Thanksgiving resolutions

Over Thanksgiving, my cousins and I were joking that we should make "Thanksgiving resolutions" instead of waiting till the new year, because everyone does that. The problem with that being that you have to come up with resolutions earlier, and before the stress of December, I'm simply not able to figure out what I should be doing...or something like that. So, my "Thanksgiving" resolutions are a bit late. One cousin also joked that one goal should be to get married by next Thanksgiving. The two under eighteen protested that they weren't old enough, and I agreed that that would be nice, but then it was hardly up to me, now was it? :D But then, resolutions do usually include some impossible goal, so why not? Oh yeah, cause it's a kind of scary goal and would worry people. Nevermind, we'll skip that one.

In all seriousness there are things I want to do next year, not so much "resolutions" though.

• I'm considering taking some CLEP tests, so I'll need to study for those and take them. The school where I would take them only has them every first Saturday of the month, so I'd want to get to work studying for them fairly quickly so that I could take some in February. I still need to look at the list though, and see which ones would be good to take. And definitely study...make sure I remember how to do schoolwork. :P Some things (like Algebra or Science) I just don't do on a regular basis, but hopefully they will come back to me fairly easily.
  

• I also want to enter things in the fair next fall. We skipped this year, which was a nice break, but I kind of miss the fun of it too. So, I'll try to work on projects throughout the year so I'm not trying to make a couple dozen things in a month.

• Cross-stitch? Sometime it would be nice to finish the "Celtic Banner" piece I'm working on (or not working on, rather).

• And I would like to find something useful to do with my extra time, when I'm not working. I'm wondering about selling things on Etsy. I need to do some research to see what that would mean tax-wise, because if it's going to make filing taxes a pain, then it's probably not worth it. And it's not like I really need the extra money anyway, I get enough from my main job, but I would have more to put in my savings accounts then, and it would keep me busy.
  

• On the other hand, I would rather do something that was actually more useful to people. Making them consumers is all well and good for making money I guess, but if I was helping them by employing some useful skill and getting paid for it, I would feel better about it. :) Sure people who don't craft will buy stuff on Etsy for prices I wouldn't pay, but I'm not sure I could get past the feeling that I was somehow ripping them off. :D Hmm...I haven't thought of anything else though. Web-design is one of those things you can do from home, but my knowledge of html and css and all that stuff is very, very limited. Portrait photography would be cool...but near impossible to schedule in any good way for me. Not to mention I'm not a professional photographer by any means, because having a fancy camera does not a professional equal. Well...maybe it does anymore. :/

So, I have lots of things to do and think about next year. Of course, I'm coming up with all these things now, because I have lots to do before Christmas and that's how I function. Whether it's because I hyper-focus and when I have an hour to get the living room clean for company, I start obsessively cleaning drawers; or because I work better under pressure, and therefore having more to do makes me start adding to the list, I don't know...but it's all bothering me now, when I have other things to do and no time to think about this stuff. Ah well.

In the meantime, as far as a short-term to-do list goes, I need to:

1. Wrap some presents before Sunday
2. Make fudge, finish a scarf, burn a CD, and wrap another present before Tuesday
3. Wrap the rest of my Christmas presents sometime between Tuesday and Christmas

And I think that's all. I mean, there are other things too. Like going to a concert tonight, church on Sunday, a contra dance, and some other things probably. Oh, like work. Got that to do also.

What NOT to do next year? Lots of things, some tangible and others not. For starters, maybe not spend quite so much time on the computer? And not wait until two weeks before Christmas to start knitting something as a gift. Finding time to read again. I've always loved to read, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside this year, which is not good. Possibly related, I must have lost some reading skill, or my scanning tendencies increased, but I seem to have some slight dyslexia. Not seriously, and I'm not sure there's any way that one can have "slight dyslexic tendencies", but I keep reading things wrong. Nothing a little reading won't help though, I'm sure. :) But when one reads "project pages" as "posthumous", and other things like that...can't remember them off the top of my head, but I keep finding myself mixing things up...it can't be good.

Or maybe I'll just "Hit the snooze, roll over, then repeat. Make large purchases, then lose the receipts!"

New Year's Resolution Song