Making a (bunch of) list(s): 5 things 11.12.2017

•  I get unreasonable satisfaction from small achievements like getting the monthly recycling out on time. (There are specific, separate days for cardboard and paper. Glass, tins, plastic and textiles we bring to the collection points.) Saturday was a good day. I recycled ALL THE THINGS, including egg cartons to the farm shop for re-use, went grocery shopping, AND got started on sorting out the chaos in the kids’ room. (Seriously: major, major chaos. Way more than you’re imagining.) And I felt terribly, terribly pleased with myself.
• So now I’m thinking about what I can do to get organised for 2018. I know it’s arbitrary and I don’t really do resolutions or big goals – not gonna set myself up for failure – but I really, really like starting the year off right. The house has to be clean for a start, but beyond clean, what do I need to take care of?
• I have a little list of housekeeping stuff, but I’m actually more interested in how I can organise myself to keep the housekeeping etc running smoothly. Like: I’ve finally realised I have to put things to be darned in my knitting basket, not in the mending basket, because that only gets taken out like twice a year when I can bear to deal with my sewing machine. At which point I realise that most of the pile (a) only needed a relatively small amount of attention anyway and definitely not a machine, and (b) has already been outgrown by my beanstalk children. But if it goes in the knitting basket I can make an effort to deal with it while watching TV, and yeah, I deeply resent having to do that instead of knitting, but it does get done. And I’m at least a little bit enjoying practising my embroidery (well, visible mending) skills.
• Also: have agreed with co-conspirator to reduce #52recipes to #26recipes for 2018, but (for my part) to use only recipes from the books on my shelf. Most of my new recipes this year came from the web – ok, most came from Smitten Kitchen – because it was so much easier to do the meal planning from Pinterest. The new challenge will require a new approach, and really I’d better go through my books and make a list of 26 recipes before the year even starts.
• I also have quite a lot of knitting to deal with, quite quickly. There’s Giftalong, there’s non-GAL but still urgent Christmas or other gift knitting, and then there’s a new design or two. No imminent deadlines, fortunately, but still people expecting me to deliver. And that’s beside the other design plans that will be due just a little bit later, and the ones that totally aren’t on the schedule but are hopping up and down excitedly inside my brain. It’s all… well. I need to figure out how to be more disciplined with my knitting time. Quite urgently. My brand new planner will help, right? Clearly.

No 51 of #52recipes: this roasted tomato soup, heavy on the cream and butter, so obviously very tasty. Remember how my kids hate soup? Max still hates soup. Claudia concedes that actually when it’s really liquid and smooth, not thick the way I normally prefer to make it, soup is not the enemy, and this one is quite delicious. She didn’t actually have more than half a small cup of it, mind, but she did approve in principle.