New Year Intentions

Almost two weeks into the new year, and I am still slowly thinking about the ups and downs of 2014 and what I hope to work on in the coming 11.5 months. I don’t make resolutions generally. I always hope to do all of the regular things, like save money, be healthier, read more, etc. I hope to do all of those things this year, of course, but I also have a few other intentions, things that I hope to work on right now.

Last year I put most of my energy into my professional life. I spoke at professional conferences, collaborated on a paper for publication, served on two professional committees, and transitioned from a position more in the area of public humanities into a new job as an archivist, doing exactly the work I went to grad school to do. I love work, and I love working hard, but this year I hope to work at enjoying more leisure time. More reading for fun, more board games, more coffee with friends, etc.

ETA with regard to reading, I should add that beyond the annual quantitative goal of reading 50 books, my major objective this year is to read more diversely, in every sense.

As for knitting, I have a goal that maybe most knitters have this time of year, which is to knit primarily from stash. I have a lot of yarn. And admittedly, I have a lot of really nice yarn. I have gone through multiple destashes  and am left with only yarn I do truly want to use, and so now the only thing left to do is really knit it. My plan of attack is fairly simple. I know I won’t go a whole year without buying yarn (that’s no fun), but I thought that at least these first three months of the year, I could knit entirely from stash. I have a few sweaters in progress, and projects lined up for a lot of other yarn. While it’s cold out, I’m just going to enjoy shopping my stash and rediscovering some old treasures while I enjoy lots of tea and Netflix. You may have noticed that my goal cutoff is right before the Webs anniversary sale in spring. I’m not claiming to be great at goals. But I hope that working with my stash for a few months without the distraction of new yarn will serve as a sort of reset on my buying habits. My knitting attention span has been pretty bad lately, but going through my stash shelves has gotten me pretty excited about knitting again, so I’m looking forward to these next few weeks. Anyone else have any stash-busting ambitions this year? I’m always curious how others accumulate and work through their own yarn.