Maybe one day I'll get the hang of this "blogging regularly" thing. Probably not anytime soon.

Lots on the brain, but there always is.

Right now,

I'm reading:

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero (which is super interesting)

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (super hilarious)

I'm working on:

A yellow/purple/red/pink ombre (?) infinity scarf that is taking me forever.

A crochet lace belt for a dress that I started working on back at the beginning of January and really need to finish up so I can start something else.

And, I'm working out a ton. Like almost every day for the past 3 weeks (maybe even 4?). I'm seeing major changes in definition, but not a lot of weight loss yet. But it feels great to be able to get through some of these workout videos that I've been doing.

At some point in the next week or 2, I'm going to get some pictures of the dresses and knitting projects I'm working on and post them. They've been fun.

Anyway, that's all for now.

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power is the first massive book I've attempted this year. It only took two weeks, and I think that's pretty good, right?

This book left me feeling exhausted and somewhat emotionally drained. I had to shut down my feelings after a certain point in order to make it to the end of this gigantic book because it was too depressing.

Power covers the coinage of the term "genocide" by Raphael Lemkin. He had studied the Armenian genocide in 1915 and was a Polish Jew living during World War II. Much of his family was killed in the Holocaust and he wanted a way to capture what had happened to the Jews and Armenians in a single word. He searched high and low, using his background in linguistics, to come up with a term that he felt did justice to the horrific acts and and eventually combined the Greek word "genos", meaning "people, race", with the Latin "cidere", meaning "to kill". It covers not only the murder of one group of people by another, but the attempt to extinguish every last bit of culture and history associated with those people. Heartbreaking.

Even more heartbreaking is the failure of America to ratify Lemkin's Genocide Convention until 1989, 40 years after it was first introduced to the United Nations.

Throughout the rest of the book, Power outlines the history of the genocides in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo, explaining what happened to cause one people to want to kill another, and what was going on that made them feel like they could get away with it. The failure of the US to act until it was nearly too late (or, in the case of Rwanda, at all) is highlighted throughout these stories. The rise of Pol Pot's killing regime was even supported by the US because, basically, anyone who wasn't a Communist deserved support.

The terror that people have had to endure in the past is horrifying and it is difficult to come to terms with the fact that it still happens. ISIS, Boko Haram. It's still going on. It's hard to believe that people can hate one another that much, but we can. We might wonder if it's worth stepping in, getting involved in someone else's affairs, but really... People's lives are at stake and if we see it happening, we shouldn't sit back and wait it out, hoping that people in a murderous rage will see reason. If American people could put their imaginations to use when stuff like this was beginning to happen, and if they would have spoken up earlier when they first realized the evil that was being perpetrated, they could have made a huge impact on the US's foreign policy.What if we make the same mistake now?

So, it's been 2 weeks since I last posted anything. I went to Oklahoma for a friend's wedding over that weekend and came back with some horrible illness that knocked me on my back for a couple of days.

Anyway, what I was going to write about was all of my goals for this upcoming year, 2015. (2015... So strange.)

"It's weird how I'm consistently surprised by the passage of time."

Firstly, I guess I share the rest of the world's obsession with getting fit at the beginning of the year. I spent a good deal of last year hiking and generally trying out new things in order to get fit. My husband I did a few little fad diets for all of a couple of weeks and decided those were definitely not for us. All the hiking for me paid off, however. My endurance level for other types of workouts has gone up, and I'm finding myself quite motivated to stay at least somewhat active. 

This year, I decided to start using FitnessBlender.com more and more to keep my activity level up, especially in the colder, muddier, winter months. I was trying to do their workout videos last year, but I didn't have the strength and motivation. This year, I know my body can do more, and I'm trying to keep my mind in the game by focusing on the fact that I want to be just like Jennifer Lawrence. Or Emily Blunt. If I could just be as tough as they are in The Hunger Games or Edge of Tomorrow, I'll feel like I reached my goal. I generally don't want to weigh as much as I do now, but I don't really have any set goals for weight loss. 

I did overdo it, however, in the week before I went to Oklahoma. I did push-ups 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, for about 4 minutes, and the next day, and for the week following, I couldn't scratch the spot between my nose and upper lip without leaning my head forward so my poor triceps wouldn't have to extend too much. The motivation is definitely there, but perhaps I can be slightly fanatical. 

I'm also trying to keep up my crafty streak that started at the end of last year. I organized some of my craft supplies at the beginning of the year and, as I have been every year, am consistently troubled by the amount of yarn I've accumulated over the years. I get yarn from friends who tried to take up knitting and quit, or from people whose grandmothers have died and left behind their stash. I've filled two suitcases with yarn and crochet thread. So, my goal is to knit and crochet my way through all of it, buying as little new yarn as I can manage until my current stash is gone.

