Anghraine

I'm half-arsing this. I'm finishing the year sore, fatigued, and not nearly as grumpy as I could be (given that this was going to be a study day, and I've declared that nope, it is a annual leave day, and now I'm working through a set of tiny low priority tasks).

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals. With going back to study, I didn't make as many of them as I'd like, and I stopped tracking them mid year.

• work - I set one goal - find work. I'm calling what I'm doing 'work', success
• craft - I set seven goals. I completed two of the 'finish this'. I attempted to start Middlest's quilt. There are no incomplete projects on the green couch because we cleared the couch. I am not looking at the red couch. Eldest's quilt is not done. I started a deal with UFOs project, but abandoned. Excellent progress, considering.
• reading - I set four goals. I bailed on the Hugo reading, and my but that was the right choice. I have met my books but not my pages goals; mostly because I started tracking online short fiction. I wanted to progress the various reading challenges on Storygraph; I'm intending to do a separate post on that. Good progress.
• house - I set 6 goals. The ramp and pergola required me to contact people; this did not happen. I made progress on the towel rail for the kids bathroom. The library is more useable, as is the craft room. Acceptable progress.
• music - I set 7 goals. I kept playing with Fledge. The rest fell by the wayside. I've certainly played some of the grade 5 descant pieces, but I've really struggled with the energy to play anything for more than five minutes. Bad match between goals and reality
• learning - I set three goals; I attempted nothing. Oops.
• family - I set no goals. Youngest moved home. Middlest moved out. Middlest got married. Middlest's partners bought a house that they will all be moving in with. I made an effort to spend time with all the local family. maharetr and I now have a very low key text based weekly catchup that provides us both with executive function; I have made attempts at having coffee with people Just Because (most recently, ariaflame, chaosmanor, maharetr). Despite no goals, I'm happy with the achievement.
• social - I set a half arsed goal about catching up with friends. I have been attempting to say yes to social things, although often falling in a heap. I have, however, caught up with a number of people I don't see often enough, not all of that at funerals.
• physical exercise and health - I set four goals. I achieved none. Park runs were doing fine right up to the point that something went wrong and then I couldn't deal. My sleep worsened, got better, worsened, and now I'm back to trying to pull it back before midnight again. Oh! I kind of did the walks in Perth - I didn't do one of the book, but we did find a wheelchair accessible one to do a couple of months back, which wa chaosmanor, maharetr, artisanat, and I.
• organisation - I have five goals, but the first one is ???, so I suspect a typo. All four real ones have been progressed but are all a long way from done. This is a disappointment, but I forgot I'd set them.
• decluttering - I set four goals. I achieved (mostly) one, successfully rehoming a significant portion of the yarn and fabric I wanted to.
• writing - I set 6 goals. I have mostly kept up the offline journal/morning pages; I wrote fewer blog posts here and none at anna_reads_science and not as many as I wanted at Tumblr. My two coding projects languished. I am disappointed, but unsurprised.
• garden - I set five goals and one stretch. The bird netting came off the grapes, but I can't claim that one. Some of the extra pot plants found homes. The rest required energy, motivation, and remembering, and these did not happen.

Overall - I achieved some things, and having a list was useful, at least while I remembered it was there. I started writing a new list mid-year, and never quite got off the ground. I struggle to work out how to track these things. I continue to not put energy into skills I value, not least because they take energy and focus, and it has been a difficult year for that.

(I was going to write about what I'm hoping for 2026, but that will be later, as Out Of Oomph)

I've just done a Svaha order, because we really like their stuff, it lasts well, and in general I've had good results (the skirt that turned out not to work on me looks fabulous on ariaflame, for example). Also, they have pockets.

If you are a texture sensitive person who wears dresses/skirts (they do some other things but I've never bought anything else, so can't speak to their quality), very much recommend. Watch out for where they list 'waist seam' or 'not waist seam' if that matters (it very much matters to me; the A-line dress with no waist seam that I have is one of the most comfortable dresses I own). Dresses go up to 5XL; I have no idea how that works for tall people.

As to the scam alert: there are scam sites that have ripped off significant amounts of the imagery. Svaha have info on it here. ariaflame spotted this, when I commented that I seemed to have two sites and I couldn't work out why.

(the only thing I was disappointed by was the fact that there is a pride flags dress in the style I want to wear, but it didn't have the intersex flag on there. I got something else instead)