I started to knit this lovely lacy top for my mum for her birthday.

Unfortunately it’s just over a week now until her birthday so I think I’ll have to keep this for her Christmas gift instead. Still I’ve managed to get quite a bit done this weekend and have finally figured the pattern out so that it now makes sense to me.

I know that mum will love the top as she saw it in one of my books and said how much she liked it – I just hope that she likes the colour.

Using My Daily Plate to keep an eye on the calories that I consume (and expend) is actually a real eye opener. It have calculated that I need to consume around 1,400 calories a a day in order to lose a lb a week. Based on everything that I have eaten so far today (and knowing what I will be eating for dinner tonight) I will consume 1,600 calories today – this means that I’m way over on my intake so have had to look into their database to see what exercise I can do (and realistically will do) in order to meet the deficit.

Fortunately I had planned to do some cleaning tonight and change the bedding so this should eat up (no pun intended!) around 90 calories, and then I will also be getting hte shopping delivered so will need to do the carrying and putting away, probably another 40 calories. I also started off the mixed fruit last night so I can bake a teabread tonight – soaking the fruit in some tea overnight – apparently baking uses up around 50 calories for 20 mins work.

This leaves me with 20 calories that I need to burnoff, but obviously I need to plan to burn more since this is all probable calorie burn! I have the top that I am knitting for my mum (which was going to be for her birthday but since that’s two weeks away now and I have barely knitted 2 inches that’s just not going to happen so it has now been moved to her Christmas present!) so I thought I could spend some time on that – aparently knitting burns around 80 calories an hour so it will be time well spent on both counts

During 2010 I aim to get much more organised which I hope will manifest itself in several different ways:

Firstly I know that keeping my paperwork up to date and regularly reconciling my bank will ensure that I keep track of my finances which in turn will ensure that I stick to my budget and pay off credit cards which is my main aim for this year (and next) so get the balance down to zero.

Secondly, and this will help with the above as well, I want to plan all my gifts for the year in advance and aim to give homemade presents where possibile. I have already been going through some of my knitting books and planned a couple of the gifts I aim to make – hence the preparation needs to start now so that I will have time to make some of the gifts.

Thirdly I hope that in planning in advance I will ultimately save time (and money) since I will spend less time procrastinating and putting things off.

So below is my list of what I need to do so that I can get organised:

• Make a master gift list: list all people that I will need to get gifts for and sort into birthday order (so the closest ones are dealt with first) and write down ideas for birthdays and Christmas gifts
• Write everyone’s holidays onto the kitchen calendar and my own personal diary – this includes parents holidays to ensure continuity of childcare cover and school holidays along with big events like birthdays and my marathon.
• Make a “simple” housework plan of tasks that need to be carried out every week – see if any of these can be delegated along with estimated times to complete (this will come in handy soon)
• Make a list of household tasks that need to be carried out periodically (monthly, quarterly) and schedule when these can be done so that they are done evenly throughout the year, for example cleaning carpets, defrosting the freezer, turning mattresses, servicing the boiler, etc.
• I’ve already made a start on this during my time off from work this Christmas, but pick a room a month and spend a half day (or whatever is required) decluttering it.
• Make meal plans for each week so I know what needs to be bought when I go shopping and save money by not buying unnecessary food that will not be used.
• Sense Check: with everything that I want to fit into any given week – making gifts, training for a marathon, housework, “real” work, me-time – estimate the time that each task will take to ensure that I have some sort of balance and set out enough time to get everything done.  I might need to let some of the less important housework slide (or give pocket money out for dusting!) so that other things can take precedence
• Re-assess at the beginning of March to see how things are going, then again in June and October by which time I will hopefully be a long way towards having the Christmas gifts sorted and will develop a more detailed plan for Christmas itself which will include preparing the Christmas cake and pudding in advance (I had to pay £14 this year for a Christmas cake and it certainly wasn’t as tasty or as big as what I have made in the past…)