I already ran into a hitch, however. I bought a skein of yarn from this great little yarn store in Edgewood last year and promptly threw it in a drawer to be forgotten about for a time. My brother-in-law gave me a book of knitting projects for Christmas this last year, though, and I found a project that I thought would be perfect for this particular yarn. I even weighed out the yarn to make sure I had enough. Unfortunately, I'm not the best about reading directions thoroughly. While, the pattern called for yarn that came in skeins smaller than the one I currently had, it called for multiple skeins. I missed the part about the multiples. Charlotte had shredded the tag that came with the skein so off I trudged to the yarn store that I had not been to, as I said, in over a year.

I walk in and tell the shopkeeper my predicament, and she gets a very knowing look and begins to chide me about how often people walk in saying exactly that. "I bought this yarn a year ago, and...." She is extremely helpful however, but unfortunately, while she still carries the brand, she has sold out of the color that I need. She gets her catalog and helps me identify the color I need and sends me off to order it online because she doesn't want to burden me with the shipping cost that she would need help with if she were to order it herself. So much for not buying any new yarn....

I also have been working on my "upcycling clothes" project and hope to make significant progress. Last year, I went to some thrift shops and purchased as many cheap dresses as I could. So far, I have about 3 wearable dresses, and I have about 20 unwearable ones that need some serious help. It's kind of a fun way to use awful clothes that nobody else will wear and create my own little fashion statement (if you can call it that). 

My last big goal is to read 52 books this year. I'm off to a good start, having already completed 5 and I'll probably write up little book reports on them as I finish. I always liked reading but hadn't quite figured out what it was that I liked to read until last year, so now, armed with some reading lists, I think 52 will be quite manageable.

I tend to pick goals that are easy enough to drop (literally) and come back to for those times when I see my little girl running toward me with a razor sharp instrument of death that I forgot to put out of her reach. (She's very tall for her age... Most everything is within her grasp if she puts her mind to it.)

Anyway, that's all for now! 

This blog is a collection of all of my goings on for this coming year.  I'm writing these things as a reminder to myself of the things I may or may not get done. And if you happen to find these particular things fun and interesting I'm writing for you, too.

I found a journal entry from the end of 2013 in which I outlined all of the ridiculous amounts of things I wanted to get done that year or just in my life in general. Most of those things required a huge amount of work to accomplish or to even be able to get to the point that I could begin to work on them. (Maybe I'll find the list and write it out some examples for you sometime.)

I realized even as I wrote the list that it would be impossible to complete in one year, let alone five years, so at least I was somewhat realistic in my expectations for myself. I think that kind of realism helped me survive the year and actually have something to show for it toward the end. Do you ever feel like there are too many things you want to do and not enough time? (All the time, right?)

A lot of the projects I want to start and finish involve things that I'm not particularly good at now, but that I would like to be better at. These are the most daunting, but I always want to try to improve in at least one of these areas (hence, this blog, which is helping me to write more). That's how I started my year last year, tackling something I wanted to get better at (or be able to do at all).

From January to March of last year, I spent time taking art classes and trying desperately to learn how to transfer images from my mind's eye to the page. I didn't actually get a whole lot done, but I got enough done that I feel like I could keep going if I tried. That made a huge difference in the amount of confidence with which I approached other work.

A giraffe that I painted for C's room. Pretty cute, eh?

I also made it a point to read. A lot. My journey through books over the past year is worth a whole book of writing in itself, but let me say simply that it changed the way that I view the world in almost every way. I read 40 books and nearly completed 2 more towards the end of the year (which I finished after January 1st and am counting towards my reading challenge for this year... is that cheating?).

At the beginning of 2014, my mother-in-law, who hand-blends tea and sells it in craft shows around the city (and will hopefully have a website soon!), asked me if I could make some tea cozies to sell for her Christmas show. I took her up on the challenge and designed and knitted/crocheted about 10. I decided to post them on Etsy as well, just to see how that sort of thing worked and to see if I could actually sell anything. I ended up selling 7! Five on Etsy and two at the craft show, and only one of them went to someone I knew! I felt pretty proud.

Merry Christmas stockings!

So, between reading, knitting, arting (not a word, I know...), and Etsying (also not a word), (not to mention housekeeping and caring for a 1 year old), I had a fun and busy year! Next post I will write about what I want to do this coming year! Stay tuned (if you want)!

In the meantime... What was your favorite thing that you did last year?