Better Late to the Challenge than Never

I don't really do New Year's resolutions.  I've never formally committed to a word of the year.  One year, I thought my word should be "flow," but I didn't stitch it up and put it on display to remind myself.  Maybe I should have in order to better cement it in my consciousness, but I decided to just...er...go with the flow.

But I did see something cross my Facebook feed the last week of December that sounded interesting, and that was to note one good thing per day during the year, the idea being to write it on a strip of paper and put it in a jar and then read through them all at the end of the year as a way to revisit those moments.  Sort of an annual highlight reel of good things.

The idea of noting one good thing daily seems like a good habit to cultivate as a way to mindfully practice gratitude, and I'm all for that.  So on January 1, I started doing this, except instead of putting papers in a memory jar, I started a "One Thing Good About Today" memo on my tablet.  

(Good Things daily list)

You might note that I transposed "Good Thing" as "Thing Good," in the title of the list (guess I was thinking in Wisconsin-ese) but I couldn't figure out how to correct it without starting a new memo and starting over.  Ope.

(Homemade Rhubarb Pie on New Year's Day)

Now there are many good things about any given day, but taking the time to jot down just one item makes it easy, quick, and totally doable.  I usually have my tablet with me when I climb into bed anyway, so before I open a streaming app to watch the next episode of whatever bingeable series I'm currently obsessed with, I take a moment to reflect on the day and add one good thing to the memo.

(Basting a quilt on January 5)

I also decided to hop on board the sewing room Declutter Challenge at Just Get It Done Quilts.  The challenge was several days underway when I joined, but that's okay.  You can see all the daily challenge blogs and videos there or on Karen's YouTube channel.

The Day 1 challenge was to take out the trash in your sewing room.  I am notorious for writing myself little notes on scraps of paper and letting them accumulate until I've done the thing I wanted to remember to do.  Well, I am a procrastinator, so some of those notes were well-aged, shall we say.  

(Songs on scraps of paper became a playlist)

I tend to write down the names of songs I hear while sewing that I want to listen to again or further explore the artist.  So before discarding those bits of paper, I decided to find the songs on YouTube and make a playlist of them, which I named Sewing Room Songs.  Feel free to click and listen, if you're up for an eclectic mix of roots rock, funk, blues, alt, and interesting covers.  

Part of Day 2's challenge was to clean your sewing machine.  I cleaned and lubricated two of my most often used machines, the Juki and the vintage Singer Touch and Sew that was my mom's back in the 1960s.  The 15 minutes to be allotted for this task took an hour and 45, but I was happy to give them some overdue TLC.

(Day 2 Declutter Challenge - cleaning and oiling machines)

Day 3 was today's challenge for me, and that involved decluttering magazines and then working on a UFO.  I had exactly zero magazines to declutter (having done that already during the past year or two), so I spent the time on sashing the UFO that's been languishing on my design wall for a couple months.  Again, I spent longer than 15 or 30 minutes on this part of the challenge, but once started, I was happy to keep the momentum going.

(Working on a UFO as part of Day 3 Declutter Challenge)

I think things are about to get more challenging tomorrow with Day 4's book decluttering challenge.  We'll see how it goes!

~Paulette