New Year Resolutions

I've been thinking recently about what I want to do with this year. Last year just vanished and I achieved virtually nothing, well not quite but it feels like I lost a lot of time. I've decided that I want to spend more time on the things I want to do, appreciate the good bits of my life more and focus on them and perhaps look after myself a bit, especially after all that's happened in the last few years ( look at one of those life events/stress tests and I covered most of them in the last few years).

1. In October 2005 we moved into our new house. Until now we've lived in rented places with magnolia walls and cream carpets. Being a new build house of course our new place has magnolia walls and cream carpets - AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!! So resolution #1 is that 2007 will be the "Year of Colour". I chose the colour for the spare room at the end of the year so that will be the first job. And I've already got tester pots for our room and have narrowed it down to a few choices of blue (why are the colours in the paint brochures nothing like real life?).
2. I have still never completed anything more than a bag for myself although I have one cardigan underway (Pampas) and another waiting in the wings (Kim Hargreaves kit). So this year I will complete 2 items for myself.
3. Socks - I am always so impressed with pictures of handknitted socks and would love to be able to produced something so amazing myself. I bought 2 Opel sock kits last year. These will be completed this year. And if successful a book purchase may follow.
4. My brave purchase last year was my sewing machine and this year it will be used for more than taking up one pair of jeans. I have been wondering about this book for a while now as I think it could provide a few interesting projects for me to attempt. This may be an early treat this year.
5. Another house one - as we were students for so long (7yrs for me) we still have that mentality and often buy things because "they'll do". This year I want to buy things that I love and that make my house more homely even if this means waiting longer. To start this off the hunt is on for a kitchen table (most are too large).
6. Creating a proper craft room/study. We have a small 3rd bedroom and at the moment this very much a dumping ground, so much so I often shut the door and pretend it doesn't exist. This year I want to buy a large work table so I have somewhere to produce cards again, sew and block knitting and hubbie can use it for his painting too.
7. Sleep - having moved so far away from work I have a long commute which results in being home late so I'm tired and everything takes longer to do so I'm late to bed and so the vicious cycle continues. If I sort this one out, including getting the train instead of driving some of the worst roads ever (including A14), there will be more energy and time to allow me to complete all my other resolutions. Perhaps this should have been #1.
8. And no resolution list would be complete w/o this one - exercise and eating well. Of course I want to lose weight but mostly I'd like to get fit enough so I could cycle the 4 miles to our local town and not have to queue for parking and fit everyone else that wants to drive everywhere.

Now I've written them down I have to keep them. I may have a resolution audit in the summer just to make sure I'm making progress.

On a quick knitting note a bit of exciting news. Purlescence are running a Story Tellers design competition and I was a runner-up in the "What would Cinderella Knit?" competition. This is very exciting as I've been knitting less than 2 years but also very scary as I know have to knit up the item and write a pattern. Have a look at the winning entries, their amazing. I can't believe how much effort people have made and what beautiful entries were submitted. You can definitely tell I'm an unartistic scientist.