fred_mouse

I'm half-arsing this. I'm finishing the year sore, fatigued, and not nearly as grumpy as I could be (given that this was going to be a study day, and I've declared that nope, it is a annual leave day, and now I'm working through a set of tiny low priority tasks).

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals. With going back to study, I didn't make as many of them as I'd like, and I stopped tracking them mid year.

• work - I set one goal - find work. I'm calling what I'm doing 'work', success
• craft - I set seven goals. I completed two of the 'finish this'. I attempted to start Middlest's quilt. There are no incomplete projects on the green couch because we cleared the couch. I am not looking at the red couch. Eldest's quilt is not done. I started a deal with UFOs project, but abandoned. Excellent progress, considering.
• reading - I set four goals. I bailed on the Hugo reading, and my but that was the right choice. I have met my books but not my pages goals; mostly because I started tracking online short fiction. I wanted to progress the various reading challenges on Storygraph; I'm intending to do a separate post on that. Good progress.
• house - I set 6 goals. The ramp and pergola required me to contact people; this did not happen. I made progress on the towel rail for the kids bathroom. The library is more useable, as is the craft room. Acceptable progress.
• music - I set 7 goals. I kept playing with Fledge. The rest fell by the wayside. I've certainly played some of the grade 5 descant pieces, but I've really struggled with the energy to play anything for more than five minutes. Bad match between goals and reality
• learning - I set three goals; I attempted nothing. Oops.
• family - I set no goals. Youngest moved home. Middlest moved out. Middlest got married. Middlest's partners bought a house that they will all be moving in with. I made an effort to spend time with all the local family. maharetr and I now have a very low key text based weekly catchup that provides us both with executive function; I have made attempts at having coffee with people Just Because (most recently, ariaflame, chaosmanor, maharetr). Despite no goals, I'm happy with the achievement.
• social - I set a half arsed goal about catching up with friends. I have been attempting to say yes to social things, although often falling in a heap. I have, however, caught up with a number of people I don't see often enough, not all of that at funerals.
• physical exercise and health - I set four goals. I achieved none. Park runs were doing fine right up to the point that something went wrong and then I couldn't deal. My sleep worsened, got better, worsened, and now I'm back to trying to pull it back before midnight again. Oh! I kind of did the walks in Perth - I didn't do one of the book, but we did find a wheelchair accessible one to do a couple of months back, which wa chaosmanor, maharetr, artisanat, and I.
• organisation - I have five goals, but the first one is ???, so I suspect a typo. All four real ones have been progressed but are all a long way from done. This is a disappointment, but I forgot I'd set them.
• decluttering - I set four goals. I achieved (mostly) one, successfully rehoming a significant portion of the yarn and fabric I wanted to.
• writing - I set 6 goals. I have mostly kept up the offline journal/morning pages; I wrote fewer blog posts here and none at anna_reads_science and not as many as I wanted at Tumblr. My two coding projects languished. I am disappointed, but unsurprised.
• garden - I set five goals and one stretch. The bird netting came off the grapes, but I can't claim that one. Some of the extra pot plants found homes. The rest required energy, motivation, and remembering, and these did not happen.

Overall - I achieved some things, and having a list was useful, at least while I remembered it was there. I started writing a new list mid-year, and never quite got off the ground. I struggle to work out how to track these things. I continue to not put energy into skills I value, not least because they take energy and focus, and it has been a difficult year for that.

(I was going to write about what I'm hoping for 2026, but that will be later, as Out Of Oomph)

I haven't been tracking this very well online; there is a facebook group that I've made occasional notes in. The plan mostly got ignored - more than anything I forgot that I'd made a plan.

Given that the overall goal was to empty the storage unit - we have made progress. I keep thinking 'another couple of weeks and we'll have space to move everything out' and it hasn't been true yet. I was tracking the item numbers and whether they have been dealt with - that worked for a while, and then we got to the ones where the older stickers had been used and half the numbers had fallen off, and I stopped attempting it.

But! having Middlest move out helped. Some of the craft supplies are in their old wardrobe, and some of the unsorted crates are in their old room. As is my desk, which meant that the table that was in the library has been moved.

In terms of the smaller tasks

1. two of the three fabric and yarn boxes have gone; the other is awaiting collection. done, kinda
2. repairs box triage - I don't remember which box that was, but I have a small pile of repairs, so maybe done?
3. assorted boxes of 'I have no clue' - there are fewer. I've gone through some and dealt with the contents. Some have been combined.
4. papers - nope
5. rehome tatting supplies - nope
6. itemise the craft projects - kinda. Enough that the next 100 days, which is 'make progress on WIPs' should go smoothly. Not all of them went in the craft space, but some did
7. rehome skates - nope; those are still in the storage locker
8. yarn swatches box - this has been sorted, and the pieces allocated to appropriate projects. Several damaged items have been frogged; there is one remaining.
9. furniture: the shelf that was in the storage room is now back where it belongs, as we aren't storing W's furniture there. The desk is to be rehomed.
10. trampoline - advertised, got no responses.
11. curtain rods - I know where they are going, but haven't done much about it. I have gathered all of the brackets, end knobs (what is the proper word?), and rings have been found, cleaned and put in a single closed box so that they can't get dusty again. Some need resealing, but basically I'll use the best ones first
12. Borderlands paperwork - not touched
13. slide projector - not tested
14. hammock - I think I found it, then put it somewhere sensible to follow up. Still not hung
15. thin the craft supplies - done
16. roller skates - have not used
17. dress up box - that which we are keeping is now hung up, the box has been repurposed, and I have a pile of costumes to rehome. in progress.
18. child table and chair - no decision made. I suspect the table will be set up as a coffee table somewhere, possibly in the library next to the bean bag.

