February Goals Check In

I said I'd check in each Saturday morning to report on my progress towards my February Goals. I had a very busy week, some of which was working towards my goals, some was not.


1 ~ halter train our alpaca juvis: Thunder, Shamballa, Lady Bing and Dutch: result 2.75/4

Shamballa is fully trained, I'd take him to a show right now no problem. Lady Bing is also trained, I'd take her to a show as is and be happy with that. Thunder is about 3/4 trained. I could take him to a show as is and be ok with it, but I'd like him to be a little better. Dutch made a huge improvement, jumping from 0 trained to about 1/4 trained. She walks on the lead, which is huge. She still walks hunched over, so we have some things to work on but we are making progress.

Unfortunately after working on halter training on Sunday, Zack had an acid reflux attack and was not up to training Monday. Tuesday we got out there and got another session in. We chose to take Wednesday off due to muddy rainy weather, not knowing that on Thursday Zack was going to be very sick (he ended up in the ER with gastritis). He's still not completely well, so halter training is slowed down. I have to have my training partner to help me round them up and work with them. Hopefully before the end of the month we can work with Dutch and Thunder to get them fully trained (we will keep working with Shamballa and Lady Bing, as we've found more is better, the more they are used to us messing with them, the less agitated they are when it comes to going to shows).

2 ~ spin a skein of yarn a week: result 1.75/4

I am disappointed because I really wanted to be at 2/4 by this check in. I have 2 weekends left for the month and that meant 2 more skeins. I got behind the first week (due to plying an old skein before starting a new one). I had great plans to catch up this week. Unfortunately that plan included lots of spinning on Thursday, since I was only going to work 1/2 a day, then be home the rest of the day (my kids had half a day off of school). That's the day I was in the ER with Zack, no spinning was done. (I did work on some knitting though).

I've come to the conclusion that it might not be realistic with all my other life commitments for me to go from raw fiber to a spun skein of yarn in a weeks time for four consecutive weeks. If I was going from rovings or batts, or if I had more available time to spin, that would be different. But I will still plug away and see how close I can get to completing this goal. The month isn't up yet.

3 ~ run 60 miles this month: result 36/60 miles

I am quite happy to be ahead on this goal. I set it low on purpose, but hoped I would do more. This is keeping up my running status so that I am totally prepared for the 10K in May.

I do wonder what it says that I'm ahead in running miles but behind in yarn spinning skeins. The real story here is that I set my miles run goal low (I typically do run more than what the goal was set for), and I set my yarn spinning goal very high. I don't know that I have ever spun 4 skeins in one month's time. The yarn spinning was my true challenge.