2) I haven't been writing here. I enjoy stating the obvious. Sorry.

3) I had a fun trip to Washington, D.C. to see my folks. Thank you to all my new Instagram friends for enduring eleventy thousand pictures of sightseeing. If we're not friends yet on Instagram you can find me here: http://instagram.com/crazyauntpurl. You may have noticed I now stalk all of you obsessively through your photos. It is so much better than online shopping and costs less.

4) Speaking of DC and funny shopping things ... about one hour into my trip, I lost my credit card. I think I left it at the bar at LAX. I didn't realize this until I arrived in DC and the hotel needed a card for room incidentals and I opened my wallet and OH NO. Well, I didn't want to give them my debit mastercard because I think that sounds risky (and based on my track record that day, I decided less risk is best.) So I looked through my wallet at my options and finally decided to secure my room bill with my Bloomingdale's card. Which happens to be an Amex.

In conclusion, once again Bloomingdale's is my mothership.

5) Hey -- will you vote for my friend Ken? (Keep scrolling for details how.) I don't ask this stuff often because I am sensitive to both how annoying it can be to you and also how it opens a floodgate of people asking me to promote their stuff, which meh, but Ken has totally been my health inspiration lately.

Check him out:

Here is the story: he was working at a job he did not like and gained a lot of weight (who can relate to this? The me of 2010, that is who.) He left the bad job and now we work in the same office and WOW. He has changed his entire life through just diet and exercise. He even got a little email thing started here at work so that some of us who need motivation to exercise will get off our booties and move. He's amazing. Plus, he is the nicest guy you will ever meet. We're working on a project together and he never looses his cool or cries into his elbow like me.

So Ken participated in a transformation challenge and if he gets enough votes he could win a big prize!

Here's how to vote for Ken to win:

1. Click on the following link: http://bit.ly/15O3RjI

2. Click the "Like" button in the upper-right-corner

a. If not already logged into Facebook, login and re-click the above link

3. Scroll down and click on the "Vote" button.

4. That is all! =)

Ken has really inspired me and encouraged me to put fitness back into my life and I thought this would be a nice way to show him I appreciate it.

OK, one more complaint about it being April -- that is all :)
xo LP

1) My February ended up being like most people's January. Oh well! Now it's a new month and a new list.

2) I already failed at my only new goal for March -- to stop saying the word "awesome." I failed awesomely and it was awesome!

3) Susan Miller at astrologyzone is never really all that positive about Cancers, but this month's forecast was especially brutal. It made me terrified for the month to come. Usually she says the same stuff over and over for Cancer: you have one nice day and then the rest of the time you have a money problem or family problem blah blah blah pluto up uranus. But she was off the charts for March -- apparently I will be homeless, jobless, friendless and bereft by month's end. Look, I realize that horoscopes are meant to be entertainment. I know that this isn't hard science. But how entertaining is it to read that no matter what you do, your entire month will be fraught with peril and there is nothing you can prevent OR fix OR anticipate? There should be a rule for non-scientific entertainment: it should not make you want to hide under your bed for a month. In conclusion, I am never reading that stupid astrologyzone again.

4) Here is my alternate (and equally scientific) horoscope for all Cancerians in March:
You are AWESOME! Sure, you feel a little overwhelmed at times, but that is because you are not a sociopath. This month you will experience at least one incredibly delicious meal. It may be what you least expected -- think beer and nachos made out of kettle-baked potato chips slathered in cheese. By mid-month you will feel the urge to make something new, like origami from post-it notes or cookies in the shape of a spaceship (hint: round). Cancers are sensitive souls and not everyone understands how attuned you are, so have patience with others as they may not have been on the distribution list for the memo of your emotions. They'll come around, and you can reward them with a UFO cookie or a post-it crane. March is also a wonderful month for buying new sandals -- you will find the perfect pair!

5) See? was that so freaking hard?

So, Happy March since it is indeed March even though I am still in a February state of mind.

March!

Too soon!

1) There are people now much younger than me who do not have a context for which VD means "venereal disease" and believe instead that it means "Vampire Diaries."

2) Apropos of nothing ... thinking of botox.

