I don't do New Years resolutions. Normally. And just to spite myself, I kind of formulated a plan for 2011, which I knew I wouldn't exactly follow through, it was more about reminding myself what I would like to do at one point in time. Needless to say, I haven't looked at the list until today. So, for a bit of fun, how badly did I fare?
1. Get chickens.
No chickens. There are reasons, and these go a bit deeper than the categorical refusal by Mr Cartside. While my other half is convinced our garden is too small, I'm pretty sure we could do it but I have to accept that it would mean that this would be the only use for our garden. No space to run about for the kids, no option to grow more veg. No compost heap even. While the kids are small, I think I'll postpone the chicken plan for a while. Cubling still absolutely wants chickens and now says we need to move house...
2. Grow more food.
I did. Rather than one raspberry, we had a constant supply of berries, though I still managed to lose half of my plants. Green fingered I'm not and it's not for want of trying. There were some successes though - lettuce, tatties, beans, peas some soft fruit and even the occasional spinach, garlic and onion. I think I got one tomato from my 3 plants, not sure if tomatoes are worth my while in the future...
3. Buy less in general. Buy with less packaging. Buy more ethically. Buy more handmade. Avoid plastic
Tick. My clothes are falling apart though and after a year of buying zilch, I think I need some clothes at least.
4. Make all greeting cards.
Almost. I made most cards, but because I'm not that organised, some people went without (sorry) and I admit to using a blogger freebie to get 50 customised Christmas cards sent to me. To be fair though, there's no way I could make all the Christmas cards we sent, it was 80 at the last count.
5.Learn 3 new things (high in the list of contenders are crocheting, basket making and wood turning, but it may be something totally different)
I learned how to crochet, basket making and candle making. There are no wood turning workshops to be found though I'd still like to learn this. So this is pretty much a tick.
6. Declutter.
Well, I tried. We got loft insulation and that meant I halved my personal rubbish stored in the loft. Managed to part with some books, and not buy too much new stuff, but it's still pretty cluttered which I blame entirely on having two kids...
7. Get back to a size 12. Yes I'm shallow. I want to fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes. I think I only need to continue breastfeeding and should get there (I'm one of the lucky ones whose weight just drops off magically while breastfeeding)
Fail. I had it all going for me, because yes, after 4 months of exclusive breastfeeding Snowflake I was back to my post pregnancy weight which was a license to eat as much cake as I fancied. I still do but am no longer exclusively breastfeeding. Go figure.
8. Learn how to use Lightroom.
Tick. Of course there's more to learn but I can and do use it and have made some funky photo edits with it.
9. Reduce my carbon footprint.
It would help if I had some sort of calculator for this, but I did reduce it somewhat, especially if we take out the first 6 months of the year (no air travel in the latter half). I learned a lot about what has the highest carbon footprint and at least I now know how bad air travel actually is. If I had my way, I'd probably never use a plane again.
10. If I can find an illustrator, I'd like to create a simple bilingual German/English toddler book. You don't happen to be an illustrator? You see, I've had this idea for a long time but can't draw for the life of me.
Fail. I didn't even try.
So that makes 3/10 fail, 2/10 so so and 5/10 tickety boo. Better than I thought I'd fare. Quite a fun exercise too, I might even do it again.
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