Doctor T Designs

I had hoped to get back to my week-long tradition of posts wrapping up the year, but the end of 2021 really snuck up on me, and I haven’t had a lot of time to be writing until now. I have to admit, my job gets very intense just before the holiday break, and I’ve noticed the past two years that my posting during October-December drops off a lot during that time. My sewing drops off a lot too, so I suppose those things go hand-in-hand. Anyway, I figured I’d at least make a halfway attempt at bringing back the year-end review “week” in a limited format and at least do a few posts about how the year went and goals for next year.

Non-Sewing Year in Review

When I look back at my wrap-up post from 2020, it’s pretty clear I wasn’t in a good headspace. I mean, to be fair, I don’t think many of us were in a good headspace. We didn’t have vaccines yet, the pandemic seemed to be stretching onwards, and there really wasn’t a lot to be able to plan with so many unknowns. I didn’t really have any goals for this year, which actually made everything that did happen even more exciting. For me, a few highlights included:

• Everyone I know getting vaccinated – this reduced so much stress!
• Being able to travel to international skating competitions again! (And now I’m a pro at taking COVID tests…)
• Being able to attend live skating events again!
• Seeing my skating friends again!
• Seeing non-skating friends again!
• Actually reading books again! (So far I’ve read 21 books this year… but I have another 2 that I might be able to wrap up before the end of the year. And I’ve been reading a compilation of the Wheel of Time, so even though it doesn’t count as “reading a book” for app tracking stats, I’ve actually read 3 of the Wheel of Time books this year too… so really I might get up to 26 potentially.)
• The Wheel of Time is a TV show now!
• Being able to exercise more often!
• I got my Animal Crossing Brewstoid! I may not drink coffee in real life, but for sure I have an addiction in that game…

It’s funny how some things, like seeing friends, feel like such a huge accomplishment for this year. I suppose that if nothing else, 2020 gave a lot of perspective, and really made it possible to appreciate the good moments of 2021. Of course, it hasn’t been all lightness and rainbows. I think I’m like a lot of people who still feel very burnt out after working through the pandemic, and it seems like the latest variant is going to force us to go back to some of the restrictions we had before. It doesn’t feel as daunting, but I also feel like I don’t have as much energy to deal with it all. I do have a week’s break though, so I’m hoping I can use this time to relax, recuperate, and get some sewing time in. I do notice that I almost always feel more energized and happy when I have time to sew or craft, so I think it will be good to have a week to focus on some of my personal projects that keep getting pushed aside.

Goals for 2022

In terms of looking ahead, I don’t feel quite as hopeless as last year, but definitely not as ambitious as 2019. There seem to bee a lot of things up in the air right now, and a lot of them out of anyone’s control, so I only have a few goals for myself for next year.

(1) Eat better. I’ve really turned to stress-eating during the pandemic, and it’s not a good behavioral pattern. I really want to make a focused effort to return to how I had been eating around 2015-2017; much more focused on nutrition and nutrient dense foods. It’s the sort of thing that I know has a major impact on how I feel both physically and emotionally, and it’s worth the effort it takes to make those sort of conscious choices.

(2) Sew more. Ideally, I’d like to have a goal of making at least 1 garment a month, but I actually want to tackle some more involved projects next year, so I don’t know if it is the best idea to have some sort of numerical goal. Perhaps a better goal would be to have done enough sewing to make at least one blog post per month? I think then even if it is a progress update report, it still means I’ve spend some time each month actually sewing.

(3) Read at least 22 books. I’ll likely hit that goal this year, so I don’t think it’s an unreasonable goal for next year at all. Maybe a sub-goal of having at least one book be a physical book from my TBR pile that’s been sitting around since before the pandemic. I have a lot of choices, so I think that’s not too unreasonable a side goal either.

Conclusion

So, maybe 2021 wasn’t everything we would have wanted this year to be, but it’s also true that for me, going into it with no expectations may have actually made it better than I would have predicted, in hindsight. There were a lot of highlights this year for me, including visiting two new countries, being able to see a lot of friends again, and participate in some of my pre-pandemic activities. While I still haven’t really found a good work-life balance yet, it’s better than it was in 2020, and I have hope for the future, which is definitely a lot more than I can say for the end of last year.

Tomorrow I will take a look at how the year wrapped up for me sewing-wise!