New Year's Resolutions Stitchy Style!

Well, I hope everyone had a Blessed Christmas. I know I did. It was wonderful to have Brian and Sherrie home and enjoying the holiday. The only one missing was Chris but we had a nice long chat with him and Annette Christmas evening. It capped off a lovely day.

As the new year approaches, I've been doing a lot of soul searching about the size of my stash, both in cross stitch and knitting. I've decided I really need to reduce it. I'll never live long enough to do everything. My tastes have changed over the years and there's no point in storing stuff just for the sake of storing it. So I got started by cannabilzing my magazine collection. So far I've reduced 3 file cabinet drawers to a pile of patterns about 6 inches high. I've got one more drawer to go. My knitting magazines are harder to do. They often don't have the pattern anywhere near the picture. Those magazines are going straight into the sell pile. After I finish the magazines, I'll get to work on the cross stitch patterns. I have 3 file cabinet drawers full of them. I may even go through my fabrics and see what I can get rid of there. I have just way too much stuff.

So my resolutions are as follows:

No new stash - use what I have if at all possible.

Begin 10-25-50 plan - start small with 10 projects (can't get too carried away now, can I?)

Finish 2 UFO's before starting a new project (this is the hard one for me. I love starting new projects)

Organize my craft room (already started on this one)

Start my card system to locate items in stash.

The last 2 items are some I've been thinking about since last May. I figure it's time I stop thinking and start doing.

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit!

Well, it appears that the Christmas spirit is finally showing its face around our house. Dave & Brian went to Flagstaff on Thursday to pick up Sherrie. Brian and I had gotten the tree together on Wednesday night (amidst a rather disasterous dinner-more on that later!). The lights went on Thursday afternoon and it was finally decorated on Friday morning. As you can see in the picture, Squeak thinks she is Guardian of the Tree. She's made herself quite a little bed with the tree skirt. So far no ornaments have been knocked off or broken (Rosie took care of that on Wednesday). Squeak loves to hide under there and ambush the dogs as they pass by. The lovely ornament seen in the 2nd picture is one I received from Tracy aka tajinaz36. It was such a lovely surprise. Thanks again, Tracy for thinking of me at the blessed time of the year.

Let's talk about Wednesday. My son called me at work and asked why I would lock the dogs in Sherrie's room. They must have been fussing over a rawhide bone and pushed the door shut by themselves. Well, they totally destroyed a full box of Kleenex, one of Bounce fabric softener and one of Sherrie's devotional books. It looked like a small snowstorm had hit in there. Brian, bless his heart, had it all cleaned up by the time I got home. Sherrie did have a new kitty ornament I had gotten her at Thanksgiving on her dresser and somehow it ended up on the bed with a leg pulled off. At dinner I decided to cook my chicken in the new convection oven. I didn't realize it would take longer than the jetstream oven I normally use. When we cut it open, it was only half cooked. So back into the jet stream it went. It kinda killed both Brian's and my appetite but we did manage to get a decent meal out of it. When we were cleaning up, I heard Brian shout in the kitchen for Rosie to drop it. She had stood up at the counter and grabbed the carcess and was dragging it across the kitchen floor. Well, she dropped it. I had to spend the next half hour on my knees cleaning up the mess. I was never so glad to see a day end as that one. Oh, in case you're wondering, Dave was able to repair the ornament and it hangs proudly on the tree.

CDC Framed!

Well, here it is. My first finished item in over 3 years. It's quite a relief to be able to say I finished something. As you can see, I kept the framing very simple. Just a plain dark green frame. I would have liked the framed to be wider but apparently the wider frame in that color has been discontinued. And It does have glass on it. I have a swamp cooler (another name for an evap cooler) that we use for most of of cooling needs (saves on air conditioning in all but July and August). It puts out a very fine white dust that sticks to everything. So I use glass to protect my work. I was really impressed with how straight the framer was able to stretch it. Having done some stretching myself, I know how difficult it can be. Anyway it's done and I'm pretty happy with it. I'll be taking it to work to display it for a while. Then home it comes.