Is it over already? Reflections on 2013.

Happy New Year!

As is customary, I've been doing a stock take of my activities and projects during 2013. It's interesting to think about individual projects as a body of work as the big picture can be quite impressive.

On the knitting front I completed:

20.5 pairs of socks. (The second part of the 21st pair will come off the needles in the next couple of days.)
6 scarves - three were commissions from friends
4 hats - including a fireman's hat for my five year old nephew
1 jingle ball - for my three year old niece
1 teddy bear - also for my three year old niece.

Apart from the completed items,  I also have a semi-circular shawl on the needles and a short-sleeved winter cardigan partially completed. It stalled because I don't understand what to do next. I must find out.

My crocheting yielded a chunky bathmat made from recycled tee-shirts and LOTS of granny squares. It's hard to know how many I made in 2013, but I know that I started on 16 July 2012 and finished my 146th (and last) square on 4 August 2013. I plan to stitch these together to make a 12 x 12 big blanket.

In between all that handwork, I also reached my reading goal of 25 books. It was touch and go for a while as I wrestled with a couple of long and difficult books (The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates in particular), but I got my mojo back, stopped being distracted by games on my iphone and just scraped in. (Pictures are from my Goodreads.com page - sorry about the weird formatting...)

I was interested to notice that there are six non-fiction titles amongst all those novels. I also see I started and finished the year with the same author - Janet Evanovich - for some very light reading. The book group I started just after I moved to Melbourne in 2001 is still going strong. Books we read this year were:

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - Winner of the Man-Booker Prize for 2012. We read the winner every year. I've just started last year's winner, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.

Madness: a memoir by Kate Richards was one of my suggestions for the group and I was pleased with the result. The book is incredible and the discussion that resulted was stimulating and satisfying. I've lent the book to several other friends since.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a commercial success, but was less than loved by our group.

The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham was funny, gothic and poignant all at once. Very enjoyable.

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany was well-received, but covered similar ground to The Dressmaker. I loved the author's first book, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick was a surprise package in its intrigue.

Letters to the End of Love by Yvette Walker left little impression and I finished it out of duty.

Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley was one of my recommendations when I discovered that one of my favourite authors was not well-known in the group. It's not one of my favourites, but I did enjoy it. There's a marvellous passage late in the book in which Smiley describes the relief of tension amongst a group at the end of a high stakes conversation. It's genius and worth the slog for writing like this.

I'm setting my target again at 25 books for 2014. I'd rather reach the target and feel satisfied, than feel pressure because I didn't make it. And despite all this reading, the collection on my e-reader continues to grow!

I also sang in two jazz gigs at the Paris Cat jazz club, participated in the myki customer experience panel, survived surgery, consolidated my business and co-authored a chapter in a book which is to be published. And of course, consolidated divacultura as a happy part of my life (I hope it's a happy part of yours too!)

Sorting out my spare room remains on the list of things to sort out in 2014, but first I need to finish that pair of socks. My commitments for 2014 are still under construction.

Happy New Year! How was your 2013? How's 2014 shaping up?

We made it to 2013 - the Mayans were wrong.

Imagine that.  The world didn't end.  Who knows what the Mayans were up to?  The world could have been spared numerous B movies, apart from any angst which may have arisen from the looming end of the world.

I like milestones.  I like to take the time to think about what's next and get my mindset right for whatever is next.  I'm not really a goal setter, but I do like to be purposeful about actions that I take.  My experience over the last few years since I finished full time employment for other people in October 2008 is that things work really well for me if I think positively, don't get tense and worried and continue to act on opportunities.  I also look for opportunities.  They can be sneaky things and can easily be missed if you're not actually looking.

I just checked my New Year post for last year and am very pleased with the alignment I achieved between intention and achievement.  I am pleased with what I achieved.  I haven't tackled my lace knitting yet, but I have signed up to an online class and have the yarn wound and ready to go.  Development as a performer didn't really happen last year, but I'm okay with that.  I've been spending a lot of time developing my skills as an improviser and actor in a teaching and assessment setting.  It's not performance as such, but I'm still exercising my acting muscles.

The spare room is still a disaster - perhaps smaller and a tiny bit more organised than it was this time last year.

I'm very pleased with how my business is developing.  Bookings and interest is very strong right through the first quarter and prospects are already looking very good beyond that. I'm feeling good about 2013.

On a personal level, one of my major achievements in 2012 was quitting sugar!  I made it through the eight weeks of having no sugar at all, just in time for Christmas.  Over Christmas, I have allowed myself to share a small portion of Christmas pudding and last night at dinner I had a dessert that was far too big and far too rich, given that I'm off sugar.  It's interesting that previously I would have been fighting the urge to have seconds, but that doesn't happen anymore.  The quit program has worked and my habits and palate have both changed.  Congratulations to anyone out there who has achieved the same thing!  And if you haven't quite made it yet, keep trying - it's worth it.

My main focus for 2013 is to continue to build my business, using networking and good work as my main advertising tools.  On a concrete, practical note, I do want to get my website up and running.

