25 Before 24 - January Update

-rant-
Something is buggered with my post editing - the text keeps jumping around and becoming indented randomly. This wasn't happening on the last post I edited so I assume it's something to do with having copy & pasted some bullet points, or the continuous re-interpretation of the html that's going on.
On the plus side I've managed to get rid of the Flickr "iframe" thing by effectively writing my own html - they'd replaced the old img tags with iframe ones which used a different photo source url on top of being bloody annoying. I can at least arrange my photos how I like from Blogger again, but it makes photo posts much slower having to re-write html for each photo rather than simply grabbing it already done from the Flickr photo page.

Oh dear, I can see why I gave up on writing this post. Anyway, December was... busy. Finishing moving, various birthdays, and Christmas. I thought going home for Christmas might be relaxing... nope. There was something familyish to do every day - no sitting about doing nothing like I'd have liked. I did see various family members and survive all of my immediate family living together for a few days fairly happily so that was a plus. Coming back to Bristol afterwards wasn't hard (apart from missing a coffee date with friends) and I had a slightly surreal single day of working from home before a very home-based NYE.

25 Things

1. Cycle to Bath
2. Visit K at RHUL
3. Go to a sewing meet
4. Make 5 items of clothing
5. Go to Cornwall and/or somewhere warm
6. Learn some Perl/Ruby/C++/SQL - C++ looking more useful
7. Keep a list of things to cook and make 2 new ones per month - oven-baked pilau rice! Vegan cake - my apple/carrot/banana cake but with flax seeds - which came joint 2nd in the office bake-off. I sabbotaged myself by voting for the winning entry. Too honest! I also made N a birthday cake - it was a recipe I'd made before but never with proper butter or actual ganache. Ganache is surprisingly easy!
8. Read twelve or more books
9. Cut down my photo-uploading backlog - On K1000 roll 5 now
10. Scrapbook - Nope. Session needed.
11. Visit 5 new towns or cities
12. Keep job/get good/become independent - Scrum mastering going ok - definitely got the basics but still not keen on speaking to large groups or leading meetings. Have been working almost independently on a project for a month or so and am getting along ok despite self-doubt.
13. Go to a pop-up restaurant or supper club
14. Finish things - Finished the baby blanket and gave it to the baby! I've seen some very cute pictures of said baby using the blanket too. I also finished a bit of crosss stitch I've been working on since September.
15. Mend/alter
16. See cousins - One set came round on Boxing Day & we did a secret santa :)
17. Go to a gig/film/... every month - Went for supper at the Watershed but lamed out of cinema. Saw some surf/ska/funk at the bar where we met for Boy's birthday. Surf-style Norwegian Wood was pretty good.
18. Walk lots - a few vague attempts but it's COLD. Went up & down the lane at home a couple of times and along a beach in Devon
19. Visit new cafés/things - Work do took in The Hophouse and The Albion, neither of which I'd visited before. Visited the new Boston Tea Party up Gloucester Road and Grounded Café even further up. We also tried out the little café/Bistro in Henleaze with visiting friends and had a pretty good and reasonably priced brunch.
20. Do something creative every week - Further bus crochet on the baby blanket, some embroidered felt stars for Christmas presents, little crocheted stars, a (wonkily) quilted stocking for Boy, a funny red accidental hat to teach me to knit in the round with double pointed needles (dpns), and the start of a pair of wristwarmers for myself.
21. Make an effort to go to things - Several coffees with groups of friends, work Christmas do, a birthday evening I organised for Boy, pre-cinema dinner (even if I didn't stay for the cinema part), Christmas dinner with school friends, an afternoon Christmassing at a friend's house, coffee with old flatmate.
22. Learn to knit properly - Definitely getting somewhere! Managed to teach myself to use dpns from How To Knit by Debbie Bliss and started on some wristwarmers from Learn To Knit Love To Knit by Anna Wilkinson (a Christmas present)
23. Listen to the radio regularly - Boy generally has it on in the evenings so yes!
24. Use stashes - Bought new fabric for Boy's stocking but otherwise everything I've made has been from my stash.
25. Find a dentist & get teeth fixed 

 Going back over this list I'm quite impressed with what I managed to cram into December. January is feeling a bit tired and full of nothing, perhaps I'll get started on this month's list early to try and encourage myself. I might do a round up of everything I made last year too - I genuinely have no idea what my craft output is. I feel like it's pretty low but could be entirely wrong.
I've been rather inspired to do some kind of year summary by all the Top 5s I've been seeing - Gillian has some excellent ideas, including the sewcialists blog.