Not Really Resolutions 2014 l The Conclusion

*Insert standard sentence about "Oh my goodness where has the past year gone?"*

Seriously though. What a year. Right now I'll be very glad to see the back of 2014 but before I shove it out of the door I need to take a few minutes to update you on 2014's Not Really Resolutions. After 2013's miserable performance (2 out of 10 resolutions anyone?!) I felt sure that 2014 couldn't be that bad, and actually it's not gone badly...

1. Read 12 Classics

Completed! After failing last year for the first year ever I felt like I wanted to go for this full force. I've had a pretty good mix of more 'classic' Classics and more modern Classics. Quick overview of some of this year's Classics?

Vile Bodies - easy to read, bit of fluff, funny, but not my favourite Waugh.
Lady Chatterley's Lover - not really that rude it turns out.
The Woman in Black - actually full on made me feel scared when I was reading it. Chilling.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - just...weird.
Of Human Bondage - took an age to read but I loved it, which is quite a feat considering that the main character is such a sap. But despite that I kept rooting for him.
Mrs Dalloway - oh I could not get into this at all. It's such a short book but I struggled through every page. Would be very wary of picking up another Woolf.

I always enjoy this challenge and have been doing it for the four years that I've been doing the Not Really Resolutions but I think 2015 might see time for a bit of a change.


2. Eat 1 Vegetarian meal per week

Oh dear. This really could have happened and I hate to be a massive tit and blame everything on the break up but I really do. Post break-up my eating habits have just been plain horrific and I haven't made anything, much less go to the effort of looking up vegetarian recipes to try out.

I think I did about 30 veggie meals which is half way there so it depends what my yardstick is for achieving a Not Really Resolution - if it's 50% then I totally did it.

Mind you the number of times I ate toast or had a jacket potato with beans post break-up I probably did end up hitting 52 meals.

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

January - Trip to London including a visit to see Chloe
February - Trip to Leicester to meet up with Janet
March - A trip to America to see American Girl and Boy get married and take a little road trip around Arizona (can't believe I still haven't finished blogging about that. Eek.)
April - FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United
May - Trip to the London Pet Show and a rainy Bank Holiday outing to a resevoir
June - A trip to North Yorkshire to see Heather
July - The Color Run in Manchester, a trip to London to Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium
August - Nothing - but I was laid up with sciatica at the time so I'm letting myself off
September - A trip to France to see my Dad and a trip to Birmingham with some work friends
October - A night out at the dogs with work people
November - A trip to Bristol
December - A trip to Marrakech - even if all didn't go quite to plan...

4. Save up to buy a car

All done! It's worked out a bit more expensive than planned given that this was supposed to be something that two people were paying for but whatever, I did it all myself and that makes it even more awesome.

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not even close. In fact I don't think I even picked it up this year shamefully. The closest I came to it was buying a light up crochet hook because I knew I had an inordinate amount of black squares to make and thought it might make me blind.

I won't feel too bad though. According to my records I made 26 amigurumi things for people this year which is actually pretty immense when you really stop and think about it.

And that doesn't include the random dinosaur I made for funsies...

...or the Father Christmases...

Anyway. You get my drift. No Tetris blanket this year.

6. Learn something new

I was all set to go "Nope, not achieved this one either" and then I thought I wouldn't be so harsh on myself because actually I did learn something new this year. I learned to be on my own. And whilst it isn't as if I was a massive sap who was completely dependent on someone for their very existence, when someone who has been in your life for 13 years ups and leaves you there is a huge amount of readjusting to do.

I'm giving myself a massive gold star for this one because I didn't have a complete breakdown over anything when I really did feel like it. I got on with it and I learned that I'm not a total idiot, he's a total idiot.

And if that's the only new thing I learned this year then I'm ok with that.

7. Sell something at a craft fair

Well no I didn't.

But, see Point 5.

I was a craft fair this year. I was my own personal craft fair and seeing as the reason to do this was to make some money and feel that my stuff was good enough to put out in the public space I have actually achieved that. I've sold my stuff to people and have made some money from it and therefore I'm going to count this as complete.

I know. I'm a massive cheat.

8. Beat my 10k time

Let's not talk about this shall we?

Let's just say that 2014 was the Year that Running Forgot. It was my Annus Horribilis Runnus. I was either injured or mentally broken for 2014 and that did not make for a good runner. Since my bout of sciatica in August I haven't run at all. I will be back to the beginning once I start running again - ugh.

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There we have it. Five out of eight will do me very nicely.

I'm looking forward to seeing what 2015 has in store for me.

I think.