Am Up To Wednesday

My current big project is a TARDIS blanket.  (See here if you're a Ravelry member.)  It's based on a

picture I found on Pinterest, and is intended to be a Christmas gift for the son of a friend.

For the windows, I'm using a crappy, sale-price acrylic+sequins yarn that is a pain in the bloomin' neck to do anything with, and once this project is done, I'm never ever using it again. (Panda Mimosa, for the record.)  I've finished the first window, and will be putting off starting on the second window because I hate that yarn a LOT.

I'm working on the side pieces at the moment,  It's a lot of work.  My other half keeps telling me that various friends will be demanding their own TARDIS blankets once I finish the first:  Tell 'em they're dreamin'.

Meanwhile, I made a hat. I really rather love my hat.  And I'm proud of my hat.  And the pompom I added to the hat.

For project notes: I finished the hat.

Why I love Eurovision

On my Facebook, there were at least two people asking versions of "why on Earth would you watch Eurovision".

Here are a few reasons that I've been watching Eurovision every year since at least 2000, and probably longer than that:

• The Politics.  What first captured me years ago the first year I watched Eurovision was undeniably the politics - the way in which certain countries will always vote for others, or against others.  The year that the UK got no points from anyone and I watched in horror because it was just a little humiliating.
• The Awesome - it's just - fabulous.  I love it.  The special effects, the nutty, just the willingness to be awesome and fabulous.
• The rare use of French - this year only France and Belgium gave their points in French.  I'm sure it used to be used more when I started watching.
• The enthusiasm.  There's no self-consciousness, as there would be if this were Australia.
• The sense of community.  Along with knowing that a lot of Europe is paying attention to this, there's the slight nuttiness of Australian fans, of getting #SBSEurovision trending globally, of knowing that around Australia  people are enjoying the craziness.

Basically, it's just really fabulous fun.