+JMJ+

In a few hours, 2024 will be dawning. 

It's hard to wrap up an entire year in one blog post. But I'm going to attempt it now. Here we go! 

A General Update 

2023 was a roller coaster for me. My biggest life change was changing from working part-time at night to working full time in the early part of the day in the beginning of the year. Practically overnight, my schedule flipped upside-down and it was very difficult to get it settled again. 

Because of my schedule, I had to let go a lot of my volunteering. I slowly backed off of my involvement in my professional organization, with my roles ending completely in the fall. I also changed my role with my YAG, stepping back from communications to a regional chair/mentorship role. I even stepped away from choir for nearly six months to allow myself time to get my schedule clear. 

This major change also changed how I allocate my time for leisure and writing. Using a screen at work and heavy information overload has negatively affected my muse's willingness to work. Early nights also has not allowed for long writing sessions, nor even for projects such as the garden. Therefore, I've been focusing on my crafting projects.  

Goals for 2023

Last year, I created a short list of goals that were supposed to hit various aspects of my life. My biggest accomplishment this year has been the procurement and restoration of a spinning wheel. This was a pipe dream that I had no clue was going to come true this year. The restoration especially was surprisingly easy and was much faster than I had anticipated.

But how did I do with the rest of the goals? 

2023 Spiritual Goals

- Daily spiritual reading, er, podcast. I started listening to the Mystical City of God in a Year podcast in the beginning of 2023. I was really good about listening to it every day for the first half of the year. Then the podcast stopped updating for a few weeks because Father Looney experienced some ill health and I dropped the habit. Since I do better with visual stimulation than auditory, maybe next year, I'll do some ACTUAL spiritual reading, lol. 

- Divine Office. I have been really good about keeping up with praying Prime and Compline. I've switched to doing the traditional version for both for consistency. I have not added on any hours like Terce or Vespers. 

2023 Food Goals

- Making Bread once a week. I made this goal with the idea that I would be employed in part-time work for more time than I anticipated. Within a month of 2023, I was employed full-time, which left me no time or energy to make bread as I used to. So I gave up the goal within the first month. 

- Use old seeds for the garden. This was meant as a de-stash of the family seed collection. While we didn't use all of them for the family garden this year, we were able to use some! 

2023 Practice Goals

- Practice French. Again, this was a good goal for the first half of the year. My record was a 161-day streak of practicing my French. However, Duolingo and I increasingly grew at odds and I finally deleted my account around Thanksgiving. I haven't found another practice tool to use yet, but I hope to find one at some point. 

- Practice music, both dulcimer and choir. Neither goal was attained. Once I got my full-time job, I had little time to devote to music. I actually dropped out of choir for several months because it was just too much to handle with work.  

2023 Crafting Goals

- Mums Afghan. I've been working slowly but steadily on it. I've currently got two and a half rows of the afghan completed. I've had to make a few color changes because of my yarn supply. I was recently gifted some more purple yarn, which I'm excited to incorporate into the design. I plan to continue working on this in 2024, so we'll see what progress I make then! 

- Scrappy quilt. I successfully completed this goal in the spring of this year! I wrote a post documenting the journey HERE. 

While it has been disappointing to see many of these goals either scrapped or little progress, I'm not too upset. As we all know, having set plans doesn't mean that they will be followed to the letter. 

Goals for 2024

Unlike last year, I decided not to pursue any hard goals relating to my spiritual life, food, garden, or practicing this year. With my job situation being so volatile, I need a little more flexibility. Crafting goals seem to work out the best, so here's what I'm hoping to accomplish next year: 

- finish processing my gray wool

- make a set of scrappy placemats (a destash project) 

- continue working on mums afghan and floral wreath embroidery projects

- completely reorganize my crafting spaces

I'll re-evaluate these goals in about six months, adding or taking away goals if I need to. 

In other news, I have a new page specifically devoted to my craft projects!! Similar to a WIPs page on a writing blog, this page will feature progress updates and some visuals relating to the projects that I've been working on. It's now live, under the About tab. 

And I think that wraps up 2023! I hope and heartily wish that you all have a blessed New Year! 

God bless, 

Catherine