Not Really Resolutions 2012 - The Results

How different things are from last year. 

My Not Really Resolutions of 2011 were, on the whole, successful and I was chock-a-block full of hopes for this year when I made my Not Really Resolutions for 2012. My goodness if I had known then what was coming I don't think I'd have bothered at all. In fact, if I knew what was coming this year I think I would have just found myself a cave and hidden until it was all over.

So needless to say, this year's Not Really Resolutions are not quite as successful as 2011's, but I've done the best I can and I actually think that this gave me something to at least aim for in what has been a shitty year.

Without further ado - this is the round-up of the Not Really Resolutions 2012.


1. Complete my France trip of 2010 album 

This was a hangover from last year's Not Really Resolutions so there was no way in all good faith that I could avoid finishing it this year. It was going to be a bit of a close call but I pulled my finger out and finally got it finished on the 14th October. 

I'm pleased I did it although it definitely would have been easier to just print the photos out and stick them in an album, I feel like I made life unnecessary difficult for myself.

But I'm pleased I did something that was a bit different by stitching on the photographs, it has made it that little bit more special. I took it home with me at Christmas to show my Dad and he really appreciated the effort I've made.

2. Furniture makeover

The idea here was to makeover/upcycle/whatever the trendy word is, two charity shop purchases that I'd made the year before - one a table and one a small chest of drawers.

I've only half completed this one - by performing a huge make over on my table which you can read all about here.

I have even bought the stuff to upcycle the chest of drawers but unfortunately time has run away with me and there's no way I'll get it done before the year is out. Guess I've already found the first thing to go on my list for next year...


3. Run 10km

Done and done - I ran the Preston 10k at the end of September and managed to fall back in love with running all at the same time. 

4. No buying of physical books for one whole year

Completed - read all about it here.

5. Learn how to do French knots and use them in an embroidered piece 

French Knots have been the bane of my life since I started dipping my toes into the field of embroidery. I looked at the instructions, I asked people to show me, but it just resulted in frustration and anger and a lot of throwing things across the room.

My salvation came in the form of the Feeling Stitchy blog - which is awesome by the way, you should read it - they had a link to a tutorial video on the Needle 'n' Thread website and after a few views I decided to be brave and give it a go.

And it worked! After a lot of swearing, and having to open a window because I was sweating, I managed to put the final touches to a Christmas present for a friend. 

 They are definitely something that requires a lot of practice. Even after practicing on a spare piece of evenweave and moved on to the real piece, there were still angry words and a few broken pieces of thread but by the time I'd done a few I was definitely getting in more of a groove and they were looking a little tidier and more uniform.

My best tip? Tension is important when making the knot, but don't get too over-zealous and  pull too hard once you've passed your needle back through the fabric - that's when you'll start swearing.

6. Use my alpaca wool 

Unfortunately not even a peep on this one. I'm still suffering from the fear when it comes to using it. I've decided to put two strands together to make it thicker to crochet with but I'm now panicking that I won't have enough to make a full blanket.

To be fair I've hardly crocheted at all this year - 2012 has been the Year of Cross Stitch - and I'm itching to get going with my hook in 2013.

7. Sell something at a craft fair 

Big fat no to this one. But I don't feel too badly, I guess you could say this one was cancelled due to life circumstances. What with losing my job, moving to Preston, being unemployed, having a crappy job, getting a new job and preparing to move out, I didn't really have time to source out a local craft fair, let alone make things in order to sell at one. 

Heck I haven't even registered at a GP yet.

8. Read 12 Classics 

Done - although you probably wouldn't know, given that I dropped doing my book reviews in 2013. I'm basically just not that good at writing book reviews I decided, I'd far rather leave it to the pros.

The list of Classics for this year then has been:

1. Northanger Abbey, 
2. The Magic Toyshop, 
3. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 
4. Gone With the Wind, 
5. Cold Comfort Farm, 
6. The Virgin & The Gypsy, 
7. Brighton Rock, 
8. Heart of Darkness, 
9. The Turn of the Screw, 
10. Of Mice and Men, 
11. I Capture the Castle, 
12. Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde.

Worst Classic of 2012? The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - I don't even know how I made it through that dirge. Absolutely awful.

Biggest disappointment of 2012? Cold Comfort Farm - I know people will be going apeshit at me saying that, maybe I just had too high expectations because everyone loves it so much but it just didn't do it for me at all and it certainly didn't make me laugh.

