Thursday, January 8, 2015

Resolutions.

Now, I know I'm a week or so late to the party, but I'd still like to share my problem with resolutions with you.

First of all - simply put, my desktop computer suddenly died on me the day before yesterday. I'd just inherited it from Bandit a few weeks ago, when he got his new iMac. It had been a top-of-the-line gaming computer back in its day, but it was now years old, and it had started to show its age. Occasionally the USB keyboard wouldn't register on startup until I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Then the monitors started not registering on startup, which was a more serious thing, since the display ports were on the back of the tower and much less convenient to get to than the USB ports. Then, in the middle of use, it just locked up and died. Bandit opened it up and found that one of the fans had stopped working; his verdict is that either the motherboard or the processor had died.

So now I'm back on my laptop (well, technically, it's his laptop - another gaming machine that I've appropriated for my own use). It's always tough to move from a familiar machine to an unfamiliar one, but moving from a familiar machine back to a previous familiar one is... odd. I instinctively go to the places where I feel my files should be, and some of the time I'm wrong but other times I'm right. And I had just gotten used to having two monitors at 1920x1080, when all of a sudden I have to go back to the single laptop lid monitor at 1600x900. We fiddled with the displays until somehow all of a sudden I had three displays at 1600x900. That was too disorienting for me.

So there you have it. That was my problem with resolutions.

*crickets*

Bad puns aside, 2015 has been a little rough getting out the gate - technological difficulties being only one of the frustrations that have cropped up so far. I won't go into details, but it's really made me think about adulthood and taking charge of one's life. One of the things I've decided was to make a concrete list of resolutions for the first time in my life. Heading the list are what I'm sure are three of the commonest resolutions out there:

  • Start working out. I've always been small and frail and weak, and I'd like to build up some stamina and energy.
  • Cook at home from scratch more often. I grew up with homecooked meals every day, and I miss that.
  • Keep better tabs on our finances.

But those are the kinds of vague, general resolutions that one never quite achieves, just improves on a little year by year. I have a couple of more specific goals that are directed at my known weaknesses:

  • Be more mindful of punctuality. I tend to have a hard time getting moving, so I usually show up to events just barely on time or a few minutes late. I'd like to fix that.
  • Drink more real tea. I love looseleaf tea - another thing I grew up with as an everyday thing. Instead of buying sugary bottled teas, I'll make an effort to put a pot on the stove every morning and work through my boxes of Earl Grey, lychee tea and rosebuds.
  • Renovate my wardrobe. Ninety percent of my wardrobe currently consists of either T-shirts with graphics on them or long black skirts. The long black skirts can stay, but I'd like to phase out some of the older T-shirts from my teenage years and introduce some plain long-sleeved shirts as staples.

And my knitting resolutions? I've decided to go fairly light on these, in hopes that I'll actually achieve them!

  • Catalog and photograph everything in my stash to go up onto Ravelry. I'm actually not far off from achieving this at the moment - of the 56 yarns I have listed in my stash, only 11 don't have photos - but I'd like to make it a habit to enter any new yarn into my Rav stash as soon as it comes into the house.
  • Knit more things that I'll actually use. I have this tendency gravitate towards patterns that will teach me new techniques or broaden my horizons, disdaining simple things like scarves or potholders. Well, I finished a woollen potholder on New Year's Day, and let me tell you, it is the most effective and most useful potholder I have ever come across. Especially in conjunction with my resolution about making more tea.
  • Write up my dragonscale gauntlets pattern! I've been sitting on the pattern for over a year now!

Have you made a list of resolutions this year, or have you decided instead to choose a word to focus on for the coming year? How have you fared with resolutions in years past?