New year, new ideas

I love January.

Ever since I became a Gretchen Rubin fan, I like to think about goals, rather than resolutions, when the calendar flips over on a new year. She’s an author and podcaster who writes about habits and happiness, and I’ve gotten some good tips from her work.

One thing she suggests is to write a list of goals you’d like to achieve in the following year - she picks a number of goals that corresponds to the year - 22 goals for 2022, and 23 goals for 2023. Some of mine are big, like “write in my journal every day, and some of them are small like, “Clean off the top of my dresser.” 

It’s even OK if some of them roll over. I’ve been putting off some really tedious personal paperwork since 2021, which I am sure will involve me sitting on hold for hours, but as long as it’s on my goals list, I know it’s still out there. 

Out there like an iceberg in the night, and I’m the Titanic, but that’s another problem for another self-help book.

Some of my goals are the usual kind that I think a lot of people like to set - eat vegetables every day, move more, read more (scroll less) - but I like to think about my knitting goals too.

This last year, I wanted to get some sweater quantities of yarn out of my stash and turn them into sweaters, which I did. Two! Both of them came squeaking in with December finishes, but it still counts.

I wanted to knit three items for donations and for charities. I ended up knitting more, and so next year, I’m going to aim a little higher. 

Looking ahead, my "23 in '23" list has a lot of skills I’d like to learn. I want to learn how to fix mistakes in two-color brioche, other than “rip it out and start over,” which is fine if I’ve knit an inch; less fine if I’m about to bind off. I’d like to improve my skills at darning, mending and sewing knits together. I’d like to learn how to do the Norwegian purl.

I have a cabled sweater I started that I’m going to finish. And then I’d like to make one for my partner, because the one I made him years ago is fraying and falling apart.
Maybe that’s going to be at the top of the “24 in ‘24” list.

How about you? What kinds of things would you like to try in 2023? Let us know if the comments.