2010 restrospective

New Year's Day seems to be a rather quiet day. Perhaps because so many of us are fighting hangovers from the debauchery of the night before. But there's also a reflective quality in the day. I looked up my resolutions and goals for last year, and it's interesting to reflect on how far I've come in the past year.

For arts and crafts, I wanted to continue knitting and crocheting, which I didn't do. But I did sew: curtains, pillows, tote bags, stuffed animals, yoga mat bags. I had fun with it and I'm still enjoying it, and I'm confident that I will keep it going. I have a long list of projects, including curtains for my bedroom, new turntable curtains, tote bags for friends, and more stuffed animals. Plus, I do want to learn to knit, still, and make hats, scarves, and fingerless gloves. Plus, I became a better photographer this year. And looking back at my photos, I realized that I'm quite hard on myself, but I've done some good work this year.

I went further with my garden/homestead than I'd originally planned, but in many respects I also fell short. I have dried tomatoes, figs, and chanterelles, but nothing canned from my garden. I do have frozen kale and berries, peach jam, apple butter, and green tomato chutney. I have garlic bulbs wintering in stockings in the basement. We have drunk most of my own chamomile, and we haven't bought eggs since June or July. This year, I want to grow even more teas and herbs, more lettuce, peas, carrots, beats, leeks, tomatoes, garlic, etc. My bees need more management, so I will need to take some classes and do some work with them this year that may involve collecting wax and making some candles and finally harvesting some honey. Fingers crossed! My hens are fat and happy, and my garden sleeps under blankets of straw from their coop. My compost is lush and wonderful.

As for career goals, I got my full-time teaching job! At the school that I most wanted to be working at! That's been everything, really, having a job that I can put my heart into and apply my creativity and love of reading and writing and education. I can be organized and analytical and creative and weird. I can sing songs to my freshmen about conjunctions, and I can ask my juniors to create their own class agenda. Time to rev up. Back to work on Monday!

If I were to set some goals for myself for 2011, they would be to grow as an educator and continue my work with rewriting the way we grade and measure our students' progress, to create a book club with a few fellow book-loving friends, to learn to knit, to keep on sewing, and to grow another wonderful garden with happy honey bees and plump egg-laying chickens. Plus, I want to backpack and camp, including biking around the base of Mt. Adams and then summit in a two to three day adventure!

 

Happy new year!