Happy 2009, everybody!

So the blogosphere is of course filled with new year resolutions and "in an earlier episode"-type summaries of 2008.

I will go without the recap of last year (whadya mean, learn from my mistakes?), but I will talk about a resolution (knitting-related), and a couple of anti-resolutions (not knitting-related).

The resolution is easy: I'll do more colourwork. It's one area of knitting in which I've been lax about learning.

The anti-resolutions may take a bit of explaining. You know how people resolve that they'll diet, or save money, or cook more? They try to get themselves to make good changes to their lifestyles (or what somebody, somewhere, thinks are good changes).

Well, in this year, as I really dig deeper into my 30s, I would like to accept certain aspects of my lifestyle, and resolve to stop myself from thinking that I've fallen short of some ideal that is only in my head, or in the heads of others whom I don't care about. That is, I will resolve not to change certain things.

Anti-resolution 1: I will accept that my home will never look like it comes from the pages of property porn catalogues. Or, more pointedly, I will accept that I am a bad housekeeper. The place in which I live, be it a teeny flat or a large house, shared space or not, will always be cluttered. There will always seem to be "stuff" everywhere. Every horizontal surface will be covered in several layers of detritus. There is no point buying flowers for my home, because they will simply be lost amongst the random crap- you'd never notice them.

(Now, don't get me wrong- I'm messy, but I'm not dirty, if you see the difference. I don't leave moldy plates of food in the bedroom or anything. Although the bathroom could be cleaned more.)

I have seen pictures of people's homes, or visited friends' places, and wail to myself, How?! You can see the floor! Look at this nicely mis-matched furniture! Look at the table that you can eat at! Look at the little tchotchkes they've displayed from their travels and how it doesn't just look like a pile of random Christmas cracker toys they've inexplicably put on their bookshelf! How?! Why not me?!

Well. I will no longer beat myself up over this. I will not be a better person if I had a neater home. I will not automatically be a happier person if I had nicer furniture. I will therefore, Let It Go.

Next up, anti-resolution 2.