3) I bought all the cupcakes at Ralph's! ALL THE CUPCAKES. I bought all the cupcakes to give out to my beloved coworkers for Valentine's Day. But if you were to posit if some blonde in Los Angeles sat in her car last night while parked in her garage and looked in the grocery bag for the fanciest of the fancy cupcakes and pulled it out of the container and ate said fancy chocolate cupcake for dinner while sitting in her car in her parking spot without even taking off her seatbelt all I am saying here is that you would not be terribly mistaken.

4) Suck it! Cupcake dinner!

5) I love Valentine's Day. There, I said it. It is an entire day devoted to pink and chocolate and getting lucky AND/OR complaining about not getting lucky, all things which I appreciate. Plus I ate a cupcake for dinner in my car under the guise of office altruism.

That is all. Go forth and VD the hell out of this day.

A few weeks ago we had a bitter cold snap -- one day it was an inhospitable 59℉! And then the city immediately experienced a mini-summer, which is also part of winter, with afternoon highs in the 80s. The mini-summer which happens every January is our native cue for mass exfoliation and a reminder that bathing suit season is two weeks away.

It's the mornings that catch you off guard in this city. At night the temperature drops and by early morning it's just above freezing. When I went for a walk this morning I wore my hand-knitted beanie in the arctic 42℉ morning air. So you can see that everyone needs a knitted hat, even in Los Angeles.

My love for hat knitting hasn't waned a bit. Is there anything finer than a winter's evening spent settling in with a glass of wine, a delicious yarn and a Tivo full of Scandal episodes? I think not. When Olivia Pope is on the move my attention is glued to the screen (her opera-length white gloves!!!) (which she wears to the hospital!) and even after years of knitting I can't concentrate on a complicated knit pattern and watch TV at the same time. The simplicity of the knitted hat is just perfect.

Luckily my family is filled with brothers and uncles and cousins and nephews who live in far-flung places and love to wear my hand-knitted hats. I favor beanies and the standard 1x1 ribbed-brim cap in solids and dark washable yarns, but sometimes I go off the reservation and make wacky caps in stripy yarns.

For Christmas I made a pile of cozy hats:

Roll-brim, hipster slouchies, 1x1 brim and beanies oh my!

My current Noro fave: Noro Iro from my home yarn emporium (stash room).

So much help.

The very best part of the holiday was getting all the family text messages with selfies of the recipients wearing my hand-knitted hats:

Adorable Andrew and super-handsome Brett

Hipster Cool Eric

Beginning knitters often feel wary of the hat-- the circular needles, the double-pointed bit at the end (or beginning, though I always knit my hats bottom up.) But basic hats are ridiculously easy and so fast you can make one a day.

Here are my recommendations for knitting a great hat:

1) Measure the noggin!
Measure your head or recipient's head and subtract 1 inch or 1.5 inches -- that's about the perfect size for a hat. Example: Your head is 23.5 inches around the noggin, ergo you should make a hat that's about 22" around. It isn't a party at my house until someone is measuring their cranium.

2) You can knit a simple hat from ANY yarn.
Once you know how many inches to knit, you can use any yarn. Knit up a quick swatch of your chosen yarn on any size needle you like, measure the gauge. Multiple stitches per inch by the noggin measurement -- that's your cast on number. Example: If you get 4 stitches per inch and you want a 22" hat, cast on 88 stitches.

3) When in doubt...
When in doubt, always cast on less stitches than more stitches.

4) Decreasing isn't hard.
Shaping a hat shape is so easy -- just decrease stitches evenly across the final rounds. I wrote a whole manifesto on it. But don't take decreasing too seriously. Here's the best trick I know: Once you've figured out where and when to decrease, place a marker after every decrease. Now you know that you don't have to count stitches or look for the telltale hump of a knit-two-together stitch. Just knit and when you see a marker, work the decrease on the two stitches in front of it.

5) Find a formula that works for you.
I tend to cast on hats using 88, 77, or 66 inches (depending on the yarn.) I like a 1x1 rib on the brim and I really love the easy decrease math of these numbers. If for some reason my hat needs different math, I will often decrease subtly to the nearest easy number (say, knitting down from 79 stitches to 77) and then place my markers and start my hat's descent into smallness.Don't be afraid to try new things on hats -- they're small and easy projects to experiment with.

