Some Goals on a Friday

Today is the third consecutive day off work for me, and I'm taking advantage of it. I have a lot of things to blog about today, so I'm going to jump right in!

I started listening to/watching podcasts again. I got rid of all the old episodes I had collecting virtual dust in iTunes, and downloaded some new ones. My newest favourite is the Subway Knits podcast. Maria has such a wonderful voice for podcasting, and she really holds my attention well. This has been my background soundtrack while knitting Christine's baby shower gift (more on that later). I've also got some episodes of CraftStash and Round the Twist downloading, which I will listen to soon.
In addition to podcasts, I've been listening to songs online on Songza. My friend Jess introduced me to this, and I am really enjoying it. You can select times of day/days of the week/activities to have a soundtrack for, and they will give you a few options. For example, last night I chose "Thursday Evening", "Working (With Lyrics)", "Upbeat Indie" and finally "Female Indie Pop Singers". The first songs were from Emily Haines (of Metric), followed by Feist, Regina Spektor, Kimbra and some other wonderful artists that I really like. I'm definitely going to be using this often. I will still use iTunes, but this is a nice way to discover new artists.

I'm working on Christine's baby shower gift pretty aggressively. Her shower is at the end of this month, and I barely have an inch done. This photo shows the colours, but I undid it all, because the general consensus was that it didn't look great. I modified things a bit, and restarted. So far, so good. This is probably going to be the first and last photo of this on the blog until she receives it. I don't want to ruin the surprise! I have a couple other gifts for her, too. I think she'll really like all of it.

Now, onto the goals. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in 2013. I did the 101 project a few times, and failed miserably. I think by having fewer goals, in a shorter time frame will allow me to stick to them a bit better. Here is what I have so far:
-Knit the stash. I have tons of yarn, and I need to start using it all. I think I'm going to do the skein in/out count again. This worked really well for me in the past. I will knit exclusively from the stash except in the case of special orders, if the yarn is more than 70% off, it is hand dyed sock yarn with a discount, or it's "souvenir" yarn. I need to have some exceptions.
-Blog more about what I am knitting. This is a knitting blog, and it seems like there isn't a heck of a lot of knitting content at any given time. I want to post about what is on my needles, and recently finished projects. I feel this will help me knit the stash more effectively. I can see what I've made, what I used for it, and it will probably give me more ideas of stuff to knit with the random assortment of yarn I have. I'm hoping to post Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and stick with that schedule, but it all depends on how much and when I work.
-Take more pictures. I have an iPhone with a decent camera, I have no excuse for not taking photos. I'm getting a new iPhone at the end of January, with an even better camera, so hopefully that will help encourage me to document more of my life. I won't necessarily share everything on Facebook or Instagram, but I want to have the pictures for myself.
-Get fit. I've gained over 30 pounds in the past year, mostly because of the anxiety medication I started taking November 2011. It increases my appetite, decreases my motivation, and makes me sleep a lot. All things that add up to a terrible weight gain. I want to start running again, which will probably be what I start with. I also want to get a stationary bike so I can pedal and knit at the same time. I wish I could build a bike that generates electricity, so I'd have to pedal every time I want to use my computer. That would be awesome, I think. (If this exists, PLEASE let me know!)
-Take better care of myself. I want to feel better about myself, and that starts with better habits. I need to eat healthier, put some make up on, even if i'm not going anywhere, and use the good shampoo more often. Little things like that will hopefully make me love myself again.
-Pay down my debts. I owe money to the credit card company, and to my parents, to the tune of several hundred each. This year, I want to really make some headway on both of them. My heart says to pay my parents back first, but my head says to pay the credit card with the 19.45% interest first. I will try to find a nice balance.
These are my goals. I won't say resolutions, but they're pretty close to that.

What sorts of goals do you have for the new year?