To all my friends – real life and internet 🙂 I hope your 2006 is filled with joy and growth.
New years resolutions have such stigma, but it seems natural to assess the preceeding year and look to the future.
Professionally:
I moved into a senior engineering role in early 2005. I achieved excellent results for funding of road safety projects in my region as well as putting processes in place to identify and advance high risk aspects of projects as early as possible.
In 2006 I want to become a better leader and I want to spend more time planning. That means making time to plan, even when my operational work load is enormous, no excuses.
Community:
In late 2004 I realised that I needed to become more involved in ‘living’ in The Valley. I had been here since 2000 but had managed to ignore the fact that I was here and not in Tasmania or not just about to uproot and leave to go to a better place.
In 2005 I made real and positive steps to become part of this community.
– I participated as a member of the advisory committee of the Regional Gallery.
– I became a member of the Spinners and Handweavers guild.
– Riscy and I play Touch Football every week.
– We are making more effort to eat/shop local mainly by buying meat from our local butcher and buying produce from the farmers market.
In 2006 I want to become a more valuable member of the Gallery Advisory Committee. I want to maintain my enthusiasm at Spinners and Handweavers, especially make an effort to learn from the other members as they have a lifetime of fibre knowledge.
Creatively
Early in 2005 I made a decision to make art as opposed to just being creative. I then took up spinning and knitting, so a huge portion of my life became devoted to learning craft and not a lot of originallity happened. I wasn’t totally happy with this outcome and in the later part of the year I made more effort to make art.
It was a hodgepodge year creatively as I explored so many mediums and ideas, but never settled on one. I stopped quilting. Quilting had been a huge part of my life for 2 years, and I stopped cold.
Even though I still feel like trying out everything, and going where the wind takes me. I know that I gain very little satisfaction from doing this.
So in 2006 I want to concentrate on creating art as opposed to ‘exploring technique’, well explortation will still continue, but with purpose.
– Quilting and embroidery. I’m coming back, no ifs no buts
– Printmaking. I want to consolidate some skills I learnt here and incorporate it into my fibre work.
– Knitting/spinning. This is definitly still a learning craft for me, I want to knit more lace and I want to overcome my fear of knitting a jumper LOL.
I have enrolled in the Geelong Textile Fibre Forum again in 2006. I’m going to do a shoe making course (so see I’ve already strayed from my plan… but I’ve wanted to do this class for YEARS, so I don’t care…)
Around the house
In 2005 I think I became a slightly neater person. Riscy does most of the cooking – clothes washing – lawn mowing stuff. I need to take more responsiblility for this regular house stuff. I’m great at organising stuff like getting the retaining walls replaced, getting an architect, finding a plumber etc Riscy is no good at this.
But 2006 I want to have a neat house, I want to have all my clothes put away I want the dishes done every day… I need to do this, even though it is tedious… the outcome is worth it, I know it is!
I tried flylady in 2004 and it worked great for about 5 weeks. We don’t have any clutter in our house so that is one good thing. But I want to establish everyday routines to keep everything in place. So I’m gonna start out simple and go from there.
In 2006 we will renovate our house.
Adventure/Fun
Riscy and I went Kayaking in Fiji this year. We went skiing for the first time. We spent two weekends in Melbourne feeding our cultural selves – going to the opera, concerts, dance, galleries etc. We went to the football.
In 2006 we are going to buy a kayak. And we are going to use it! I want to make sure that we have our kayaking trip with Nathan and Carol as planned.
We are going to go on an extended ski trip (possibly to New Zealand), do it properly and have lessons so we can really enjoy ourselves on the slopes.
Another exotic kayaking trip (possibly to Vietnam, maybe Vanuatu), I’d like to go to Vietnam so I can catch up with my Vietnamese friends.
Plan to have at least 2 weekends in Melbourne again.
Health
In 2005 I had reached my ‘goal weight’ of 67 kg and probably even lost a few more. It was a great relief as I had started out at 90kg two years earlier and was very unhappy because I couldn’t be as active as I wanted and it had got to the point where I didn’t recognise myself when I looked in the mirror.
It was also a relief to reach that goal because I didn’t like going to weight watchers. There was a new leader and she wasn’t good. I’ve managed to pretty much maintain my weight plus or minus 2-3kg, but I think I’ve gained body fat and lost muscle tone. My clothes are a bit snug.
In 2006 I want to get back into the routine of exercising daily. By riding my bike to work and walking our dog everyday. I don’t want to go back to a ‘diet’ but Riscy and I have come upon a plan to eat more salads and veges and really watch our main meal portion sizes. I think this will do the trick, and be good for our heath too.
And, just quietly, I need to get this irritable bowel thing sorted out this year. No procrastination on the colonoscopy.
This turned out to be a mammoth post. Thanks for being with me this year through my blog.
One last resolution… I’m gonna be a more conciencious blog commenter in 2006 🙂
