« my new daily commute | Main | dorkitude »
of flesh and blood I’m made
January 5, 2010
Here is my 2009 überlist wrap-up. Every year I write down my list of goals in the front of my year-of-the-what datebook, then promptly forget to ever check the list, pretty much ensuring that only the ones that are actually important to me get done. This year it was worse: I spent the year up against a profound creative block that I couldn’t shake, and even though I had the time to devote to my studio work, I didn’t have the energy or the emotional fortitude to take advantage of my situation. So the items on the list that were the most important, those that were work related, did not happen. As well, most of the work around the house type stuff didn’t happen. This year I’m going to repeat some of last year’s goals in hopes of really getting all new-leafy for reals this time, and I’m also going to try and make the list as a whole more realistic. As for the creative block: I have a feeling my new job is going to have a great impact on getting rid of that, and allow me to focus my energies on my studio practice again.
Because I want to dwell on the positive here (in fact, I think I’ll put that at the top of 2010′s list), I’m only listing the items I accomplished. All the others are just dust in the wind as far as I’m concerned. I’m also going to give myself half points for a few that I half-accomplished. As incentive!
Goals I met in 2009:
1. no refined sugar for at least a month: half points, because I don’t know if I ever managed to go a whole month in a row without slipping at all (I do occasionally use a small amount of sugar, usually demerara, in cooking), but I did limit my sugar intake to pretty close to nothing all year.
7: 365 days flickr project: I did that, and ended up mostly hating it. In fact, I think it killed my other picture-taking-and-posting activities. I missed a lot of days but I’m still taking the point for sticking it out even after I was completely done with it in my mind.
9: use chopsticks once a week for practice: maybe not every week but pretty close to it, and often several times a week.
12: eat more greens (2 x or more a week): yup.
13: drink more whiskey: hell yes.
18: clean up my work table: Points for doing it once, since I didn’t specify otherwise. I did not, however, get points for the following item, which was to keep it clean.
21: try a new recipe from every cookbook we own: half point. I tried a lot of new recipes this year, some of them from books I hadn’t really cracked before. I tend to rely more on my favourite vegan food blogs for new recipes. I’m going to try this again for next year.
23: organize my fabrics and sewing stuff: It didn’t entirely stay organized, but I did do it in tandem with the filing cabinet clean-out.
30: update in progress section of website: done. Needs to be done again, though.
32: clean out basement built-in shelves (painting stuff): half point, since there are two equal-sized sections (one with doors, one without) and I fully cleaned out and organized the part with the doors. Which, unfortunately, is not the part where the painting supplies are kept.
33: get the rest of my student work onto flickr (spring 2008 lithography class)
34: water plants every week, no forgetting!
37: clean out filing cabinet
39: get a job: I did indeed get a job: a full-time limited term faculty position at Nipissing University for the spring 2010 semester, teaching two drawing classes and a printmaking class. I started yesterday!
59: finish wallpaper in bathroom: the sections I started were finished, and since it’s not my decision alone I deferred to Peter when he talked me into only papering the one wall because we don’t know when we’ll rip out those walls but we’d like to do it as soon as possible. I’m taking the full point, because I never put “don’t make inconsistent and arbitrary decisions” on my list.
63: make a new shower curtain: done. It looks exactly the same as the old curtain, but the problem was with grunginess, not with design.
65: have a picnic in a park with Peter: we don’t do this as often as I’d like but we do it once in a while, usually on trips when we don’t want to eat highway food. For 2010 I’ll aim for some picnics that are strictly for fun and not for convenience.
67: shoot a roll [of film] with the Canon AE-1: I shot two, one colour and one black and white, at Pennsic. Both are sitting unprocessed in the fridge.
69: shoot at least one roll of film with one of the other old cameras we have (the Brownies?): I did not use any of the Brownies, but I did shoot a couple of 12-exposure rolls of old Kodak Instamatic film that I found in Peter’s mom’s basement, expiry date 1976. Both were shot at Pennsic, one with an Instamatic that used to belong to my grandparents, the other in one that was Peter’s grandparents’. I’m not sure yet if I can even get it processed, since it’s colour film. They’re currently in the fridge.
70: join the Printmakers Forum board
71: join the Artcite board
73: get my next tattoo
78: can something I’ve never canned before: picked cauliflower, pickled rutabaga, peaches!
79: go see In the Pocket at the Vic tavern: we did, once or twice. As they play there every week, I’d like to go more often. In the Pocket is a sweet little blues/r&b cover band from Detroit who have been playing Saturdays at the Vic for years. Their signature song is Purple Rain, and you wouldn’t believe how hard they rock it.
80: host 4 dinner parties: half points because I can only remember two. But they were super fun, so this will be on next year’s list too.
82: go to the eye doctor: new glasses!
83: get hair cut at least 4 times (in order to grow it out awesome instead of growing it out gross like last time)
91: shred old files
95: organize craft materials
104: construct features for the front garden (metal bars, helms, hippo): half points. Nothing got built or installed yet, but we spent some time in thrift stores amassing a fantastic collection of plastic dinosaurs and ceramic squirrels, currently in the basement waiting to become lawn ornaments of awesomeness.
105: disassemble the back deck: this was a joint effort: Dylan took out a lot of the boards for us and then Peter and I knocked apart the rest together. Now we are down to the original back porch, which is really as much porch as we need. Now to plan the patio!
107: knit up the leftover yarn from finished socks into blanket squares: half points. I still have some scraps but I did make a heck of a lot of squares.
Total score: 29 out of 109, or 27%. In the antiquated Beverly Hills 90210 scoring system my datebook offers, 29 points makes me a Kelly: “You accomplish a fair amount without much effort, then spend all your free time patting yourself on the back. It’s annoying. Also, you’re boring and nobody cares what you think”. Yup, sounds about right.
In a couple of days I’ll record here my all new list of smaller, more easily achievable goals for 2010. Because the level of boring self-absorption on this weblog isn’t nearly high enough (put it on the list!).
Posted by jodi on January 5, 2010 at 10.35am
Categories: navel gazing, überlist
Comments on "of flesh and blood I’m made"
I think you should get double points for the tattoo (for being really pretty and awesome) and double points for the glasses (also for awesomeness).
Posted by grace on January 5, 2010 at 11.13am :: link