6) Invest in a few great needles.
I LOVE the 16" Harmony wood circulars from Knitpicks. The needle portion is shorter than other brands, which works really well for hat knitting. Just find something that works for you. A good rule of thumb for a worsted weight hat is a size 7 16" circular plus a set of size 7 dpns.

And here are some things you may find useful when knitting a hat:

• The easy roll-brim hat pattern, the basis of all my hat recipes

• Working with circular needles

• A little diatribe on decreasing stitches

• Great for chunky yarns: The Brangelina hat

• My regular ribbed-brim hat recipe

Hats are the best. I think I've gotten the hardcore hat phase out of my system (for now) and I'm onto wristies, so be sure to look forward to my scathing expose on the thumb gusset. Film footage at eleven!

Not all perfectionists end up hoarders. Some of us end up re-grouting the tub every time we have company coming to stay. My brain tells me that I have company coming and I should vacuum, do a load of towels ... and then maybe repaint the kitchen, install a chandelier and create a concept wall. SO IT IS PERFECT.

Not everything about perfectionism is bad. The desire to be more, do more, do it right, get it done just so motivates some of us in a way no exterior incentive can. But oftentimes perfectionism stands in the way of accomplishment. It tells us we can't start a project until we have enough time to devote to it to get it done RIGHT. It keeps us from making little efforts, little changes, little dents here and there. It may keep some of us from having company because there is simply not enough time to repaint the whole house.

Perfectionism stirs up a lot of "Why bother? I'll never be perfect at this. Why even try?"

So I have been thinking about how and why the 20 minute thing worked for me when all the flylady and "tackle one drawer a day" stuff never clicked. How long have I been telling you about my cleaning marathons and the deep desire I have to declutter so I can clean less? I was able to clean obsessively while I was at home hermiting but now I'm in the studio all day. I work 10, sometimes 12 hours a day on a project that I love, LOVE. But it leaves little time to do anything else perfectly (or at all, in some cases). I don't have time, energy or desire to waste a precious free day getting it all exquisitely clean.

The 20-minutes-a-day thing is working because it comes at the issue from a whole new angle. Instead of being perfect at cleaning, I'm focusing my perfectionism on keeping up my 20-minutes a day commitment. It's taking something that appears to be a fault ("crazypantsedness') and turning into an asset ("striving toward a goal").

This is how I am approaching all of 2013. If I have a roadblock or issue or hissyfit, I immediately stop pushing so hard on the problem and look for a new angle. Work the problem from a whole 'nother place.

Life is short, but we all have 20 minutes for something.

Hello. This photo has nothing to do with the words! I'm on instagram pretty much all day every day and I love seeing your pictures too ... you can find me at: http://instagram.com/crazyauntpurl/ and if you have the app let me know so I can follow you, too. I love to see your cats, dogs, kids, knitting, food and manicures! Some of you are amazing photographers. I mostly post cat pictures. SURPRISING, I KNOW.

Things I loathe today:
• Dry skin
• The resurgence of the puffy vest
• People who hide behind cynicism instead of showing emotion
• Boots that don't fit over my cheerleader calves
• Germs and the handshakes that spread them

- - -

Love.

Hate.

I'm not even going to talk about how it got to be this day so soon when I am still thinking about Christmas knitting.

My February goals are to continue January goals minus one that was unnecessary plus one task a day. At the beginning of the year I made a list of all lingering, current and upcoming life to-do items. It was a really long list. If this novel doesn't work out I could stick a dedication page on the list and call it my War & Peace.

The list itself feels like accomplishment. If I don't write tasks down I carry them in my head and create anxiety and forget my zipcode. But when the list is together I wonder how on earth will I ever get it all done!

Based on my revelation from January -- massive accomplishment can come from devoting a small chunk of time daily to a project -- I decided to make myself accountable for knocking off one item off each day in February. Some tasks are short but annoying (making an appointment, going to an appointment, getting the car serviced). Some are more involved (taxes, database management, unclusterfucking the website and email issues). The bigger tasks got highlighted in pink so I know to schedule those on a weekend or a day when I'm off work. There are eight weekend days in February and one holiday, so that gives me room for nine large tasks and 19 small or medium tasks.

Also based on what I learned in January, I can take a large task and break it out over several days and that's fine, too. Though I would prefer to just get them done one per day.

