Happy New Year

First things first, I hope everyone had a happy and relaxing new year. We took it easy here and saw the New Year in with a movie and a glass of champers which has been in the fridge for donkey's years. I was a bit worried it might have turned into vinegar it's been in there so long but it was very lovely:)

I've seen countless posts about New Years Resolutions in the last few days and to be honest I wasn't going to bother myself because I never wholeheartedly make them so I've never gone a year and kept any resolution I've made, but ... I did manage to keep one of last years so I may just have another go this year.

I said back at the start of last year that I would try and appear in a magazine and then in true Leanne Woods form I did nothing, zip, nada, bupkis. Then in October I received an email from Alice Blackledge of Sew Hip asking if I'd like to write a tutorial for them.

Let me think about that one for a second ... aye go on then!




Issue 25, with my tutorial for the Evergreen Wallet went on sale on 31 December 2010, so I just made it by the skin of my teeth and what's better is that I even have a copy to prove it.

That was the important part of the resolution because a few months ago my brother's girlfriend was getting off the bus when she say a girl reading a magazine that she had folded in half and could have sworn she saw this bag in the shopping page but without knowing what magazine it was, it may have even been an old copy of something I could never confirm it.

And back at Halloween in 2009 I might have had a cushion in a special edition of Chat but I forgot to buy it and couldn't get a back issue either. A friend of my mum's thinks she remembering seeing the cushion in there but didn't have her copy any more so I'm still none the wiser if it was in there or not.

But I know this one's real, got a paper cut rifling through the pages and everything:)

*********************************

So now for this years resolution. Sleep, that's it, I'm going to make a real effort to sort out my sleep patterns this year because my brain still thinks it's a night owl, but my body thinks it's an early bird which leads to a lovely combination of my brain keeping my body awake til stupid o'clock and my body dragging my half bedraggled brain out of bed at half past a freckle and I end up losing about 3 hours a day to laziness and a good dose of knackereditis.

I think I'm going to embrace the early bird and start shifting my bedtime forward a bit at a time until I'm at least going to sleep the right side of midnight, hopefully then the 5am wake up won't be so hard to deal with and I'll make better use of my time.

More time of course means I should get more done in a day, like keeping accounts up to date every week, making more stock so I can approach more outlets, hopefully write another tutorial or two for Sew Hip, work up a few new patterns when my brain isn't addled and with a bit of luck I'll have more energy too for things like exercise and the most important one of all ... spending time with my family, time of the non knackered "can we just sit here on the sofa and watch TV variety".

So what are your plans for 2011, any resolutions made or are you going to be clever and keep those to yourself for the time being?

Selfish

Is how I plan to be this year with my time.

The run up to Christmas was mad. Keeping an eye on three shops, three blogs, filling orders locally and a handful of items sold through a local shop didn't leave as much time as I would have liked for my family.

Don't get me wrong I'm very grateful for the work, but following a re-evaluation over the last few days I've realised that I've been spending time on things that simply don't work. At least not for me, they were simply time sucky wastes of time.

So they're gone.

See the Woods Designs Blog - Gone
Project 365 - Gone
See the Woods on Misi - Gone
See the Woods on Coriandr - Gone

I try not to be the type of person that will talk about something, but wuss out of actually doing it in the end so the second I made my mind up about what was and wasn't working. I deleted them, cut the fat so to speak.

I never finished the project 365 and honestly I'm not really sure what possessed me to think I could do it in the first place. That little half finished endeavour was just depressing sitting there.

The Designs blog was dull and not what I had intended it to be so it didn't make the cut either.

Go handmade was good with some brilliant articles but there are so many more brilliant zines promoting handmade that I don't think another one is necessary. It was a huge amount of work putting it together and to be honest I think my time will be better spent elsewhere.

And views and favourites aren't the same thing as sales. It'll sound particularly cut throat but spending time on a shop that doesn't sell anything is nothing more than a waste of time. Bye bye Misi and Coriandr.

So now I'm left with my Folksy shop, this little haven of mine and of course my foody endeavours. I can't survive without food and it might as well be good food that I enjoy:)

So yes, I'm being more than a little bit selfish where my time is concerned but I really want and need to concentrate more on my family and this year I'm going to be incredibly harsh on the things that take my time away from them. Basically if I don't think it's worth it (and it will really need to be pulling it's weight for me to think it's worth it) I just won't be doing it.

Basically I'll only be spending my time on things that make me happy and where it's appreciated. Selfish? Yes, but very much worth it.

From here on in, my top priorities are my family, my friends both in real life and online and my home. This rest can argue amongst themselves and find a slot in behind those somewhere.

I'm normally not a fan of resolutions but somehow I see this one sticking around for the long haul.