2008: The Year of Keeping it Simple

Recently I read a self-help book (well, skimmed—I never really “read” self-help books, I just skim, mentally editing and extracting the gold, which can typically be stated in a single pithy paragraph, and which I ought to think about sharing with the world, really. Wouldn’t you like that? All the world’s most truly helpful self-help, trimmed of all the stupid, transparently fictional examples, hoary parables, and assorted filler? Anyhow.) on “Goal-free Living”, and despite that, and the fact that I haven’t made resolutions for years, I have done a little planning for 2008, my Year of Keeping it Simple. I have set these goals:

1. To walk daily for one hour
2. To take yoga twice a week
3. To eat sweets a maximum of three times a week
4. To establish and follow a sustainable housework routine that is shared equitably amongst family members
5. To declutter the whole house from top to bottom, big to small
6. To have two weeks worth of healthy menus for each season
7. To recode all my organization’s websites to modern web standards
8. To finish all the insurance beneficiary paperwork I’ve been sitting on a long time
9. To be truly helpful to my son with his schoolwork, and not a taskmistress
and
10. To knit from stash, unless I run out (unlikely!), or unless I go to Rhinebeck or Taos. (I’m following Stacie’s Rules.)

And I’ve been doing pretty good! Somewhere I turned a corner. I’ve been getting up and meditating every morning—well, that's been true a long time—but then I decide what the day’s three most important things are, and that's all I commit to. Keeping it simple. I’m going to yoga because I want to, not because I should. Same with the healthy menus. The housework and schoolwork routines have been absolutely transformed, just by changing a couple little tiny things (ask me sometime).

Have you all been looking at the Purl Bee? I adore the way they style the knitting photos with a fabric background. Of course, they have plenty to choose from. But so do I! Big ol stash of thrifted vintage fabrics, right here! The one above I found at the Wellfleet thrift this Christmas. Lovely stuff. And Joelle’s Favorite, as you can see, should soon be done.

If only I had finished it yesterday, it would have been seasonally appropriate. I’m sure New England is headed back to the deep freeze any moment, though.