Monday Update: January 14, 2013

Happy Monday! I've been busy working on the fundraising for my trip to Guatemala, and I haven't been doing a whole heck of a lot else. If you'd like to help, you can purchase something from my Etsy shop, or join the Ready to Ship sale on Petite Tuques' Facebook page.
Last week, I finished three small (very very very small) balls of yarn, as well as one slightly larger one. I am tracking how many skeins/balls I reduce my stash by this year, and this brings me to minus 4. I almost didn't even want to count the small ones at first, because they were so small and insignificant, but I figured if I get some numbers going, it will encourage me to keep going, and not give up less than a month after setting myself the goal. I am hoping to reduce my stash this year quite significantly. I have a LOT of yarn. Most of it is in clear plastic totes, but there is quite a bit in cardboard boxes, and reusable shopping bags. The lowballing goal is to get rid of the cardboard and bags, and the extreme goal is to clear out those, as well as three of the eight plastic totes. If i reach the latter goal, I will allow myself to stock up on yarn that I use most often, such as Homespun, Thick and Quick, and hopefully some sock yarn for the Beekeepers quilt.
To eliminate these balls, I made a bunch of bows, and a colour block neck warmer. I haven't been super productive, partly because of all the fundraising stuff I need to take care of. I've also been working on Christine's baby gift, which I need to have finished soon!

Sorry about the quality of the first one. I didn't realize how terrible it was until I uploaded it to Ribbet.

The middle photo is of a bowl with a bazillion little bows waiting to be sewn. I also made one of my lace neck warmers in dark blue. I am still in love with this pattern. I tweaked it a little bit to adjust the size, just based on how the one I kept for myself is doing.

As far as debt goes, I'm still at $1400. I paid a small chunk on the card, but after interest charges, and a couple small iTunes purchases, I'm back to square one. Some more crappy news on this front is ahead. I don't know whose bright idea it was, but things have changed drastically at my workplace. We got two new full time employees, who've transferred from other stores, as well as a new manager who will be working with us full time (unlike our current manager who splits his time between two stores). What this means is that our already thinly spread hours are even thinner. I'll be lucky to get 5 hours a week. This is all coming at a bad time for me. Not that there is ever really a good time to lose hours at work, but with going away for a couple weeks, I don't feel comfortable applying for jobs now, and then have them call while I'm gone. I think it would just end up making things more difficult for me.
The other option is to try the knitting thing again. I knit almost constantly already. I have a few local stores that sell my stuff pretty successfully. My Etsy shop is getting decent traffic. It seems like this year would be a good year to try doing this again. I'd still keep the one day a week at the Beer Store, but maybe, just maybe, I could supplement with my handiwork. Argh, I'm so confused and torn!

This week has been a busy, confusing week. I hope to get through this in one piece.
What have all of you fine folks been up to?