2015 Blogging Goals: How'd I do?

I'm not good at these end-of-year posts.  I usually get bored half way though writing them.  ETA: and I totally did with this one.  It was supposed to be posted on the 31st, but I got bored and wandered off despite almost being done.  You're only getting this because I just needed a bit more to finish it.  It's not very polished, but oh well.  So lets review my 2015 Goals and see if I managed to follow any of them!

1. Sew More!

Uh...not so much.  I tried joining Make a Garment a Month, but I was more of a facebook liker than a contributor. I did manage to sew a couple of garments, including my purple Linden (which I've almost worn out by now and is actually a bit small because of my love of pie and lack of exercise...oops), a bikini top (and an attempted at a bottom from a crappy pattern), and a foxy beach bag.

There is my spring/fall jacket and a mostly finished quilt, but they've both stalled out for now.  :(

I have a ton of plans, and hopefully I can get to them.  Ooo and I have a final garment for 2015, but I'm hand sewing the seam finishing.  I'll show it to you guys in a few days. 

I may have to revisit this goal for 2016.  More on that next year!

2. Make Garments I'll Actually Wear

YES!  This year has been great for this.  I wore the heck out of that bathingsuit, and we've already talked about me destroying that purple Linden.  For sweaters, I've knit and worn the heck out of my Cardboard Cafe and Henri!  In fact, I'm actually wearing Henri right now.  :)

 

 

I did knit a tank top, but it's hideous on me.  I knew it would be, but I wanted to try it out.  I don't have any regrets.  I do...need to photograph that and show you just how horrible it is...on me - it's actually quite cute laid out on the floor! 

(There's...a lot of purple and beige/light brown in the photos above.  Hmmm.)

I'm working on another very practical sweater right now, something I chose to do because there was a huge gap in my wardrobe.  Again, more on that in the new year!  I have a lot of posts to write up, holy cow.

3. Blog More

Despite recent months, I blogged a lot more this year!  Including this post, I wrote up 77 posts this year!  ETA: Whoops, this didn't get posted on Dec 31 as planned.  Guess that means 76 posts in 2015.

I should be blogging more going forward.  The course I'm teaching is done (mostly - still waiting to receive final exams from off-campus folks) and daylight hours are slowly increasing again.  I'm also making some changes in my life to give myself more me-time.  I love volunteering myself for things, but I WAY over did it this fall - gotta make time for me again.


4. Play Time With Rocks

I think I did fairly well with this goal.  I only wrote a handful of rock-related posts, but they were generally well liked.  Hands down, one of my most popular blog posts was when I talked about my job at the mine.

I also talked about slicks along faults, the rocks in the Sea-to-Sky wall at the Vancouver airport, and a fun post about the rose quartz I gave away in my 1st blogiversary giveaway (I really liked that post).

I could improve on this though.  Teaching my environmental geology course this fall has brought up a ton of post ideas - I just didn't have the time to write them up.  Watch for those in the coming year, as I want to dig into the material more, and what better way to prepare but to teach some of the content to you folks!

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Overall, I think I did fairly well with these goals.  I'm glad I made goals, since I think they're less set-in-stone than my impression of resolutions.  It was easy to keep in mind. 

In fact, I liked these goals so much, I'm going to carry them forward into 2016.  I can definitely improve on all of them (SEW MORE, HEATHER, GEEZ)!  I am going to add one more goal though:

5. Do More Community Knitting

I've mentioned it before, but I'm part of a knitting group that does projects for the community.  We've raised money for a woman who had to make multiple trips down south for her young daughter's medical treatment.  We knit for the homeless shelter and the women's shelter.  We've knit hearts for the hospice to give away to family members to carry with them when they've lost someone they love.  We're knitting warm woolies for the two Syrian families that will be settling in our community.  And we have a thing coming up this January or February (whenever there's a bad cold snap) where we'll hang up all sorts of warm accessories downtown and in other central hubs, so that anyone who needs a hat/scarf/mitts/etc can take one to keep warm.  I love being a part of this group - it's nice to think that we're sending out something made with love to people who made need it, whether they understand the love that comes with it or not, and I want to keep it up.


Happy New Year, folks!  I hope that 2015 was good to you, and I hope that 2016 is even better!  Here's to another fun and productive year!