New Year's resolutions?

[Chickenlady]

I can't usually think of any, but this year I actually have some:

1) I would like to do a permaculture course.
2) I intend to spend more time doing yoga, as I am getting old and creaky since I stopped teaching it (well, I do one class a week now, as opposed to 8).
3) I also plan to stop spending so much money on stuff we don't need. Actually, I need to stop my kids spending so much money - I only buy boring stuff like food!

What about you? Do you bother?

[hamster]

I don't normally bother, but this year I seem to have loads of things I want to achieve! I blame this self-sufficientish/green malarkey -it somehow seems to have inspired a sense of purpose in me!!

1) Take a dressmaking course, and learn how get more use out of my beautiful Singer treadle machine than just as a really nice table.

2) Do something with the piles of scavenged curtains we have lying around to make my house warmer and more efficient. (Possibly contingent on the above!)

3) Grow something (other than herbs) that actually gets big enough to eat, unlike my winter spinach.

4) Try and find some people in my area who are interested in these sorts of things, so I don't conduct my social life entirely over the internet. Have been meaning to go to my local FOE group or Green Drinks since I moved, and never got a round tuit...


And, more prosaically, 5) get a bit better at my job, so it takes me less time and I have more time to knit and garden!

[Green Rosie]

For the last few years I have made a New Year's Promise: To do something totally new in the following year.

Last year was a biggie - we moved to France. That therefore also encompassed:

1. Learn to drive a left hand drive car
2. Learn to drive on the other side of the road
3. Learn to speak, read and understand more French

I do not usually know what the new thing or things will be but I do know that with the move, this year there will be plenty of opportunities to take on new challenges

[Wombat]

I get a bit busy with work and sustainability stuff so my main resolution is to spend more time with Mrs Wombat. but I also want to -

1. Finish the permaculture design course I started earlier in the year
2. Do more presentations
3. Complete my masters degree and

Have fun meeting some of you lot when we come over in April

Nev

[the.fee.fairy]

hmmm

1. To try the Raw Food Introduction diet - i actually prefer my veg raw, so i'm going to give it a go!

2. To buy most things second hand - this excludes underwear and socks

3. To make more clothing (not that i have enough...).

4. Following on from the above: to get rid of all the clothes i haven't worn for a year.

5. to make more things - especially things made from the fabric that i've bee hoarding for years.

6. To continue to not take life too seriously - i'm only here once so i'm going to make the best of it!!

[eccentric_emma]

i'm glad to see that most people here arent trying to give things up, but are making positive resolutions!

1. like Fee, i want to try a raw food diet - but only when my veggies start coming in on the allotment
2. change all my bank accounts to ethical providers and in fact generally be more ethical with all my purchases
3. master the art of making bread (or at least make it edible)

[ina]

1. like Fee, i want to try a raw food diet - but only when my veggies start coming in on the allotment

Far too cold for raw food in winter!

Getting my heating sorted must be my no.1 resolution - but that means prodding others to do something about it, and I hate doing that...

[Annpan]

Oh Ina, I feel for you, our house is doing not too bad, but that is with all the electric heaters and the wood-burner...and thick jumpers. (the livingroom is getting cosy, I must finish putting down the flooring this afternoon)
I hope you are doing alright.


I don't go in for New Years Resolutions, if I think of something new I want to do, I do it as soon as I can, I don't wait for new year.

Life's too short - Live in the now ,

[ina]

Oh Ina, I feel for you, our house is doing not too bad, but that is with all the electric heaters and the wood-burner...and thick jumpers. (the livingroom is getting cosy, I must finish putting down the flooring this afternoon)
I hope you are doing alright.

I think my plants are suffering more than I do! Can't put woolly jumpers on them...

No, I'm not too bad - I do my reading in bed, and with loads of clothing, and extra blanket and two cats to keep me warm I'm fine.

[mrsflibble]

my resolution last year was never to make another one... but i do want to learn the guitar.

[eccentric_emma]

so....now we are almost halfway through the year - how is everyone getting on with their resolutions?

i completely forgot mine! so i havent even tried to make bread. although i'm now a dab hand at making pizza dough from scratch. raw food - well getting there now that some salad stuff is growable. and changing the bank accounts didnt work because i kept nagging my OH to post off his proof of identity, then we moved house and suddenly the applications expired and i have to start it all over again...still third time lucky maybe?

[MKG]

errmm ... pizza dough IS bread, emma. Congratulations

[ina]

1. like Fee, i want to try a raw food diet - but only when my veggies start coming in on the allotment

Far too cold for raw food in winter!

Getting my heating sorted must be my no.1 resolution - but that means prodding others to do something about it, and I hate doing that...

Well. I've just had a reply from the employers (I live in tied housing). They will do something about it when the finances allow it. But since it's all my fault, and I don't pay any rent (yeah, but I get very low wages!), I can't really expect them to do anything about it. Oh well, it's their property that's rotting away. The main problem is the lack of drainage - that makes the house damp, which makes it cold; the fact that the only heating is very inefficient storage heating, doesn't help.

Can't understand their reasoning: the fact that I don't throw money out of the window by having my heaters on full blast all winter (which would, at the most, turn the house tepid) is responsible for the house and garage being under water half the year?

Actually, I may come across as quiet about it - but I'm raging inside. I've told them if they aren't willing to sort it out, they'll have to find another idiot to do all the work I do for them - which is a damn sight more than is in my contract...

[Annpan]

Oh Ina... that is so crap... is it time for a 'work-to-rule' strike?

[hamster]

Poor you, ina, that's rubbish.


I'm doing okay on my resolutions, I think. I did the course and have managed to make something on my sewing machine, although we ended up draping blankets for curtains rather than my making any. I'm sowing so many things I can't believe nothing will come of it, though I've still only eaten herbs. Also got v involved in FOE, met another gardener and joined a knitting group, though still not made it it Green Drinks. And I learnt how to make yoghurt. Bonus.