End of Year Recap

I caught the TCM tribute to those in the motion picture industry who died in the past year. You can watch the video clip here. Windows Media Player seems to be required. You can also review who died in 2006 at IMDB. I hadn't realized (or had forgotten) that Mako died this year. All three of my favorite Japanese actors are now deceased: Mako, Toshiro Mifune, and Pat Morita.

Things I accomplished in 2006:
The big stuff: Got a new job, moved to a different state, bought a house and some other big ticket items. And all of it was all by myself.

Knitting accomplishments (that I can remember since I didn't write them down this year): one lace scarf, probably 2-3 pairs of socks, three kids hats and maybe half a dozen dishcloths. Started projects still waiting to be finished: red lace socks, blue socks, red cable socks, Kiri shawl, blueberry sweater, gray sweater, green ski sweater, orange tank top, purple vest and green polo top (just needs to be seamed).

Projects to start: flower jacket, cabled raglan pullover, angora lace pullover, probably 3-4 pairs of socks (I have yarn for a couple dozen pair of socks). I'm also spinning up the prepared fiber I have stockpiled, so there will be more projects developing as the yarn is produced.

New Year's Eve Plans:
TCM will feature a Marx Brothers Marathon starting at 7:15 CST on New Year's Eve. *That* should be hilarious. The line-up kicks off with Duck Soup, in which Groucho is named the dictator of the country of Freedonia. He then declares war on a neighboring country. There is a highly entertaining scene in which Groucho is trying to get work done at his desk and Harpo and Chico are "helping" by answering phones, etc. In the 1990s, Spy Magazine asked assorted Congressmen and -women what they thought about the conflict and ethnic cleansing in Freedonia. Nearly all of them made up an answer about the terrible tragedy and how the US needed to support the people of Freedonia in these difficult times. Only a few of them indicated that they either didn't know about it or that they had no comment.

There is also a CSI marathon on SpikeTV and I now have the full Thin Man movie collection, so there are plenty of things to keep me occupied.

New Year Plans:
It's my own personal tradition, but I like to begin a new year with a clean house. I have just now finished tidying things up, dusting and vacuuming. When I take a shower later, I'll clean the bathroom from top to bottom. I even put away the last box of stuff from the spare room (the board games, puzzles and toys). I still need to fold up the t-shirts from the past two weeks of laundry, but that's relatively minor and I'll catch that up tomorrow.

I don't know why it's important to me to start clean, but it is. Perhaps a desire to get a good start on the year. Perhaps to clean out the detritus, good or bad, from the previous year. I actually look at two separate starts to the year--one in January and one at the end of October (Samhain), which neatly coincides, more or less, with the start up of the school year.

I am already soaking some black-eyed peas to make black-eyed pea soup with collard greens. It is supposedly good luck to eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. I'll make some cornbread too.

Speaking of food things, I've decided to go vegetarian this year. The only time I eat meat, poultry or fish is when I eat out or am traveling anyway. Other than in baking, I think I will have little trouble giving up eggs too. Cheese and milk might be a bit more difficult, but I think I can manage. I always feel better when I go veg and reduce my fat intake. It makes fast food eating a bit tricky, but with a little planning, I think I can manage without too much trouble.

Knitting goals/projects for 2007: I'd like to actually catalog my yarn and fiber stash. I had started an Access database some time ago for that purpose. It would be a fairly easy task to finish up the job and document what I've got. That would also give me a chance to see what I've got and plan future knitting projects, as well as organize the stash I have and label the containers.

Along the lines of managing the stash, Wendy of WendyKnits and L-B are resolving to Knit from Their Stash in 2007, rather than continuing to buy yarn at a breakneck pace, though there are certain exceptions (sock yarn and spinning fibers are exempt as are yarns purchased to knit specific projects). This has, of course, cause some particularly crabby persons to leave nasty comments on their blogs about how these two persons will be responsible for the going out of business of all the yarn shops in North America. I wonder if these crabby-assed yarn shop owners will ever figure out that their crabbiness might have something to do with their loss of custom.

Here is my version of the Knit from the Stash 2007: actually knit stuff from my stash instead of just planning what I'll knit, but never getting started. I can think of at least four sweater kits that I could work on, plus the yarn for 20+ pairs of socks, a half dozen sweaters and two shawls. I have additional yarn that isn't yet earmarked for anything, like the lovely Ironstone mohair or the bag of black Lopi. That should be enough to keep me busy for the winter and then some. :o)

Since this is a long weekend and I need to get it done anyway, I'm going to re-organize my bank records and get everything put into Quicken again. I'd gotten into the habit of balancing my checkbook via Quicken before I moved, but then didn't get back to it once I got settled in. No reason to not keep better track of things.

Speaking of tracking things on the computer, I need to set up a backup system. I haven't backed up my desktop files in a looooooong time. Ideally I'd backup to an external HD, but for now I can put document files on CDs. That's better than nothing. With the HD solution, I could set up daily incremental backups and complete backups once a week.

I don't know what movie I'm watching....
but Jon Bon Jovi's kitten is playing with bullet casings, batting at them on a hardwood floor. Looks like it might be .45 caliber. I didn't get a close enough look at his gun to see if the casings actually matched the gun caliber. There must be a JBJ movie marathon on or something. When I surfed through the channels a few hours ago "Moonlight and Valentino" was on. Can't say I am complaining. He's smart as anything, incredibly talented and darned handsome too. His character in this particular film seems to wear nothing but black, in which he looks good, but it's getting a bit boring. I guess they think it's "artsy" since his character is an actor. Of course, lots of guys can't figure out how to match colors/clothes anyway, so wearing all black like Queen Victoria might be a wise choice.

Comments

jason said…
happy new year!
hope 2007 is a great one for you.

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