Carole’s Ten on Tuesday prompt today left me feeling a little ambivalent, to be honest, but, frankly, I needed something to write about tonight, so I give you ten things I plan to do in 2015:

1. Find a volunteer gig.
2. Figure out the basics of playing the ukulele.
3. Get the storage bin out of my side of the closet that’s been in my way for three (or more) years.
4. Knit something for each of the small people in my life.
5. Learn the polite phrases of Hungarian.
6. Document our trip to Budapest.
7. Bake something different each month.
8. Read (or attempt, anyway) 10 of the unread books in my house that I think I won’t want to keep — and then donate the ones I’m right about.
9. Pare down my clothing until it fits into the space allotted to it again.
10. Eat at five new-to-me restaurants in D.C.

How about you? What are you planning to do this year?

Wishing you all luck in finding what you seek and a safe journey along the road.

I wasn’t feeling fantastic this weekend (although didn’t realize that at first), so laid low while Rudi was away coaching a ski race. I did accomplish a few things, which I’m citing to making myself feel less like a slug:

Yesterday, I intentionally did not get out of my pjs. (Well, that’s not totally true. When I got up, I put on clean pjs.) I did put on shoes briefly to go get the mail, because it was a drippy, grey weekend and I didn’t want to get my wool slippers wet, but that was it. I ate leftover soup and drank a lot of tea and polished off all the open bags of pretzels (so they didn’t go stale, of course).

I dealt with the bag of clementines I bought at Trader Joes on Tuesday. I’m used to losing one or two clementines out of a group, but this bag was ridiculous. A third were too rotten to do anything with, another third needed to be trimmed in some way, and only the final third are edible in their entirety. Ridiculous! I did some handwashing (all my handknit socks were dirty!). I catalogued the yarn I received for Christmas in Ravelry and spent far too much time there contemplating patterns for the neon(ish) skein I think needs to be knit up this month and mulling over hat patterns. I read a couple Christmassy short stories in My True Love Gave To Me, watched three episodes of SHIELD and a Disney Christmas special from the ’90s on Netflix, and lit candles to keep the darkness at bay.

Today, I thought, would be more productive, but it was not. I did get dressed and went to the farmers market. I did manage some more handwashing and the dishes before I took to my sickbed, but that’s where Rudi found me when he arrived back home tonight. I felt better after a nap and some drugs, so curled up in the living room to enjoy the premiere of Galavant, eat dinner, and watch Love, Actually.

I did succeed in signing up for some January activities over the weekend, including Bout of Books, which started at midnight (When I Was the Greatest ended up as the first pick, with library due dates winning out); Amanda’s journal-writing class, which begins in the morning; and a session of winter volleyball that won’t start for two weeks yet. I’d like to find something to do on the weekends, so I think I’ll look into a couple volunteer options and maybe a knitting class (although that didn’t work out so well for me last winter).

How about you? How was your weekend?

Leaving my folks’ place in mid-afternoon meant that we were driving pretty much due west along the Merritt Parkway through western Connecticut as the sun was setting:

We’re back home and I have a few more days off. Here’s what I’m hoping to do with the time:

Before Wednesday at noon:

• Send out the last of my Christmas cards.
• Post my Christmas mix. (I’m still listening to Christmas music. There’s no reason why other people might not be, too.)
• Mail at least one package.
• Finish at least one more book.
• Rewrite last night’s blog post (that somehow got eaten by WordPress instead of published).

Before Friday:

• Make cookies.
• Start a new knitting project.
• Call some friends.
• If local children are home from vacation, deliver their Christmas presents. (If not, at least get them wrapped for easy delivery later in the month.)
• Sign up for some January projects/programs/activities.

How about you? Are you still off from work? How are you spending your time?

This is how you prep for Christmas, if you’re me:

Those would be the last few Spritz cookies from the batch Mum made me at Thanksgiving (they get doled out sparingly after the tree-trimming party to help them last) and egg nog from our local dairy.

(My brother and I just had identical reactions to text messages: What are you doing up?! Go to bed! Going…)