As I’ve mentioned in my last couple of posts, I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, I do projects. After binging the December episodes of Gretchen Rubin’s podcast, I’ve decided to start 22 projects at the beginning of 2022. Will I complete all of them? Probably not, but I love to see what happens.

Without further ado, my 22 in ’22 are:

1. Knit Christmas stockings (this won’t happen if I wait until December!)
2. Catch up on family albums.
3. Set the kids up with their own bedrooms.
4. Paint the kitchen cupboards.
5. “Finish” decluttering (though I realize this will be a continuous work in progress).
6. Deep clean the house.
7. Publish my first novel.
8. Write the rough draft of my second room mom novel.
9. Go boogie boarding five times.
10. Get a ping pong table.
11. Read 100 books for myself.
12. Cook with mushrooms – try twelve new recipes that involve our favorite fungi!
13. Use my button maker. (Christmas gift I bought for myself.)
14. Get a new enamel pin every month.
15. Learn how to play the Super Mario Bros. theme on the piano.
16. Create another graphics heavy book in the tradition of The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred of Sanity
17. Learn a tap dance routine to Footloose.
18. Decorate with pompoms.
19. Go to Hogwarts at Universal Studios with Pippa.
20. Study Carl Jung.
21. Put family pictures in seasonal frames to rotate throughout the year.
22. Get a posh trash can for the kitchen.

I love the range of this list from “publish my first novel” to “get a posh trash can” with some craft projects thrown in for good measure. I tried to make the list specific, e.g. “learn how to play the Super Mario Bros. theme on the piano” rather than “play the piano more often.”

I originally had “no dieting” on the list, but instead, I’ve decided to do someting new. I like to pick a word for the year. My 2021 word was “momentum.” After a lot of back and forth, I’ve finally picked a word for 2022: Reclaim.

I have “work” that I am going to do in regards to my 2022 word of the year, but I’ll write about that in my January 2022 blog posts. In the meantime, I have to get started on our favorite pot pies* for New Year’s Eve dinner.

*I was going to post the link, but my internet is being weird and cranky. It’s the Smitten Kitchen recipe for Better Pot Pies and mmm, so delicious. It’s the perfect cozy recipe to end the year.