I picked this goal for February since it's the shortest month. Obvs.

The overall goal is to enter into March and springtime with less junk on my to-do list and with more sense of accomplishment and butt-kicking in my own life.

Feel free to download my monthly goal-tracker and use one yourself:

• Monthly goal tracker PDF (letter size)

• Monthly goal tracker PDF (legal size)

While I am dismayed that They (The U.S. Department of They) were right about time flying by as you get older, I am happy that January was a month where each day was not completely lost in a blur and I have a sheet of star stickers to remind myself of that.

Are you doing goals this month? If so, what's on your list?

Gold star for Bob -- Cat Who Keeps Laundry Warm!

At the beginning of January I launched into my yearlong science experiment to find out if small daily changes can have the same impact in life that I get from Grand Gestures. Grand Gestures are my thing, people -- move out west! go to Paris tonight! quit my job! start an empire! I've always been a fan of the Herculean effort. If I'm going to do something I'm going to focus all my time and energy and money on that one thing and march like Sherman to the sea until I'm done (but usually at the last minute, or unexpectedly, or on a whim).

The advantage of this personality predilection is that I have a very interesting life. The downside is that no one can march all the way to the sea and back every day. When I'm in I'm all in, but when I'm out my life is on pause. In 2013, I want to try something different and use each day as a miniature goal farm and see if at the end of the year it grows something good.

My tasks for January were fairly simple. In addition to my daily schedule I created a set of specific daily goals for the month and I scored them using the high-tech "foil star sticker on paper" method. The overall theme of the month was raising my energy.

I'm happy to report it was a banner month in the star sticker department!

Did I get a star every day for every task? Nope. Did I end up abandoning one task altogether mid-month? Yup. Did I fail completely at writing on this here website every day? Indeed. Still, the month was a success because each star represents 100% more accomplishment on these specific tasks than none at all.

That was the whole purpose of my January goals -- to get into the habit of doing a few things regularly. It's no Grand Gesture, but the cumulative impact in the areas I stuck with was clear. Most unexpectedly, I had a huge eye-opener in January. I suddenly realized how much I can accomplish by working toward one task for 20 minutes each day consistently. Twenty minutes, that's it. I never really thought that such a small effort could have almost immediately big results.

The place it showed up for me was at home. I love to have a clean, orderly home but in my world housecleaning a large task that is to be accomplished once a week with vigorous intensity. Maybe it's a holdover from my weird childhood or something. Every Saturday or Sunday morning you could find me burning hours a day just cleaning, vacuuming, tidying, dusting and doing laundry. My definition of clean may not be the same as yours and I can be rather over-attentive in this area, but even I hate burning a whole precious weekend day on cloroxing.

The end result of my clean-crazy has not been entirely pleasing: the day is gone, I'm exhausted, and the weekend is half over. But it fits with my personality, I guess, pulling out the Grand Gesture of Cleanliness once a week like it or not.

In January I committed to doing 20 minutes a day of focused tidying up or decluttering (in addition to my normal daily stuff like dishes and making the bed.) By the second Saturday of January my weekend housecleaning time was cut in HALF. By mid-January I saw fewer piles of mail or books or shoes or, well, anything. Everything was in its place. Last weekend the house appeared to be keeping itself clean. How was this possible in just 20 minutes a day?

I'll tell you how: Over the course of January I devoted an additional unbroken 20-minute block to my home upkeep, totaling 10.3333 hours for the month. If a task couldn't be completed in the 20-minute timeframe, I did something completely unheard of for me -- I started the task anyway and just finished the next day (!!!!) The difference has been ASTONISHING.

This one simple truth has changed my life.

From now on I'm going to apply this strategy to all sorts of projects. By the time I am 60 I might play the guitar or speak fluent French or get all my music organized on my hard drive or knit a sweater. I may actually rule the world. Consider yourself warned.

When you come from the land of Grand Gestures the idea of a small gesture doesn't seem very appealing. It's kind of boring. It doesn't seem worth the effort. ("Why bother with just twenty minutes? I can't get it all done. It will take me at least an hour, a day, a weekend. I'll do it some other time." Sound familiar?)

This past month has been proof to me that one small effort repeated consistently can have truly transformative results.

