Annual Attempted Self-Improvement-Palooza

Yeesh, time flies!

I had actually forgotten that I'd made any resolutions for last year - thanks, sieve-for-a-brain! - but I managed to do OK, OK here defined as 'achieving my usual 2-out-of-3-ain't-bad success rate'.

I cocked up a few times but my punctuality is better - success!

I did not manage to detach myself from the internet to the degree I'd have liked - dang!

I did do a comic for every day of last year - extra success! - and have decided to keep it up because it's fun :-)

So the attempt to be less internet addicted rolls on as a non-resolution task and here I am, faced with a brand new year.

Hrrrmmm...

What to resolve...?
 OK, here we go.

• Resolution The First: Start Getting Into Gardening Properly
  I have gotten excited about gardening before here, here, here and here but despite my noble intentions I've mostly been doing maintenance fiddling rather than planting anything new or learning anything particularly advanced in the gardening skill set.
  So this year I'm going to buy some plants and then do my level best to keep them alive.
  As I'm doing this resolving in summer this means that there's some things I won't be able to plant until winter/spring but if I manage to plant anything at all I'm going to count that as a success.
  Even if it's a collection of herbs and a tomato plant in a pot grown on my balcony at the flat.
  
• Resolution The Second: Read A Book A Week
  I started recording what I was reading in 2009 and depending on what I was up to that year I got through a varying number of books.
  28 in 2009 (I started keeping the journal in June).
  73 in 2010 (By far the most successful year).
  34 in 2011 (Hey, woah, what happened there...?)
  21 in 2012 (WHAT!?)
  So yes, this year I want to ratchet the reading back up again.
  New stories, new knowledge, new writers to admire, more inspiration.
  I'm going to aim for 52 books, with the loose goal of a book a week and if I manage more than that then I'll just get to be smug about it.
  
• Resolution The Third: Start Sewing
  Remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric I bought?
  This year it is becoming quilts.
  It is becoming at least three quilts and then depending on how obsessed I am with quilting by that stage I'll either make the rest of the material* up into quilts for later** or put the material aside to make the quilts when the time is right.
  I want to try making clothes as well. I've put myself off in the past by imagining getting the measurements wrong and making clothes that don't fit or just cocking up and ruining the material.
  I look at lovely material and hate the idea of screwing it up by cutting it out wrong or ruining it somehow but I'll never learn if I don't squash that aversion down and just let myself make some mistakes.
  

* I bought so much material. 2 m of each of the... maybe 7 patterns?

** Later = when people have babies