Incorporating volunteering into my life while I'm working freelance is quite challenging.  Because I am only paid when I work, I need to prioritise paid work over volunteering.  Contributing to my community  is very important to me and I'm feeling a little frustrated that I haven't found a way of volunteering regularly in the way my life is currently running.  I solved that problem in 2011 by knitting for charity.  This worked because it was easy to incorporate into my usual leisure activities and didn't compete for priority with my paid work.  In 2012 I started to crochet a granny square a day and these will be turned into a blanket for someone.  I will explore further charity avenues for my knitting this year.

Floating around in my mind is the idea of going unplugged for a day a month.  I need to think about this idea more and gain clarity about what I mean.  At this stage I'm thinking about it in the context of being offline - that is, not dealing with email, social media and using the internet generally.  I feel like this would be a good thing to do to clear my mind and make sure days aren't sucked into the web vortex.

On the practical side, the spare room has made it onto the list.  I know that I need to be more specific in thinking about this as making a broad statement like "tackle the spare room" really hasn't worked.  At this moment I'm thinking "turn the spare room into a useful, welcoming space, so that it is more than a storage room".  And of course, I need a timeframe.  By 31 August 2013!

I've done fairly well with saving money during 2012, but with no real plan other than to have money to tide me over during the dead period of December and January.  I'm going to put a firm aim in place and put aside 10% of all invoices (after I've taken out tax and GST).

And I want to dance more!

My plans for divacultura are to continue to write daily as much as possible.  This is no longer a chore and I find that most days the inspiration is readily available and the writing happens fairly easily.  If I'm travelling it's often difficult to post each day, but I've decided just to acknowledge that and communicate with my readers.  Given my work schedule I may need to cut back to five posts a week, but I'll let you know if that happens.  With the development of my website for this year, I need to think about the relationship between my business and my blog and make sure I seize opportunities for cross-pollination.

Here are the top 10 most read posts on divacultura:

1. MYKI: it's your key to bureaucratic frustration
2. Quitting sugar - two weeks down
3. That's how you handle a complaint!
4. Emergency services call - communication failure
5. Missing in action
6. Photo a day June - from a low angle
7. If myki is the solution, what the hell was the problem?
8. I've got the public transport ticketing blues
9. Photo a day - June round up & July list
10. 2 Days in New York - giveaway

Post numbers 2 through to 10 were all written this year.  The top post was written in 2011.  There's a strong theme of public transport and community service being subjects of these most popular posts.  And my photos have also received lots of comments and compliments, both here on the blog and on Instagram and facebook.  The one I'm puzzled about is "Missing in action" at number 5...

Phew!  That's a great list and I'm excited about what's to come.

What are you thinking about for 2013?  What's your intention?

Ring in the New Year!

2011 is drawing to a close and I am feeling relaxed and content after a lovely celebration lunch with family at the Willow Tree Inn restaurant, Graze, situated halfway between Tamworth and Scone in country New South Wales.

My last meal for the year started with a chilled beetroot soup and sourdough roll to awaken my palate.  For entree I chose a twice cooked souffle of gruyere and caramelised onion.  My main meal was a beef rib cooked in a sticky chilli and black vinegar sauce.  The plan was to resist dessert, but then I saw the words "peanut butter bombe with caramel sauce and home made honeycomb" and the plan changed. An espresso saw me out the door.

It was a fitting meal actually.  2011 has been a year of transition, direction changes (hence my ability to quickly ditch a plan at the last minute), consolidation and finally, a positive trajectory.  These patterns define the years since 2008 and I feel that 2012 will be more focussed on consolidation, development and deepening. The first few months are already looking good.

Starting divacultura was a great step taken in 2011.  My initial impulse was to create and embed a daily writing habit, which has happened, but it's also enhanced my powers of observation and helped me develop my voice.  Creating a discipline around my creative practice was also a way for me to be productive during the times when other (paid) work was a bit quiet.  I call these troughs "mini retirements" and learning to value and use this time has been an important lesson in 2011.

Optimism and confidence are essential to well-being when self-employed.  I've always easily harnessed these traits and I've learnt their importance in creating the right "vibe" to attract people, work and opportunities to me.  I'll be continuing to cultivate these in 2012.

There will be more writing, more music and further development as a performer, perhaps with my own material, in the coming year.

My knitting resolution for the year is to tackle a really complicated lace pattern.  It's a technique that I haven't really practised much and it's time I did.  I will also find another charity to devote a month of knitting to as I did this year.

At the start of lunch with the family today I asked about resolutions and no one had any.  I was a bit surprised.  Everyone seemed too busy to have spent time in contemplation.  I don't approach the new year with resolutions, but rather a mindfulness about my intentions for living.  The same thing I guess, but they tend to be less prosaic if I think about them this way.  (Although "sort out the spare room" is still a work in progress which I do hope to achieve this year!)

(For more inspiration, you may like to visit my friend Rose's blog.  I love her idea of spending more time with the people who make her feel anything is possible.)

divacultura is not yet a year old, but the end of this year is still a milestone worth marking.  The top ten posts of 2011 are:

1. MYKI: it's your key to bureaucratic frustration
2. To knit or not - it's my choice
3. The love rug
4. Love in the letter box 
5. Beginnings (my very first post)
6. Taking to the streets of Melbourne
7. The rejection letter (companion piece to "Love in the letter box)
8. The glee of singing
9. Singing with the nuns
10. 4 inches of love

Are your favourites here?

Happy New Year from divacultura.  Thank you for reading in 2011!  I wonder what your intention is for 2012?