New Year Dreams

Happy New Year 2009!
I resolve to lighten up this year, physically and mentally, to smile more, to worry less, to write less about stress and bother and more about joy and accomplishment, and to make sure I'm living life rather than just photographing it for my blog.

It is my dream this year:

• To improve my kitchen
  
• To solarize my house
• To travel somewhere I've never been
• To not weigh 170
• To paint my living room/dining room
• To build shelves over the entry into the family room
• To either use or get rid of fully half my yarn
• To either use or get rid of fully half of my other craft supplies
  
• To move to the next level in my creative pursuits
• To run another full marathon
• To live more simply and scale down in all areas
  
• To make more bread
• To take more walks by the river
• To take a photo a day that shows something I've learned about photography
• To publish two of my knitting designs

So, something I think about a lot is the connection between dreams as a motivating power and practical plans bridging the gap to actual accomplishment. I perennially aim farther than I can actually shoot, meaning I sometimes get stuck because I dream too big. It is good for me to take the colors of a dream and use them to fill in the outlines of what is actually possible in my real life. Thus, I keep the sense that anything is possible, but then I actually go about the work of making things happen rather than staying in dream mode. I'm not stuck with a half-completed wall-sized fresco that doesn't fit anywhere when all I really want is a nice little watercolor to fill in a blank spot.

So, here are 12 goals relating to those dreams:

1. Paint my cabinets and get new hardware. Paint the walls of the kitchen along with the DR/LR and coordinate colors and accessories
2. Get a new countertop, most likely a mid-range laminate that can be had for a few hundred dollars rather than something more tony that would cost thousands. After all, the builder's grade laminate I have has lasted nearly 30 years, so it can't be that bad.
3. Build the shelves I want. They are already sketched, I know how to do it because I did the ones in my bedroom, and I think they will look great.
   
4. Train for the marathon. The race is in March. I know I can do that one, too, because I did it before.
   
5. Take more classes at the gym to jump-start my exercise routine and save me from boredom. They are already paid for in my membership and they offer a lot of variety.
   
6. Have a consulting session with Chesapeake Solar to see if our house is even a candidate. Also, talk to the Homeowners' Association to get a handle on whether or not it would even be approved.
7. Give away all my unopened stamps, and make one card a week to send to someone in my seminary class, a missionary or a friend.
   
8. Knit for two hours per day, and finish formatting all patterns in my library.
   
9. Submit something to Yarn Forward under the current call for designs
10. Submit something to Knitter's
11. Take a class from Penn Camera
12. Walk the dog every day down in the park