Happy New Year 2020!

Happy New Year! Apparently I haven't blogged at all since last year. Most of my activity, such as it is, has been on Facebook or, more recently, Instagram. I can't promise I'll be more active here in 2020, but I should at least resume the Monday Miscellany recaps I was doing for a while.

Anyway, new year, new goals! How did I do against last year's goals?

• Read 10,000 pages - I read 12,353, so that's a win. A third of that was reading the entire Brother Cadfael series, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
• Walk Rauros to Mt. Doom - Made it there, and am halfway to Morannon. This is getting near the end, so I'll need to find another fantastic 'walk' to go on.
• Lose 25 pounds - Well, I did better than last year by actually losing a few pounds. Progress, but nearly negligible.
• Finish Teresa Wentzler's "Fantasy Triptych" - Finished and framed!
• Finish Chatelaine's "Violet Mandala" - Finished and framed!
• Clean up and organize my crafting lair - Some progress, though you wouldn't know it from the current state.
• Complete one yarncrafting project - I don't think I did any yarncrafting this year.

Habitica was quite helpful in getting me to form (and break) some new habits:

• Drink at least 1 litre of water a day - this worked well, and I should probably increase this for 2020.
• Do Duolingo and Lumosity exercises every day - 723 day streak in Duolingo, and 366 in Lumosity!
• Stop following stupid clickbait listicles that erode my faith in humanity - mostly success here. I do occasionally follow links to posts of cute dogs or cats, but that's a bit more wholesome.

So, on for this year!

Progress bar goals
• Read 10,000 pages - This seems to be a good benchmark for me for now, to be revisited if I keep exceeding it. I've signed up for a project to read the complete works of Shakespeare in 2020, which will cover half of my goal by itself.
• Walk Minas Tirith to the Morannon - Halfway there, so this should be an easy completion. I'll need to find another walk after this.
• Do 200 workouts at Curves - This is committing to about 4 workouts a week. I'm currently doing that most weeks, so this should be makeable.
• Lose 25 pounds - I'm entering a challenge with some coworkers this month, so that should help some.

Other goals
• Finish Chatelaine's "Walled English Garden" - This and Long Dog's "Death by Cross Stitch" are now my oldest two WIPs, both started in June 2017, so I'd like to get one of them off the list.
• Finish one page on Log Dog Samplers "Death by Cross Stitch" - I think it'll be a goal to finish this before I retire, but that's about a decade away.
• Clean up and organize my crafting lair - I hope to finish this by Easter. I know, I said that last year, but it makes the organization a good Lenten goal
• Complete one yarncrafting project - Either crochet or knit.

New Habits
• Drink at least 1.5 litre of water a day - This is an increase from last year
• Continue Duolingo and Lumosity daily exercises
• Do some form of exercise daily - Curves, treadmill, stretches, anything. Well, probably not burpees. Those suck.
• Make sure the dishes are done daily - This isn't necessarily running the dishwasher - with just two of us now, it doesn't need to be run daily. It is, however, making sure the dishwasher is emptied or loaded and doing any handwashing necessary.

Onward to a new decade! At least for me, since I do hit a milestone birthday in several weeks. As for whether 2020 is a new decade or not, I'll leave you with today's XKCD.