Biggest surprise of 2012? Gone with the Wind - I've never even seen the film so didn't know what to expect at all and I was pleasantly surprised, I absolutely gobbled this book up, couldn't get enough of it, and although it might appear a little daunting given its size I would definitely recommend it.

Scariest Classic of 2012? The Turn of the Screw - I was chilled people. Chilled.

Favourite Classic of 2012? Toss up between I Capture the Castle and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. Two very different books but both totally absorbing.


9. Cook/bake something new every 3 weeks 

Yeah this never happened either. Although....it probably actually did. What happened was I stopped keeping track of everything new I was making. Admittedly I stopped caring after the bad news and I found solace in eating just a whole load of crap as a way of dealing with my redundancy which was not good at all.

However, moving in with The Person re-invigorated my love of trying new things and making new things and together we've had a great time going through all my cookery books and finding new things to make - Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food has been well devoured. I know there have been weeks where I have made new things almost every day...

So I don't know - I reckon I probably did this one, but in the interests of fairness, I'll leave it unticked.


10. Keep a diary with photos for one whole year

Yeah this one was cancelled too. I'm going to say life circumstances again. In some ways maybe I should have, this year would have been interesting to document, but at the same time, I don't think it needed documenting for me to remember it.

I think I made it too difficult for myself by wanting to do photos as well - I couldn't write without the photos and when I got a backlog of photos I couldn't remember what happened. It just all got too complicated.

This one was inspired by doing Project365 in 2011 - I think I'll go back to that next year.

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So there we have it. I make that Five-and-a-half out of 10 (I'm giving myself a half for number 2 as I did upcycle at least one piece of furniture) which I'm counting as a win. Anything over 50% is a win, right?

I'm giving myself a pat on the back as well - there were a few times when I thought about just surreptitiously deleting the page listing the resolutions on and pretending that I'd never really set them, hoping that no-one would call me out on it. But I'm glad that I took a deep breath and decided to plunge on regardless, it makes me feel like I've at least achieved something this year.

Now, bring it on 2013.....

How I went a whole year without buying any books

So when I wrote my Not Really Resolutions of 2012 there was kind of mental one on there that might have seemed a little weird, namely that I was not going to buy any books in 2012.

Say what?

Basically I had far too many un-read books on my bookshelves to justify spending any more of my money buying new ones. Not only that, I just felt bad for all those books that were sitting un-read on my shelves - they were meant to be read and I quite frankly felt mean not reading them, meaning that they were unable to fulfil their purpose in life.

I managed to insert a couple of loopholes - buying books for my Kindle would be allowed - obviously they're not taking up any room - and other people were allowed to buy me books, I just couldn't spend my own hard-earned cash on them.

It proved to be easier than I thought, I just stayed clear of bookshops which put me out of temptation’s way. However, the first time I went into a bookshop in April I was floored. The smell of books nearly overwhelmed me. I am a dirty great big book sniffer and it’s the first thing I’ll do upon getting a new book off the shelf. Being in a whole shop full of books nearly knocked me out and I hurried out of there as quickly as possible so as to avoid succumbing to temptation.

Being unemployed meant that this resolution was fairly easy to stick to – I didn’t have any money to buy anything, let alone books, and I didn’t go out an awful lot – so buying books never really came into it, I just enjoyed being in reading the books I had available to me.

I have to be honest though. I managed to invent find  a couple of loopholes which allowed me to sneak a couple of books on to my shelves throughout the year.

Stephen King published a new book this year called “The Wind Through the Keyhole” and his UK publishers ran a competition – the back cover of the hardback copy of the book was going to be made up entirely of photos of SK fan’s faces. All you had to do was submit a picture of yourself and then see if you were lucky enough to be on there.

I forgot all about it until I got an e-mail with a link on it – I popped my name in and whoosh it took me to a picture of the back cover, zoomed in and in and in and boom THERE I WAS.

Now of course, you can’t see me when you look at the back cover, these photographs are obviously veeeeery tiny in order to make up the picture but I know I’m there, and given a magnifying glass, I can point myself out to you. So obviously I was allowed to buy that book – right?!

The second book to sneak on to my shelf was a result of my inability to not get suckered in to a ‘deal’. I went to buy my Dad’s wife a birthday present – she wanted Anna Karenina and it just so turned out that it was part of a buy one get one half price offer. I mean how could I not? But I cleverly got round it by roping in The Person – asking him if there was a book that he wanted as part of the offer.