January was a definite success.

It's true -- there is nothing certain. This makes me crazy and also reassures me. When something is comfortable or going well there is no guarantee it will last and that is crazy-making. When things are weird and not-quite-right, there is also no guarantee it will stay that way -- a wonderful thing.

Forget therapy! I get my wisdom at the dry cleaner's.

Also, there is germy cold and everyone at the studio is sick. Everyone at the grocery store is sick. I leave my house and all I can think about is how delicious it would be to slip into a well-tailored hazmat suit.

The cold and flu season is not kind to germaphobes.

Last week I was so sick I even missed a day of work, though I don't remember much about it as I slept until 5:30 p.m., something which occurs also once every 22 years. During my time of febrile delirium, I discovered a new product that freaked out my little brain:

This tissue promises to be soothing and cool to the touch on your poor red noz. And people, it actually works. It's so freaky and mysterious and yet at the same time a strange luxury. I am one of those people who always has an endless supply of Kleenex on hand (along with toilet paper and paper towels, you will never run out of these things when you visit my home, I am a mini-hoarder of necessities) but I only stock the germaphobe's delight, the Kleenex Anti-Viral tissue.

Now I have to make a special trip back to the store and brave exposure to the human population so I can stock up on cool touch tissues. What a marvelous time we live in.

I'm hoping that the Kindle will help me a little with my book storage issues (I am running out of room at home!) Look, I'm always going to buy books -- I love them, I love the way the feel and smell and the solid way they fit in my hand. What I do not love is boxing them up and moving them or storing them in piles all over the house. If I buy half the books and read twice as much using the Kindle I'm ahead of my own game.

Perhaps the Kindle will come in handy with another 2013 goal: Go On Vacation. My idea of vacation is sitting in a cafe somewhere far away reading a great book. On my last trip to Paris I had to pay a hefty luggage overcharge for all the paperbacks I bought at Shakespeare & Co! That dumb fee cost more than an eReader.

The Kindle is really simple to use and it's much lighter than my iPad. The built-in light is useful at night. I also sprung for the case, when I travel it will make a nice protector. Downloading books couldn't be simpler. I already started my first book, but it's a very different experience on an eReader. I didn't realize how often I thumb ahead in a book or locate passages by sight based on page placement, but perhaps this is something you get used to. I also miss that comforting feeling of holding a physical book. Is this something that wears off? Did you get used to it in time?

My loyalty to Amazon tipped my decision in favor of the Kindle. I've heard wonderful things about the Nook, but I know that Amazon's customer service is the best of the best of the best. I figure if I read one extra book a month (while simultaneously not adding to my overfilled bookshelves) the Kindle will be worth it. (For the record, yes I know libraries are wonderful, yes I love libraries, we all love libraries. But I choose to buy books, author karma, etc. etc. You do what's best for you.)

Have you made the switch to an eReader? Did it take you a while to get used to reading electronically? Do you read mostly digital, mostly paper books or a combination? Has your eReader helped you cut down on physical book storage? (At first I almost said "book clutter" but books are not clutter!)

And maybe a warm hand-knit hat.

"Can you talk some more at some point about the mechanics of how you track your goals? I too am a tracking and goalsetting nerd and I love hearing about what other people do. Also, I confess to being thoroughly intimidated by the volume of goals just for January, and would really like to hear how it works. Is it one star per thing per day, etc.?"

Hi! I am so glad you asked and I cannot believe I forgot to include these links yesterday (apparently I am out of practice a bit.) If a tracking system isn't simple I won't keep up with it. Anything too restrictive, overly detailed or color-coded guarantees I won't do it so I created myself a blank grid that has enough room for six write-in goals and little boxes to put in a star each day (or leave blank, if I miss a day). It's simple, visual and cheap. Instead of worrying over a special printable page for each month I just created one with 31 days and I can write the month at the top above the numbers column.

Feel free to download them and use them yourself:

• Monthly goal tracker PDF (letter size)

• Monthly goal tracker PDF (legal size)

The template has six slots at the top for my daily goals. Six goals per day felt like the maximum I could safely pledge without giving up in a fit of frustration. On January 1st, though, I added a 7th in the margin and the world did not stop spinning on its axis, so all is well. Some goals are simple ("Take vitamins daily") and some have time limits attached ("Exercise for at least 20 minutes daily.") If I accomplish my goal that day I get a shiny star sticker in its spot.

