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?