January was the first month of the fourth quarter of my current goal year. (Why yes, I did spend years doing quarterly reports as a corporate accountant worker bee; slicing things up into three-month segments gets to be habit after a while.) By now, I have a pretty good idea how the year is going to turn out and whether the plans I made are going to be realized. The executive summary, goal by goal: not at all likely, close enough, no problem, and there are some areas of strength but many opportunities for improvement remain.

Body: I’m struggling. I’ve gone back over the 160 pound mark, which means I’m up ten pounds from where I was last year at this time. All I had to do this year was maintain my weight, and I haven’t managed to do that. I did okay for the first couple months, but since then I’ve been creeping up and up, never quite recovering from the little gains that always seem to occur. (The weight log has the data.) I just can’t sustain the things I need to do over the long term. Do I need to try new things or just suck it up or what? I’m tired of weight being an issue in my life, but it looks like I’m stuck with it for now. I don’t have much hope that I can get back to 150 in time to end the goal year on a good note, especially since I’ve got some trips planned between now and then. I’m not sure what’s realistic. 155? That’s only five pounds, and I’ve got about eight weeks. I should be able to manage that. I just need to get serious about tracking my points and getting more activity in.

Reading: I didn’t quite finish two books in January; I still had about ten or twenty pages left in my second when the month ended. That’s acceptable, especially since I also read one of my quilting books, figuring I might get more out of them if I did more than just look at the pictures and skim as I’m wont to do, but I decided that doesn’t count for this goal because there are so many pictures in quilting books (at least the ones I like) that reading the words is secondary. I didn’t put that one in the book log, either, because I someday want to do a separate page with quilting book reviews and don’t want to have to move content when I get to that point. I’ve put that on the list to do after I’ve moved my archives from Diary-X, a task on which I’ve made no discernable progress at all.

Quilting: I didn’t finish any quilts in January, but I got the top done for the baby girl commission and started on the baby boy commission, which got moved up in priority when the woman I’m doing them for was given a plane ticket to go to a shower she hadn’t planned on attending and she’d really like to be able to take the quilt with her. I’ve been doing some planning in my head for the quilts that come after these, too. It’s been a productive year, quilt-wise.

Housekeeping: Well, obviously bringing a cleaning person in will help here. She comes again on Thursday and the house doesn’t even look dirty to us yet, so accustomed were we to dust and such. I think having to get things clear so they can be cleaned regularly will be good for us, though Mr. Karen does worry that we’ll just end up transferring the clutter to cupboards and drawers. We’ll see. I did get to the bottom of my January clippings box, so that means there are only two more boxes of backlog in the basement. That’s a major improvement over this time last year. One of those boxes is bigger than the average, but I’m hoping by now my weeding out skills will be sufficiently honed that I can get through it without too much trouble. I’ve been throwing out most of the stuff in these boxes, but finding enough stuff I want to keep so that I just can’t pitch them without looking. I even did a little decorating this month, adding a couple throw pillows to each of the couches just like real grown-ups have. The things I did seem like a drop in the bucket compared to what needs doing, but at least I’m moving in the right direction.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad a month. If I can just get the hang of that weight thing, I’ll be in good shape.

A year ago, I had just come back from Toronto.