A new year... a new start

Ah, 2010 is here, snuck up on us, but here it is nonetheless.

Since I started this blog I've always been pretty dutiful about having a well thought out list of goals and aspirations for each new year. This year I don't. Well, to be honest, with the way our year ended; accident, Thanksgiving, visiting relatives, Christmas, work deadlines and a New Year, all lined up bing bang boom, I didn't have a chance to really reflect on what I wanted to do in 2010.

I did manage to pull a few ideas out of my hat though, so let me lay them on you:

• I want to complete my greenhouse evolution. By evolution I mean progressing it from being the mere shelter from the elements that it currently is, to a functioning respite for tender plants to hold over, if not all winter, at least through the fall and early winter and into the new year of 2011. I'll need to bulk up on the thermal mass, provide proper shelves and work spaces and find a way to generate some sort of supplemental light and heat for the winter. Good news is that I have all summer to do it so the prospects are promising.

• Last year we made a goal of 1500 pounds of food from our yard. Because of a terrible bout of squash bugs and perhaps just a little over exuberance in our estimates we came in short of that with a mere 810 pounds. (I of course say that very facetiously, I'm way way happy with 810 pounds. Who wouldn't be?) This year, I think that very realistically we should be able to get to 1000 pounds. So that is goal number two.

• Getting back to basics. A lot changed this year for A~ and I. She started working part-time (this was planned for next year but the right opportunity presented itself so we acted on it) and it really threw us both out of whack. I knew I depended on her as my partner, but I had no real idea of HOW dependant I was on her. We really struggled throughout the year to find our balance and to be able to maintain our lives the way that we had worked into them. Because we had some extra money for the first time in a long while it was really easy for us to fall into some habits that we hadn't had before because we were so conscious of our income. Eating out more often than we wanted to and not effectively using all the food we were able to grow, not keeping up with making our own organic cleaners and not making the most use of the time we did have available because we were just feeling hectic we welcomed the chance to relax. This year A~ and I want to re-ground and get back to our basics. Time to re-group.

• Finally, now that we've been able to get a new computer up and running, I want to get a little more consistent with my posts. I really needed to give myself a break last year after blogging for a couple of years I was getting to a point where I was losing focus on what was important to me. Not that you're not important to me of course, but family time... isn't that really what it's all about? I began to feel like I "owed you" a post on a daily basis. I don't know what made me think that I was so fascinating or important that I would need to be constantly updating the world, but I did. I'm now nearing the end of my third year blogging and what I want to do this year is to concentrate on being more consistent and regular with the things that I say and to try to keep the posts interesting and informative. Rather than quantity, I want to focus on quality. On this note I also have some other interesting ideas that I want to pursue, but details of those will have to wait a little longer until I know for sure what I can do.

I think that about does it for what I can think of. The goals are more modest this year, and I think to a certain degree a little more ambiguous than I've given in the past, but I'm happy with them. I'm looking forward to a good year 2010 and I hope you'll accept my invitation to go through it together.

All the best to you all...
P~