2011 Wrap-Up

So I thought I was 100% done with this whole blogging thing until I recently noticed that I've been posting these multi-paragraph comments on my friends' Facebook walls. How annoying is that? Apparently I have things I really want to say. I'll spare them (and Zuckerberg). I guess I forgot how much I like to hear myself speak.... or... read myself type?

At first when I started to type this post I thought I'd try to recount my parenting/homemaking/life successes and failures for the year (a crunchy epic win-epic fail kind of thing), but the more I thought about it the more it seemed stupid to call anything in life an epic win or fail. It's all really just a work in progress. Anyway, these are the things I've attempted this year and the status of these.... let's go with "projects."

1) Weight loss -- After a slow start in the Spring I'm proud to report I'm down about 25 lbs since July thanks to the very awesome My Fitness Pal (I mostly use the free app) and my wonderful local YMCA and their kick butt free childcare. I've been slacking since a little before Thanksgiving, but am looking forward to getting back into my workout routine after the first of the year.

2) General craftiness -- I would call this category a total failure if it were not for my new found love of Pinterest. I still can't sew or knit or turn an old wine bottle and a piece of plywood into a stylish end table (like some of my very talented friends), but I can make snow paint (a super cool mixture of equal parts white glue and shaving cream) and turn paint chips and an old frame into a dry erase calendar.

3) Cloth Diapers -- So I really do love cloth diapers, they are super cute, very absorbent and ridiculously addictive. We used cloth exclusively for a solid 6 months. But then I got super busy with work projects and had a difficult time keeping up with the laundry. There are now disposable diapers back in the rotation. However, kiddo seems very interested in potty training now and I'm hoping to use mostly cloth trainers.

Just because he's so good looking

Project Crafty

In January many of my Facebook friends posted statuses (yes, that is the proper plural - I know it looks weird) in which they promised the first five people to comment on their posts a handmade gift from them sometime in 2011. To piggy-back on those crafty facebookers, I've come up with a little 2011 goal of my own I'm calling Project Crafty... because everything sounds more serious when you put "project" in front of it.

I really want to learn how to make stuff -- knit, sew, make soap, candles, anything. I can garden and cook a little, but so far that's the extent of my handy work/homesteading. I really want to do a "Homemade Christmas" in 2011. (Friends and family watch out!) Kiddo will be 23 months and I think it may be my last chance to do something like that before he's old enough to get full-blown Christmas toy fever. I love the idea of having to devote thought, time and talent into a gift instead of just running into a drug store and picking up a hand lotion gift set. Plus, it's pocketbook and environmentally-friendly.