New Year "Resolutions"

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

Now, I realize that this is a couple days late, but I wanted to publish a post with New Years resolutions, and decided to think things over a few days. I don't often make resolutions at the beginning of each new year, but I've decided to start doing it, so that I have something specific to work on for the year and have a specific amount of time to complete goals in. New Years resolutions always seem to center around things like losing weight or getting rid of debt, and while I do have goals like this, they are on going and I'm not going to make resolutions like that. Sure, this year I definitely want to make sure that I stay healthy and definitely get rid of any debt I have (and more importantly not incur more), but these won't be my resolutions for the new year, they're ongoing.

 

Nope. This year, I am making goals that include skills to become more self-sufficient, knowledgable, and just to improve my overall quality of life. Some of them may seem small compared to others, but I find them all equally important, and I'm sure I'll end up adding more as I think of them, but here's a starting list:

 

Improve my sewing, knitting, and crocheting skills

Learn to use power tools (besides just a drill)

 

Expand my vegan cooking abilities

 

WRITE MORE

Learn to can

Expand my gardening knowledge

Build or buy a dehydrator

Grow and preserve as much of our food needs as possible for the year, and especially next winter

Shop local as much as possible

...and that's it so far...

Do any of you have resolutions for the new year that you'd like to share?
 

A Hat and a Rant

As I mentioned before, I sometimes have difficulty getting a normal amount of sleep at night and quite often end up waking up after an hour or two and can't fall back to  sleep for hours. Such happened a few nights ago, when I went to bed with a headache, then woke up at 3 in the morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. Normally, I end up just laying in bed for hours, waiting to doze off,  but this time I decided to actually do something with the extra time. As a result I ended up knitting a hat out of 2 of the skeins of yarns that I had just gotten. The picture I took of it didn't turn out great, but it does a great job of keeping my head warm and is really comfortable to wear. This is my first hat that I've knit from real wool, since in the past I've always used acrylic yarn, and I love the fact that the hat keeping my head warm is made from a fiber that used to be on the back of a living creature, then was hand sheared, carded and spun before I used it to knit my hat. I like that by buying this yarn, I was able to help support the economy of (somewhat) local farmers and artisans, instead of buying something that was made in some factory in China. I've never understood why people complain about the local economy and how it affects them, but then spend their money on cheaply made goods that weren't even made in this country. If we want to fix our economy, why not spend a little bit more money on fewer, better made products that benefit local businesses and, in turn, keeps that money flowing a little closer to home. I realize that this sounds somewhat hypocritical, because I purchase some of these foreign made goods, knowing full well what I'm doing, but I am also making the effort to do this less often, and I hope to eventually not do it at all. Sometimes it's really hard to buy local (I mean, where in Oregon can you buy local bananas?), during which instances I try to buy organic or fair trade certified. Sure, these items are oftentimes more expensive, but I think in the long run those few extra dollars I spend are worth it. Some people might not agree with my beliefs or practices, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I personally don't care if anyone thinks of me differently for what I believe.

And that is my rant for today, thanks for reading. :)

O Tannenbaum

So after waking up late, due to an abstract sleep schedule that makes me sleep for an hour at night and then wake up and not fall back to sleep for several hours (why I'm awake right now), my roommate and I spent the afternoon decorating for Christmas. We now have the tree up and fully decorated and the house smells like pine tree and cinnamon, partially due to these: 

On a different note, the yarn that I've been waiting to receive finally arrived today. I order three different skeins of yarn that consist of Lincoln, Alpaca/Shetland, and Romney/Angora wool. I'm excited to start a couple of new knitting projects, probably a hat and a scarf, and I'm especially excited to use the Lincoln yarn, because it's an art yarn that was spun so that some of the curls would still stick out and I haven't worked with something like this before. :)