NaBloPoMo #1: The one with the numbers

Autumn is, by some distance, the worst time of year for me, but I’ll grant you that the light is beautiful at the moment.

I am, I will admit, a last-minute person. I always have been and probably always will be. It’s why I’m better at exams than coursework, good in a crisis but always behind on the day-to-day, and why I sort of love the last-minute-Christmas-present thing. It just works for me.

It’s also why, despite planning to post every day in November, roughly outlining what I want to write about each day, and spending the best part of a week writing blog posts in my head, I’m actually sitting down to write this at 3.30pm on 1st November. Not having posted in a while, I’m out of the habit, and with so much to say, making a start is almost overwhelming. So I’ve fallen back on my trusty lists to see how many of my 2015 goals I’ve actually managed. I’m not going to go through them all in detail, just pick out a few highlights.

WINS

I haven’t read this one yet, but it’s on my list!

12 books finished – Yes! And more! This has been the year I’ve definitely got back into reading, mostly through audiobooks, but a few paper ones as well. It’s been the big success of the year for me, as I used to be a voracious reader and lost the habit over the last few years. I’ve refined my podcast choices, upped my book list, and am very happy with the result.

2 thumbs healed – So close. I’m so close to this one. After 20-ish years, my thumbs are almost back to a normal shape and size. It’s taken will-power, concentration, and a lot of ups and downs, but I’m delighted with the progress.

LOSSES

This beast was started last Christmas, and I’m determined to have it ready for our bed on 1st December. For scale, it’s almost as wide as I am tall.

Anything to do with sewing – this has been a yarn year for me, definitely. My sewing machine has been sadly neglected, as in the bad patches that I’ve had, setting up has just been too much effort. I need to think about this for next year, because getting it out and sitting down to sew yesterday made me very, very happy. Somehow I need to combine ‘having things ready to sew’ with a new-found need for tidiness around the flat. So there’s some quilts, and I think some bags, but none of my dressmaking goals. Ah well.

Anything to do with contacting people – I’ve sent some birthday cards, and a few emails, but this has been something of a hermit-ty year for me. Given how much of a slog much of it has been, that’s not really a surprise, but it’s hard re-making contact casually when you’ve lost it for so long. I’m not counting Christmas cards towards this one, as that seems like cheating! On the other hand, I’ve been using Facebook to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in ages, and that’s been lovely, so not a total loss.

All in all, it’s been a mixed 10 months. There have been some real lows, mental-health wise, and some real successes, especially around my personal organisation (it turns out the secret to getting things done is ACTUALLY DOING THEM. Who would have thought??). In the run down to Christmas (oh shush, I’m looking forward to it!) I plan to do a lot of making, more sorting, and to start up some of the good habits now that I want to carry into next year. It’s going to be a busy 2 months until January. Time to get organised!

Anyone else planning on blogging every day in November? Or are you NaNoWriMo-ing? The goal of that is to write 50,000 words in one month, and I’m going to go for 25 blog posts in 30 days. That’s technically not the full NaBloPoMo, but with 2 weekends already booked out, and signs of things getting busier – and the fact that I haven’t posted since August! – that feels like an achievable stretch. And if I do manage every day, even better!

Here’s a sample of some of what I’ve been up to since I last saw you, and I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone this month.