When I say “asked” I mean I shoved “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” under his face and said “Oh my god, don’t you totally want to read this book?” He knew better than to disagree and so a Classic snuck on to my shelf – although really it’s not for me, The Person said that he wanted it, remember?

So I reckon only 2 books on the shelves is a win, am I right?

I know some people will read this and go “How did you do this, you call yourself a book lover?” but to my mind, I did this because I’m a book lover. I have owed it to some of those books who’ve been sat on my shelves for far too long. They needed to be read and forcing myself to read all those books has meant that I’ve discovered some books that have been sat there for a long long time. Ken Follett is a brilliant example - I’ve had The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End sat on my shelves for well over 2 years now - I've never tackled them, most probably because they’re pretty intimidating in size but I finally felt able to give them a go.

I picked up The Pillars of the Earth and did nothing for the next couple of weeks but read – and read and read. It is exactly the kind of book I love – great sweeping dynasty of a book, lots of detail, lots of character development – amazing. As soon as it was done I reached up and did the same with World Without End.

Goodness knows how long they’d have stayed on my shelf as I picked up “easier” reads in favour of them and I’m so pleased that this challenge has meant that I’ve now discovered a new author. And it also means I now have more books to add to my wanted list!

So yes it’s been rough – I walked around Waterstones the other day going “Oh my god this book is out. And this book….and…and……and…” – but I’m pleased I did it.

And no. I haven’t read all the books on my unread list, there’s probably enough on there to keep going for another year, but I don’t know that I’m that dedicated….

Kindle vs Real Life books

To be honest I wasn’t really that desperate to own a Kindle. I saw them and held one and got what it was all about and totally understood the rationale behind them and thought it would be great for when you went on holiday but for someone with a bookcase groaning under the weight of many unread books who hasn’t been on holiday for years, it just didn’t really feel like a must-have item.


I could see the appeal though. I was getting tired of lugging a book around everywhere with me, getting frustrated because I’d left a book at work that I really wanted to read at home, or I’d be travelling with two books, just in case I finished one and would be unimaginably left with nothing to read.

Then I decided that I would not be buying any more books in 2012, which was freaking me out just a little, and not long after my Dad asked me how I felt about Kindles and would I like one for Christmas. I immediately,

a) saw a loophole in my resolution, and,

b) thought I should take the opportunity to get one as I’m unlikely to ever spend that kind of money myself on it.

So I gratefully accepted and went for the smaller Kindle. My Dad did point out that it wouldn’t hold as many books, but I said I reckoned that space for over 1,000 would probably do me for a while!

Its role has become my travelling book, so it’s in my bag at all times to be read at work on my lunch break and if I’m lazy and get the bus. Home will be my place for reading “real” books.

Using it is easy peasy lemon squeezy. It’s incredibly easy to handle and work out which buttons to press. The only hard part actually is refraining from touching it like I’m used to doing with my phone, I still find myself automatically doing that sometimes – oh how times have changed!

But I’m still struggling with the concept of it. It just does not feel the same as reading a book. I read Northanger Abbey and instead of that feeling of turning the last page, I just knew I’d reached 100% read. There was no reflective pause where I put the book down and then turn it over to look at its front cover one more time. No riffling the pages through my fingers, no shoving my nose into the middle of it to smell its bookness and no satisfying noise as I turn the page or slide my bookmark into place. To be honest I don’t feel like I’ve read a book at all which puts a bit of a dampener on things.

One of my favourite activities is the point where I’m about to choose a new book to read. I stand in front of my bookshelf and cast my eye over all the spines. I look at the different colours and fonts and see what jumps out at me. I look at the size of the book, am I in the mood to tackle something weighty or do I want something a little easier to get through? I admire the lovely alphabetical order and linger over particular authors that I enjoy – do I feel like reading another one of theirs or shall I go for something new? I love that process.

With my Kindlle I turn it on and look at my home page. So far I have three different sets, “Fiction”, “Non-fiction” and “Classics” (now this is something I need to do with my own bookshelves!) and within those are a couple of books. No colourfulness. No different fonts. Just listed titles. I have no idea how big the book is, I don’t know what I’m getting into. If I want to just read the “back” of the book and find out what it’s about I have to connect to the internet and that’s just not always possible. Which of those two experiences sound more pleasant?

