BEFORE MARCH – JOB

BEFORE MAY – G2

BEFORE JULY – CAR

BEFORE SEPTEMBER/WINTER – MOVE OUT

also, sometime after getting a job, i would also like to get a credit card so i can get an etsy and sell online. 4 years ago

-knitting. i want to always knit. i want to always create and push boundaries and try knew things and new colours and new needle sizes and techniques. my boyfriend is also really interested in knitting, so who knows, maybe we can build an online (etsy?) empire.
—my sister bought me a knitting handbook for christmas, which means she MUST allow me to teach her how to knit too (i’ve been asking her for years)

-silly sketches. i like drawing. i like lines and one or two colours. i like simple things and probably mundane meanings that seem mysterious or maybe wtf-worthy. i love these pens i bought in march. i love cutting a 14×11 sheet of thick paper into quarters and filling each space with something totally different. i love coming out of a trance and straightening my back and seeing what the hell i’ve put together on the page. but i rarely draw. i want to do this more.
—over the last year, i’ve made and posted around 30-50 pieces of art on the internet and they’ve gotten a good reception. a girl on livejournal sent me a comment asking if i wanted to be her art penpal. i said of course, and my drawing for her has been sitting here, but i haven’t gotten out to get stamps yet. i really want to be able to share my art and make people happy with it. when each of my friends move out, i want to give them something made especially for them to hang on their wall. i know that laura and jay would really like this.

-healthy food. it’s ironic that i’m writing about this right now. since christmas, i’ve eaten complete crap. before christmas, i was like I AM GOING TO COLLECT AS MANY COOKIES AS I CAN BECAUSE I’VE BEEN CRAVING THEM ALL MONTH, and i did. and i’ve been devouring them since. today, december 28th, i’ve eaten NOTHING but cookies. i even opened up a diet coke, which i haven’t drank in a month and a half. so i’m feeling kind of like i’ve failed in the healthy food department, but hey it’s the holidays, it’s allowed right now. anyway, on boxing day, i went to dan’s relatives’ christmas dinner. it was all pretty hungarian, so i couldn’t really eat anything (it’s true that i’m transitioning out of vegetarianism, but i’m only going to be selective about what i put into my body.) so his cool asian cousin was like, “OH YOU”RE A VEGETARIAN” and she sneakily whipped me up a DELICIOUS vegetable-pasta-cream-sauce thing. when she first said what she was making, i was a little apprehensive, never really having cooked vegetables before, or penne noodles without tomato sauce, or this strange cream sauce (with vodka?? WHAT?) before. but i thought, “i’m 21, i’m meeting my boyfriend’s family for the first time, i’ve been a “vegetarian” for 5 years and i’ve never had a truly vegetarian dish, so why not”. and holy crap, best decision of my life. it was the greatest thing i’ve had in a really long time. i can’t wait to try to make it myself with more green peppers and maybe some banana peppers and celery. i’m excited.
—so, this year, i really want to be more experimental with my food. i’ve been stuck in a mashed potatoes-salad-pizza-spaghetti rut for FAR TOO LONG. with my christmas money, i’m totally going to buy the new DS game Personal Trainer: Cooking and try to make a lot of the stuff.

-being selective. despite what i just wrote about broadening horizons and being experimental, i really do have to be more selective, or maybe just think about my decisions more. i’ll explain. each year around this time, i try to do a year in review on livejournal. this means choosing a few pictures and talking about key points in the year. this year, i thought i’d try something new. originally, i started to go through photos on my external drive from last winter. i was saving like every other one to my computer to include in the year end thing because i liked them ALL. this was in november when i was eager to get things done. fortunately, i didn’t do anything beyond just saving them. i started to do the year review thing again this week and i was surprised at how much crap i was originally going to include. i’m still not really sure what sort of direction my year in review will take since every angle i try it from ends up being too much, but i’ll figure something out.
—less is more. this is going to be 2009’s manta. less is more. i need to become selective about what i share on lj and flickr so thinks don’t become messy or muddled. i look at other people’s flickrs and everything is so good and refined and almost of a higher quality. at times mine just seems like a dumping ground.

friends. my search for an epic year in review took me back to my livejournal circa january 2008. i was still a mess from then-recent events, my diploma was still in the balance, and my college application was looming ever so slightly above my head for the entire month. i was under a lot of pressure and my friends got the brunt of my complaining. throughout the year, i wrote these long posts in which i just spilled my soul. i wrote ps: dont read above them, and only let a certain friend group read them. since then, i’ve tried to go back and make them all private, but i think a few are still out there. anyway, in my search for good year in review material, i’d stumbled across a few of these posts from my darkest january days. the only thing i could think is, “wow my friends must really love me to have stuck through this since they still talk to me.” i was a huge bitch to all of them, saying that i don’t care about any of them at all. saying that i would not be sad if i never saw anyone again. saying that i want to sail away and never come back. i haven’t really said anything like this & meant it since before the summer, i think. may to august was a really great time for our friendships. we hung out a lot and made lasting memories. with the weather being crappy and school coming back for some of us and more shifts at work, we havent really seen much of each other this fall, and not at all in the winter so far.
—so, in 2009, i want to see my friends more. i want to have a night in which we ALWAYS do something. i think just steve is in school now, and only a few of us work, so i’m sure it wouldnt be that difficult to put aside a few hours in the evening for one day a week, or even every other week, to play wii or a board game or get a drink or just do something.

so this is what i want 2009 to be like:
-more knits
-more draws
-more food
-less crappy pictures & dumb lj entries
-more friends 4 years ago

i’m really feeling like it’s a good time to re-evaluate and revamp things. i want to do a quick review of my year, but it’s not even the end of the december yet, so i’ll wait. i’m excited for what’s to come, whatever it is. 4 years ago