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Journal Prompts: A Year in Review

This time of year always puts me in the mood to remember what happened during the year and think about what I want to achieve in the coming twelve months. I am planning to write a sort of retrospective of the year for a special journal I’ve been referring to as the Annual, which will start with pages dedicated to each month where I’ll list events and seasonal observations and paste in small printed-out photos. After that will be the Year in Review, which I would like to be a higher-level/longer-term look at how the year went and what I did. Inspired by the year in review blog questionnaire that has been around for most likely 20 years or more (if you were ever on LiveJournal, you know it: it’s the one with the question “compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? thinner or fatter? richer or poorer?”) and by thoughts that came up while starting my look back at the year.

This will likely change a bit as I actually write answers, but my year in review will be based on the following questions, skipping any that I turn out not to have answers for:

General: Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? What dates stand out from the year? What did you do this year that you’d never done before? What will you always associate with this year (such as a song or activity)? Where did most of your time go? Where did most of your money go?

Friends and family: Who was in your life a lot this year? What influence did they have? Who did you meet, reconnect with or get closer to this year? Who did you drift from this year? Any births, moves, or career changes in your circle? Any illnesses, injuries, or deaths in your circle? For both of those, who was it, and how did it affect you?

Infatuations and themes: What were you really into this year? What did you really look forward to, or were thrilled with after it happened? What styles or ideas pervaded your year? What were your routines?

Successes: What was your biggest achievement of the year? When did someone thrill or impress you, or go above and beyond (“someone” could be you)? What did you want and get? What was the best thing you bought this year? What did you improve at this year? What did you maintain this year? Was that easy or a struggle, and do you want to improve it?

Failures: What was your biggest failure of the year? What did you learn from it? When did someone hurt or disappoint you (“someone” could be you)? What did you want and not get? What did you hope to improve at this year but didn’t?

Hobbies and social activities: What new (or nearly new) activities did you try? Which ones did you stop doing? Anything learned from that? Would you try any of them again? Which new activities did you continue? What do they bring to you? What ongoing/pre-existing activities and relationships were at high or low tide this year? What pre-existing activities or relationships did you let go of? What did that open you up for?

Other experiences: Where did you travel – cities, states, countries? What books did you read this year? What movies and TV shows did you watch this year? What live performances did you see this year? For each of the previous 3 questions, which ones stand out? What else did you listen to or read this year (podcasts, recorded music, blogs, webcomics, videos)? Any new discoveries?

Journal Prompts: Commonplace Book

A list of things you might wish to record in your journal that are neither tied to your day-to-day nor responses to prompts or exercises (though some of them could perhaps be used as prompts).

Memories that come to you
Phrases that get stuck in your head
Quotations that strike you
Reactions to things you read, watch, or listen to
Interesting ideas, words, or phrases
Trivia that is fun or intriguing
Things you appreciate as particularly witty or clever

I do all of these to some degree, but in particular I take notes from my nonfiction reading in my journal, sometimes extensively. I’ve recorded particularly clever cryptic crossword puzzle clues, words for things I didn’t know there was a word for, and little bits about people I have just learned about and might want to look up later. Phrases and quotations often end up in my mini art journal.

Halloween!

I made a Halloween costume this year for the first time in a while. About a week and a half ago I was driving to pick up our farmshare, and I thought, “I should be a sheep for Halloween.”

The original plan was a shearling coat, a hat with lamb ears, mittens, and face paint for my nose. I was lucky enough to find a remnant of faux shearling that matched the lining of an on-sale coat – though not so lucky that the coat had lined sleeves. I had to create and attach sleeves, which was simple but somewhat time-consuming: cut sleeve-shaped pieces and make them into tubes, then pin and sew by hand to the coat (by hand partially because it seemed easier and less visible, and partially because once I’m through with this costume I’ll take them back off and wear the coat for real!). Not my tidiest sewing job, but… it’s a Halloween costume.

For the hat, I took the general game plan from a dinosaur hat tutorial by Stitched by Crystal and a reversible fleece hat video tutorial by The Crafty Gemini: four rounded triangles and a band below. I decided to make a folded band instead of two pieces since my material was already thicker than theirs, and created ears to insert as low in the side seams as possible. The final hat is bigger around than necessary and a bit shallow for a real winter hat, but if I want to make myself a real hat it will be a good starting point.

I made an incomplete muslin and a complete muslin, plus one muslin ear. In my pattern piece photo below, the ear isn’t quite the final version – I rounded out the middle, so it not only tapered toward the point, but a bit toward the base as well.

The mittens were a lucky find that I expect to get a lot of use out of. The bell was a late addition when I worried (based on my hat muslin) that people might think I was a bunny. The bell was originally a Christmas bell with a handle, which unscrewed easily. The internet agreed that lambs wear their bells on red ribbons, so that’s what I used. It rang lightly with every step I took and really added to the costume. Though I had to move it out of the way when hugging people lest someone end up with a bruised sternum.

The lack of nose paint was a completely last minute change – I had applied it, and wiped it off with a napkin in the car on the way to the party because it just didn’t look right. Perhaps it just accentuated that my face was otherwise completely human?

In the photo at top, the straw caught in my fleece (so authentic!) was from a hayride I took at the party. (Though I may have patted some onto spots where it didn’t get naturally…)

One bonus shot: Earlier this month I made a couple of candy corns out of Petals to Picots’ crochet candy corn pattern. Easy and good! For the hanging loop, I folded a separate length of yarn in half, tied a bulky knot, and slid it into the magic ring before tightening. The knot keeps it from coming out, and if I decide I don’t want it I can push it inside or cut it off.