2013: The Year of Getting Things Done

Now that I've finished "My Big Fat Irish Vacation," I can finally Move on to what I've been working on since oh, about mid December. I've never been much for New Year's Resolutions - the whole New Year's thing has always struck me as rather contrived. But this year, I made myself a real live Resolution. Namely, Get Some Things Done.

By "Things," I mean finish the unfinished things that are lying around the house in one form or another and making me feel bad. The key to getting on the list of Some Things To Be Done is to be 1) an unfinished thing and 2) and unfinished that is annoying me. By "Done" I mean either completed, sent to Goodwill, trashed, or broken into component parts, unraveled, or whatever it takes to make it Over With. The blog account of my Irish vacation has been one of these Things To Be Done. And getting that done has been Step One. Well, sort of. The Public Step One. There are other things as well -

Some knitting

The red piece is the "Peddlar's Shawl" from Cheryl Oberle's book "Folk Shawls." I've been working on it since oh, about 2009 or 2010. Got into trouble about the time I was supposed to get off the garter stitch section and onto the lace border - though now I've a LYS (Local Yarn Shop) that should be able to help me out. The other two are much more recent - my first attempt at a pair of socks and a "Seriously Simple Shawl" that was suppose to teach me how to knit lace and read a chart. What they mostly taught me was that is is a Really Bad Idea to take two knitting classes at the came time. A Very, Very Bad Idea.

Some paintings, various mediums....

The dogs belong to some friends and were due last Christmas. The other two, well, let's not talk about how long they've been floating around. The crystal bowl of strawberries in the still life has been thwarting me, and the owl, well, that one may have to be completely re-designed. We shall see. It may wind up being sanded down and turned into a drawing before it's all over.

Weaving...

 This picture is just of one part of the tangle the warp got into; I didn't show the rest for fear of frightening the little children. I have been working on it, and it's actually all smoothed out and I am re-threading it - for the third time! This had better be the most beautiful Valley Forge Dogwood scarf of all time!!!

Some stitchery

I don't recall how long these have been floating around, but they deserve to be completed.

Even some home maintenance.

I started this stencil long ago, got about half way, and realized that I was going to have to stand in the kitchen sink to do the next part - which would be disastrous for me and the sink. I am determined that I am going to figure out how to either get that segment done so I can complete this thing, or paint it over and Forget About It! And get that roll of painter's tape off the cat shelf.

There are other things as well, some less photograph-able, some with a bit less priority. But while I am one of the most easily distractable people on the planet, my goal this year is No New Projects until I get some of these old ones out of the way. It's another form of de-cluttering really, finishing what I've started.

 The posts at first will come thick and fast because for a little while because while I've been working intermittently on the Ireland posts, I've also been working somewhat more steadily on some of these other projects. As the posting catches up with the work, it will slow down. But it should be an interesting ride, so see how much of this mental list I can get through - or will I make myself "mental" along the way?