It’s almost the end of the first month of 2023. While some people feel like January is a long month (technically it is), I don’t feel like it drags any more than any other month. Granted, it shows up right after December which is full of things to distract us from the fact that it is also a long month. And, after the excitement of the holiday season, I guess I can see why people feel like January is a bit of a drag.
Personally, there is a lot to look forward to in January. Off the top of my head, I know of at least 10 friends or family members who have a birthday in January, myself included. January also serves as a good time to de-stress after the aforementioned holiday season. Those of us who participate in that season can find it to be more than a little taxing on the nerves due to the expectations that go along with the season and that feeling that there isn’t enough time to do whatever it is we need to do.
So, January should be seen as a welcome return to normal. A time to regain the calm or at least a time to return to trying to be calm. Also, it’s Veganuary, an entire month of vegan happiness. And that, readers, is my attempt at having a positive outlook.
One common practice that happens in January is people set out their New Year’s resolutions. I don’t do those. It’s pretty much a way to guarantee I won’t accomplish whatever it is I set out in the resolution. But maybe I’m not following the best practices set out by the New York Times on how to make and keep your resolutions.
What I have done is make a list of things I want to accomplish this year. Yes, I realise this is possibly semantics, but let me have this one. I want to think of it as a to-do list for the year. I’m quite aware I probably won’t be able to accomplish everything by the end of December, but that’s ok. The fact that I’ve made a list is a big enough deal for the woman who rarely makes a grocery list and routinely ends up forgetting oat milk or peanut butter.
This list comes from a phone conversation I had with a friend where I was saying I have a habit of buying books for my Kindle but only reading the most recently added ones resulting in a backlog of books I haven’t read but have purchased. I then compared those books to my yarn stash. (If you don’t know what a yarn stash is, this article does a fair job of explaining the term, even if I take exception to the idea that a stash is something to be hidden away, particularly from one’s significant other (but that’s a discussion for another time)).
After that conversation, I was determined to do something about both my book stash and my yarn stash, so the list was born — as were two spreadsheets.
The book spreadsheet is an inventory of all the unread books on my Kindle, in the order they were purchased. It gets a bit more detailed after that with a checkbox column for whether each book is in my Goodreads list (they are now!) and a checkbox for when they are read. The idea is to read the books in the order of the list. Any new book I purchase goes at the bottom of the list. The yarn spreadsheet is proving to be far more complicated, but I’ve already made great strides towards assigning patterns to the yarn that has been waiting patiently to be used for years.
Of course, I have other things to accomplish on my “Things to Accomplish This Year” list. Some I may discuss in the future. Hopefully, it will be far more exciting to read about than my list and spreadsheet creation. I will share that one very important item on the list is to write at least one blog post per month. So, while it’s cutting it a bit close, January now has a tick mark next to it!
Now it’s your turn. How was your January? Do you make resolutions? Let me know in the comments area at the bottom of the page 👇.
On My Mind 