New Year's Resolutions

We are now a little into the new year, and, so far progress with my New Year's resolutions has been relatively pleasing. I was prompted to write this post by a giveaway that the lovely Ali of Very Berry Handmade is holding on her blog; the theme of which is "Resolved to Sew" (http://veryberryhandmade.co.uk/2012/01/16/giveaway-resolved-to-sew-2012/)

I see my own sewing resolution every day, laminated and neatly coloured with Berol fineliners. In fact I see all of my resolutions every day, laminated and neatly coloured with said pens, since I made my Year 10s write and laminate their resolutions, and they said it wasn't fair unless I did it too.

The resolutions relate to five different areas of my life, which are prone to being eaten up by time spent on the great black-hole of time, the internet. These are sewing, reading, exercising, music and effective parenting. The effective parenting resolution is "I will think before I shout". Going OK so far. The exercise one is to run a 10K in less than an hour. Well, I've signed up for a 10K, so now I will magically be able to run more quickly.

In reading, I have vowed that I will not buy another book for me until I have read all of the unread books in the big pile by my bed, and the unread books on my kindle. EEEEEK! I wonder if children's books might act as displacement therapy for this resolution.

The piano practice resolution is having an impact on the effective parenting resolution, since A hates it when I do more piano playing than her in a week, and so often does her practice without requiring nagging.

Finally, my sewing resolution is to finish all of the many, many sewing projects I have started, and abandoned when they took more than about 27 minutes to complete.

A told me a rather fitting story about this. After their chapter of Mr Gum tonight, she offered to tell C and I the story that she'd heard in her assembly today. It was about a boy who was given a seed by the Emporer (of where she did not say). All of the people were given a seed, and a year in which to grow it. The boy kept watering and feeding his seed, despite the fact that it failed to grow. All of the other people had amazing, beautiful plants which they had grown. When the year was up, the Emporer called the boy forward and told him that he would be the next Emporer. The seeds had all been boiled and so would not grow. All of the other people had cheated by buying other seeds. Only the boy had perservered with the job he had started, and was honest about what he had achieved. "That's a bit like your sewing Mummy". Hmmm. Not hugely inspiring to think that my sewing can be compared to a boy who waters a dead seed for a year. But I can kind of see what she was getting at.