I thought I'd set some annual goals, but I can't find the post. Possibly I drafted it, and I'll find it in one of the many places I stash such drafts. Instead, I'm working through everything I tagged with goal-setting or monthly-goals in 2024, to see how things went overall. I was not as reliable in this as I would have liked. *sigh*

(... I'm ignoring weekly goals, daily goals, and anything I forgot to tag, because I'm trying to keep this doable in the next hour :) )

• January goals and wrap up - I set work (application), reading, craft, and house goals (this was one where I grouped them!). I think I completed 4/10, but it was quite a chaotic month, and several were either abandoned or substantially changed.
• February goals - I set reading, craft, organisation, and declutter goals. I have made no notes on the success.
• November goals and wrap up - I set reading, decluttering, posting, writing, crafting, and organising goals. I achieved 4/7 and made progress on at least two.
• December goals - I set travel, reading, job application, organisation goals. I achieved 3/5, with some progress on the stretch goals.

I do like the goal setting as a way to track how things are going, and whether I'm actually doing a good job of being the person I want to.

Goal categories: work (applications), reading, craft, house, organisation, decluttering, writing. Missing categories: music. learning. garden. social. family.

January update (goal setting)

• work: I applied for one of the two jobs; the other I decided not to. I have found no other jobs to apply for. outcome: good
• books: I finished five, one more than the goal. Of the two I picked, I finished one and DNFed one. I did not get my currently reading down to 20. I did some of the reviews, and will add where that is at to the February goals. outcome: passable
• craft: I wrote 'the knitting'; I have done some knitting of existing projects. I have not finished the raincasting, but that was to do with waiting on supplies. outcome: good
• house: more than one trip to opshop; catalogue check is stalled. outcome: passable.

February goals

Nothing here for the 'work' category. Other than 'maybe find something to apply for'.

Books

1. finish four books. Possibly, but not necessarily
   1. Beowulf: A New Translation - Maria Dahvana Headley - earliest on currently reading
   2. The Round House - Louise Erdrich (library book, second attempt; I have got back to where I was when it was returned. Slow going because heavy topics)
   3. Work It Out: A Mood-Boosting Exercise Guide for People Who Just Want to Lie Down - Sarah Kurchak (library book, second attempt)
2. read at least one book acquired in 2024
3. get the currently reading to 20 (now at 24 with the above two added)
4. move book reviews from storygraph to librarything. I've done 2020-2023

Craft

1. progress the knitting (brown/green blanket)
2. finish the raincasting
3. chaosmanor's body pillow
4. crochet blanket (yellow/green/white acrylic)

other

1. progress catalogue check (finish compactus)
2. deal with the four boxes I brought home from the storage unit
3. (stretch) rehome all the high school text books

Bah. I have read more than one Aurealis story, but as more than a dozen of the 'still waiting' files turned up today, I now have 21 files in the unread folder. I have, however, updated the spreadsheet with the ratings I've done in the last week, and generally made sure I know what needs reading. I think this is either 22 or 23 stories, because one file has multiple. There are ~20 stories I haven't read. The ones I have should be doable this week, if I focus. The other 20, I hope will arrive this week, but I'm not holding my breath. Oh, and the 'there will be ten stories' -- all of those arrived today.

My other reading: I did some. I didn't finish anything but I did progress several. Very much a day where I was struggling to focus, because the house was full of people and even with the bedroom door shut it was still loud. Also skated the edge of a migraine, but while I lost some language and processing for a bit, it seems to have resolved without being a disaster.

Beyond that, I have done little. Tomorrow I have a chiro appointment, I also have to get some shopping done but argh, the shops will be full of people. Plus my chance of getting the shopping done before the appointment is effectively zero (the number of ducks required to line up so that I can be sure of getting done what needs doing plus then getting to where I need to be at 10:20 is Far Too Many) so I'm going to be hitting whichever shop mid-morning. aaaargh. If I could work out a solution that involved public transport, and had any hope of finding parking at the train station, I might. Alternative might be to be dropped at the train station.

.. the only other things I dealt with was the payment for Youngest's upcoming international travel. Which, argh, dealing with banks, and time zones, and Youngest not getting the message I needed them to pass on to me until after they had gone to training, and me thinking that the deadline was in Eastern Standard Time, not Western Standard Time, and thus I had two hours less to sort it out and and and and ...

I have concluded that the underwear I bought isn't quite right. It wants to sit on my waist, where it is too high and the legs part too short, so it isn't comfortable under skirting. And under trousers it pushes on my lower back and hurts. I might try getting a size up, and seeing if they work. Then again, I suspect that the 'riding too high' is because I have a wide pelvis and a much smaller waist, and a size bigger will still slide that way. Definitely not today's problem.