Wrapping Up the Old Year

 

We are down to the final week of the calendar year 2022.

A lot of people make resolutions for the new year.  I am not one of them.  Over the years I found that a resolution was too rigid.  It didn't allow for Life Happening and then if I missed a day and/or 'broke' my resolution, I felt like I had failed and therefore it was over.  

Instead I think of goals.  

Goals are less rigid.  They allow for days when things go topsy-turvy, allow leniency without making me feel like I failed to keep a promise, even if it was only to myself.

Goals allow for mistakes being made, needing to fix them.  Or change the path I had assumed would be appropriate to meet my goal(s).

Goals recognize that sometimes things go smoothly, and sometimes?  They just don't.  They also allow for minor changes in how one arrives at the goal.

I have - for many years now - been working on weaving down my stash.  At times I have had to buy more yarn in order to use up what I have.  Seems counter productive, and yet?  I see holes on the shelves where there used to be rows of tubes of yarn.

My goals were further battered by people giving me *their* yarns.  In some cases I have given some of that gifted yarn away, but I have also managed to weave some of it.  

My latest 'purge' happened to coincide with needing to do a class project and, because I had acquired some yarn from another weaver, I didn't have to buy anything.  I won't use it all up, but a fellow guild member put out a call for yarn of that type for a guild class, so once I am done the class project later this week, the rest of the yarns will be boxed up and donated for classes.

I have always had daily goals and it is no different now.  I find myself motivated to get things done when I have a plan for the day.  As I age, those goals have had to change.  Instead of getting X done, I do about half of what I could manage even just 3 years ago.  

But because I have fluid goals (weave down my stash) I don't get upset if my plans need to change.  If I need to buy more yarn to use up what I have.  Pivot and do something else (like design, weave and write up a class project) while my larger goal sits for a few days.

So as 2022 wraps up, I look at my stash.  I see how *much* yarn I still have, but remind myself to see the empty spaces on the shelves where a lot more yarn used to reside.  

This week I will change my calendars.  I keep one for studio deadlines (teaching/zoom), my pocket calendar (personal appointments) and a calendar for the year beyond.  That last is much less important now that I am not traveling to teach and am not booking events that far in advance.  But I *am* booking zoom presentations to guilds, so I will keep that system going for a while yet.

Because one of my goals is to keep teaching, even if it *is* only online.  And who knows, maybe guilds will still do online presentations once they get back to 'normal' (whatever that is going to look like in the coming months/years.)