And what about when it comes to buying books? I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be able to see my Not Really Resolution of not buying any physical books this year through. I like wandering into bookshops or even just wandering down the book aisle in Tesco and seeing what’s out there. I like it when there’s not a book I have in mind that I want, I just look at the covers and see what takes my fancy. I get the thrill of selecting my choice and taking it to the till and paying for it and carrying it home with me. Even when I order books over the internet you still receive something physical, there’s something to show for the money you’ve spent and you get that satisfaction.

With the Kindle there is none of that satisfaction, and it’s borderline dangerous. It’s linked to my Amazon account and my card details, so buying a new book is literally the click of a button. No taking you to a virtual checkout and filling in your details, just boom and there’s a message that says the book has been downloaded and there it is on your home screen. Instead of that warm “I’ve just bought a book” fuzzy feeling, you’re left feeling a little shallow inside.

I did wonder if some of my problem was that I just don’t have enough on my Kindle at the moment. There isn’t really a ‘library’ to browse and there are only so many Classics I can take. I have downloaded a couple which have cost me a few pounds but I’m still not feeling that buzz of electricity. Even visiting the “store” is soul-less and doesn’t compare to the hours I can spend wandering round a branch of Waterstones.

I know this sounds like I hate it and I really don’t. I think it’s the most amazing piece of gadgetry I own and I think that the more books I get on it and the more I use it, the more I will warm to it, and if I get to go on holiday this year I’m sure I will thank my lucky stars that I have it; but right now at this minute, it doesn’t compare to my real-life babies.

2 Classics down, 10 to go.

Nothing like hitting these Not Really Resolutions running I think and somehow I’ve managed to get two under my belt before the second week of January is up.


Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey is also the first book I have ever read on my Kindle so well done to it. Round of applause please. The Magic Toyshop was one of the last books I bought in 2011 as a Christmas present to myself, having saved up some pennies. My copy is one of the Virago Modern Classics with the beautiful hardcovers.

I was actually looking for Mansfield Park on my Kindle but of course, my luck being what it is, this is one of the few Classics you actually had to pay for (not much, but I want to spend as little as possible at the moment). So I went for Northanger Abbey. I have to be honest, I’m pretty sure the only Jane Austen I’ve read is Pride and Prejudice, although I think I’ve picked others up from time to time.

Northanger Abbey felt completely different to Pride and Prejudice though – I mean not so much in terms of plot, but the style of writing was very different and it threw me a little bit, I’ve obviously underestimated Miss Austen.

Bizarrely enough, the Northanger Abbey of the title isn’t even mentioned until you’re half way through the book which was frustrating at times, I was reading it and questioning what the hell it was all about. And to be honest I didn’t really feel like it was that relevant to the story – although maybe that’s just because my over-analytical A-level English Literature skills have now officially deserted me.

The story follows Catherine Morland, a young 18 year old, who goes to Bath with some friends of the family. There she meets the odious Isabella Thorpe, who you want to give a good slap to, and her equally fatuous brother, John Thorpe. She also meets Mr Henry Tilney, who she falls in love with completely and his sister Miss Eleanor Tilney, a much nicer friend than Isabella.

Catherine is eventually invited to Northanger Abbey, the home of the Tilneys, and it’s then that things kind of go a bit haywire and Austen appears to be trying her hand at a bit of crime fiction with a frankly weird storyline that goes absolutely nowhere about a possible murder.

She is unceremoniously turned out of Northanger and sent home without reason given and she thinks she will never again see her Mr Tilney.

But does she?

I’ll leave you to find out.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this book, it’s certainly different, but it felt so odd and disjointed in places that I couldn’t say I absolutely definitively loved it.

The Magic Toyshop – Angela Carter

No book could be further from Northanger Abbey than this one. It’s part fairy story, part grim reality and you are helplessly swept along with the story.

Melanie and her two younger siblings are sent to live with relatives they have never met, following the death of their parents. They slip from a privileged life into one of dirt and grime with no money. Uncle Philip is the head of the household and only appears to care about his puppets, which he spends time in the basement crafting, to put on shows for the rest of the family. Aunt Margaret is mute and her two brothers, Francie and Finn, live with the couple, Finn helping out in the toyshop that earns Uncle Philip a living.

It is uncomfortable in places to read but is absorbing at the same time but I couldn’t help but feel a little let down by the ending which just felt rushed and a bit clumsy. I can’t explain more about the book without giving too much away but it was one of those books that felt both beautiful and awful in equal measure.

Definitely one to pick up.