Not much is making me happy at the moment, but this video (and song) really is
“i’m sorry if i accidentally implied
i’m sorry if i explicitly promised
i’m sorry if i swore on lives other than mine
my cat my dog my sister
i hope they’ll be alright”
I haven’t written my goals for the year here yet – a combination of trying to decide where the line is between pushing myself and setting myself up to fail by setting goals that are too strict or too ambitious plus using the majority of my energy up with working and fighting off winter germs.
I’ve also been struggling about how much I want to share of my “real” life here. This is both in terms of how vulnerable to make myself when discussing issues like my physical and mental health, but also how much I want to make certain facts public about myself.
On the flip side of that, I don’t want to present too much of a sanitised view of my life. I focus on the positives quite a bit here and a lot of what I share is only about certain topics. I guess I don’t want to give the impression that I am wafting my life away in a polka dot haze of instagram filters, whimsy and laughter. I can be twee as fuck but I also live in a pretty messy house, I can be quite lazy and slobby at times and I go through periods where it’s all I can do to scrape myself out of bed in the morning.
Anyway, on with my goals. My caveat to all of this is that I plan to buy a house this year, so a lot of my goals will be written with the knowledge that I will have that going on in the background.
Studying & learning
I want to carry on with my Japanese study and reach level 10 on Wanikani, as well as complete the Japanese for Busy people textbook and workbook. I’m currently about half way through level 3 which is the last free level. I’ve found it a bit hard to pitch a reasonable goal here as I have no idea how steep the learning curve will be once I start on the paid for levels.
I would like to attend at least one evening or day class where I learn a new creative or practical skill.
On top of this, I would like to take some drum lessons as I’ve really enjoyed drumming as part of the Wasp drummers in the last few months
Travel
I would like to go on one short break either in Europe or the UK with my Mum
I would also like to go away somewhere with Joe for a few nights
I would like to visit at least 3 cities or towns in the UK that I haven’t been before
Creating
I would like to complete the colourful crochet blanket that I have been working on. The majority of te squares are made for this, I just need to join them together and then crochet a border on them.
I would like to finish the o-w-l-s jumper which I recently re-started after leaving my previous version half finished for ages and being unable to work out where I was at on the pattern.
I would also like to try more general creative “stuff” by keeping a sketchbook of sketches, doodles and collages
Other
I’ve set myself the Goodreads goal of reading 70 books this year. For context, last year I read 98 (and my goal was 52)
This isn’t very quantifiable – but I want to cut down on the amount of time I spend on social media, particularly facebook as I find it both a time suck and something that doesn’t really aid my mood a lot of the time
Finally, I would like to work more towards having a space to live where I feel at home rather than just somewhere that all my stuff happens to be
Ah January, you are kind of a bitch. I’m struggling with my mental health at the moment. It’s nothing big, just January blues (at least I think) so I am trying to set myself small goals each day, find things to look forward to and plan lots of chill out time for my evenings and weekends.
I have got out of the habit of writing my Tuesday posts here but I wanted to make an effort to write in here again especially when it’s not always as easy to see the small positive things.
1. I wore this pin from Punky Pins today to work to cheer me up and remind me of the joy of coffee. If you don’t recognise the quote – it’s from Stranger Things – you can see a gif of the scene here. I’m looking forward to series 2 coming later this year and the pin is also a pretty good summation of how I like my mornings.
2. Even though I am not going to lessons any more, I am still carrying on with my Japanese study. At the moment I am using wanikani to start to learn kanji. The system they use really seems to work well and I like how from the start, you learn some useful kanji.
3. I’m still going to visit my squirrel pals when I am in the city centre. Last time I went looking for them, they were all hiding from the rain but I did see this trio of pigeons. I love their markings.
4. Look at my amazing scarf! I got it in the winter Pusheen subscription box (which was a Christmas gift) I wont go on about everything in the box but I will say that it is really good value and I’m so excited to get my other boxes through out this year.
Till next time..
I wrote about my goals for 2016 just over a year ago on this blog. I thought I would write a little about how those worked out before writing about what my plans are for this year.
Complete and pass my Japanese for beginners class – I finished my classes but I didn’t get the certificate as I struggled with the listening particularly. I’m still carrying on learning on my own though so it still feels like a positive
Renew my passport and plan a trip to see my friend Lisa in Tokyo in October – I did this! I still haven’t written up my trip. I was also lucky enough to go to Luxembough for a break with J which I hadn’t originally planned.
Grow my hair and get a fringe cut back in (I’ve tried to get away for it, but I always end up with fringe envy!) – Yup, my hair is slowly growing and I’m back to having a fringe (which is currently in need of a trim)
Take a second silversmithing class (This is something that I’m almost sure will happen because my Mum generously paid for this as my Christmas gift) – This actually didn’t happen because I didn’t seek out one to do as I got caught up with both work and my travel plans.
Have a massive overhaul of my possessions and our current house (ready for the next point) – I did this a bit but not as much as I wish I had (which means there is still a lot to do)
Keep saving towards buying our own place – Yup! I did this every month bar November and December
Carry on writing in this blog on a regular basis – ish! I mean, I didn’t write a lot but I did still post a few things here
Write another perzine and another issue of Rebel, Rebel – I didn’t make any zines at all in 2016 aside from a tiny mini zine about stationery that I made just before Weirdo zine fest.
Read at least 52 books (an average of 1 per week) – Yup! I read 98 books in the end
On reflection, I think I did ok. My year was personally a good one even though I felt upset, dejected and shaken at times by the state of the world and what seemed like a non-stop stream of bad news on a local, national and global scale.
Aside from getting to travel – I rediscovered a love for knitting socks, enjoyed watched iZombie, Crazy Ex-girlfriend and Gilmore Girls, drank a lot of coffee, got to hang out with friends at various events, went to a few gigs and also started walking a lot more.
2017 goals are currently brewing in my brain so I will write about those in the next few days