If I don't accomplish my goal for a day, I leave the spot blank but don't give up, just try again tomorrow. The idea is to have more stars than blank spaces at the end of each month. You could also use this template to track a single goal over a month at different levels of progression. For example, if your goal is to walk more you could chart your walks and make notes of time, distance, hills vs. flat, etc. Author Gretchen Rubin has a similar goal-tracking sheet on her website, The Happiness Project, and her goals are already written in if that helps you.

After eleventy-nine years of making goals for all kinds of stuff, I have learned that my systems have to be simple if I'm going to stick with them. This is about as simple as they get. I highly recommend investing a buck fifty into a pack of foil star stickers -- it's only January 3 and already I am addicted to the high of putting stickers all over my chart. This is a ridiculously silly thing that I have only just discovered about myself, but apparently I am still six years old and I love the thrill of checking off another task with a shiny star-shaped sticker.

Bob has accomplished all his goals for the day.

This year I am turning myself into my own science experiment. I'm super excited about it. Most of the time the changes that shape me are unexpected and take me by surprise. I prefer shaping my own path, so why not start right now?

Creating lists and setting goals makes me happy. Not everyone is this wired for bullet points, of course. Every time I talk about my love of goal setting it makes some people uneasy, especially The Gratitude Police who show up with their finger-wagging platitudes, saying:  "You should just be happy with what you have! Be grateful! Other people have it worse!"  I don't understand Gratitude Policing AT ALL. Are we supposed to stop setting goals, just be grateful and .. what? Wait to die? I am not built that way. Setting goals is my way of paying back the Universe for the pleasure of living. It's a huge expression of thanks! Trying to live to higher standards is a tenet of every religion on earth. Great spiritual leaders never sat around telling strangers to shut up, be grateful, and stop making improvements.

So, to be clear, this is my personal way of expressing thanks for my life -- by making a plan to not squander all I've been given. I will let my freak flag fly and cover it with foil stars from the office supply store if that is my thrill.

By the way, that IS my thrill.

I'm a huge fan of the Grand Gesture, a big sweeping moment of change. (Think, "I want to quit my job!" or "To hell with this, I'm moving to France!") I've done a few of those in my life and while satisfying, the grand gesture just isn't practical every single day of our lives. In 2013, I'm working my science experiment inside the confines of my day-to-day life, to see if small changes worked every day can really add up into big change by the end of the year.

My January goal is to improve my energy. I need energy so I can accomplish my other goals for the year. This theme is swiped directly from Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project. I rarely recommend self-help books here because I am sensitive to the amount of cheese one human can push on another, but The Happiness Project is a wonderful book that reads more like a memoir. If you need inspiration, guidance, and fresh ideas on getting your year off to a good start this is the book. The author is charming and pragmatic and she's done all the research for you, essentially rounding up a century's worth of advice and research on happiness and distilling it down to the essence.

(Some of) My January Goals

Take vitamins every single day for the entire month
Get at least 20 minutes of physical activity each day
Go to bed at a regular time every night and try to sleep for 8 hours
Eat three nutritious meals each day
Declutter or clean house for 20 minutes each day
Read one fiction book I'm excited about
Write in the mornings
Floss every night

I'm not posting the whole list lest I seem like an insane person, but you get the idea. Some of these things seem so basic -- take a vitamin -- but I often skip or forget. And others, like sleep, are biological necessities that I have come to think of as luxuries in my weird, busy world. Many of my goals don't initially seem to be in service of the theme but living in a clean home, taking care of myself and relaxing with a good book are things that make me feel lighter and happier. Everything I do and say and eat and drink in January will be intended to boost my energy, that's my plan for the month. Also, it's measurable -- 20 minutes a day, one a month, etc. Hello, science! I am measuring stuff!

Are you making a January plan? I'd love to hear about it!

I'll let you know how mine goes at the end of the month. It ought to be an interesting four weeks. My inner Type-A is saying, I BETTER SEE A WALL FULL OF GOLD STARS. My outer sloth is saying, did I really sign up for this? 

I'll be here radiating adorableness while you get right on that.