New Year - New Start

Well, it is the start of a new year.  They seem to actually be showing up a lot sooner than they used to.  Remember being young and thinking on New Year's Day as you eat you black eyed peas that it going to take forever for it to get to Christmas again.  So many things can change in that year.  Loved ones lost, loved ones just beginning.  Now, as this year starts, I cherish the memories of my parents that are no longer living. I miss them something terrible. I look forward to a new grand baby coming. 

Along with that comes all the plans for the year.  Do any of you make resolutions?  I used to, but just don't any more.  I just don't get them resolved.  Don't get me wrong, I still make out goals and plans for the future, both immediate and longer, but I just don't label them.  Keeps the pressure of so I don't feel disappointed or a failure because I didn't loose that weight, clean the house, eat more healthy or what ever a resolution would involve.

Are there areas I want to work on?  Yes there are, many of them, too many too list.  Okay, so I do have a list, just not going to share it.  I will say that I want to work on me this year.  I have been so busy giving me away to so many other people that I have disappeared a bit.  I think I need to find me, such a cliché saying, and then work on making me better.  I need to define my relationship with my Savior, only by getting that in order can there be any type of order to myself.  I am no good to anyone if I am can't even pull myself together.

I want to be better at being a wife, which means better at taking care of the house. Better cleaning, better meal preparation, working on getting the house fixed up the way I...repeat "I"...want it.  I have been in this house for going on 13 years and it still doesn't feel like mine.  I want it to feel like mine.  You know, like I belong instead of visiting. 

I want to be better at being a mother, which means paying more attention to my kids.

I want to have time to do all the craft things that are stuck in my head.  The counted cross stitch projects (my new obsession) that I have started.  The quilts I have planned.  All the quilts in various stages that were put away when life got in the way.  In other words, I am determined to finish all that I have started.  For a change.

Oh I am great, stupendous in fact, at making list and organizing.  Problem is, the organizing just doesn't quite get there.  I start, like sorting out a closet, then way to easily get side tracked by some sort of thought that blows through my head.  I buy all the needed supplies for doing the organizing, then just don't use them.  Maybe it is time to re-visit Fly Lady or the SHE school of thought.

I had planned to play along with a challenge or two, but am also thinking all that over as well.  I did give up and quit the Crazy January challenge.  You can read more about it on that page.  Needless to say I am way too slow at stitching so it is already driving me crazy to have the two projects I started just sitting around.  I will continue to work on them, that gives me a total of three WIP in the cross stitch department.  I have no UFO's any more as far as cross stitch is concerned.  The one UFO I had, was the Nativity, but since I am actively working on it again I have updated its status to a Work In Progress (WIP) now.  I use to have an intense passion for quilting.  I am good at it.  My dad would call and ask me what I was working on, I would email him photos, he was my biggest fan.  What ever I made - quilt, ceramic, garment construction, crochet - he was interested and loved it all.  When he died, it hit me so hard I don't think I really let myself go through a proper or rather healthy grieving process.  At any rate, I kind of stopped quilting for a while.  Now, that little bug is back and wanting to do a lot of stitching.  Besides, I think it would kind of be like disrespecting of me to not pick it back up.  I even learned in a bible study class that craftsmanship is my gift from God and I feel that by not using it I am not honoring that gift.  On one of my groups, there is a WIP/WHIMM challenge that I am the coordinator for.  The WHIMM (Works Hidden In My Mind) category in my case is about to explode.  I even bought a little bit of fabric this evening to put me in the mood.

I have to make some diamond blocks for a Crazy Quilt challenge, so will be starting on them no later than this week end.  They are small blocks, but have a lot of embellishment that will go along with them.  Thankfully, with quilting I was blessed with speed.  Guess so much of the speed gene was used for quilting that none of it is left over for cross stitching.  Sounds good anyway.  My biggest obstacle with sewing has been being able to get to my machine.  It seems that just when I get my sewing room cleaned up, something happens and stuff gets dumped in it.  Mainly, that is where boxes of Mom's things get set for me to go through.  So very hard to do.  I still need to finish up her bills, she passed in July.  At any rate, today I worked around Mr. M as best I could (along with the diversion of catching up on emails after being gone for a week) and was actually able to get quite a bit accomplished.  I bought the stuff for shelving, just need to get it attached to the wall now.  I also bought some cheap but pretty fabric to make the curtain to hang over the closet doors (now removed) and purchased a little extra to make a window topper to match.

Well, it took forever for me to get out of Walmart tonight.  Have to go back tomorrow because the idiot man checking was too busy talking and charged me twice for an item.  I also have to go to the bank in the morning, it would seem that someone has once again gotten our bank account info and made debit purchases.  Metro PCS...again...$118 dollars worth this time.  Last time it was our daughter's account and she didn't have any money in it so it only debited $1.51 but it is the hassle of it all.  Now, I have to find out whose card is being used, mine or hubby's, and they will block that card.  That sets off a whole new set of irritation as we both have so many things that are automatically debited each month.  I kind of hope it mine, hubby and the two of our kids are on a trip at the moment, won't be back until Sunday, so can't block his card.  I hate people who think they have the right to just take what they want.  Any way, I am headed to the bath and then to bed.  I would go straight to bed, seeing as how it is almost two in the morning, but I am freezing and a bath helps warm me.  Crazy thing is in another few hours I will have a big old hot flash and sure won't be cold any more. 

That's life I guess.  Speaking of which.

Meet my helper.  She has made her mission in life to eat all my threads and to see just how much skin she can take off my legs by crawling up them.  Yesterday she has started climbing up the back of my computer chair and then sitting on my shoulder.  Her very loud purrs in my ear tell me she is content there.  Just makes it a bit difficult to do anything.

Thanks for stopping by the zoo, come back soon.

Happy 2012!

When I was younger, somewhere around end of high school and early marriage years, this date seemed so very far away.  I remember sitting at my oldest daughter's kindergarten graduation and the teacher introducing the kids as the class of 2000.  At the time, it seemed so far away.  Now it is just a memory.  That same daughter is now married, mother to two boys and a school teacher.

Just last night hubby and I were talking about the movie Back To The Future 2.  On Facebook, several posted that they knew the world would not end in 2012 because Michael J. Fox visited 2015 in the movie.  That of course led hubby to make the comment about wondering about the drop down thing in the kitchen and automatic cooking computer thing.  He of course was making a joke.  However, I reminded him that we used to watch the Jetson's cartoon where they had video phones, and that now we can Skype.  That we used to watch Star Trek and they would push a button on an ear set to talk, now we have hands free bluetooth.  Of course, he had no comeback for that.

Today the hubby, Miss Zebra, Mr College and his friend left to drive up to Mammoth for a few days skiing.  I stayed home.  For one, am just not feeling very well, am fighting off this bug that has hit just about every one.  For two, I don't do cold weather very well.  However, I do already miss them.  Mr. College's cat comes in the room occasionally to make sure I am here which is kind of cool.

I have a list of to do things, just not motivated enough to actually start on it.  Don't really know where to start on it.  I did get my pantry all cleaned out and sorted.  Now I at least know what I have and don't have.  It shouldn't be, but it is always a revelation to me on what I find...and don't find.  I have three jars of pickle relish, but only one little small can of chopped green chilies.  I have a ton of broth, but no idea what to do with it.  However, I do know what I have to work with, what I need to buy when I get groceries.  Sometimes it is just as important to know what you don't need.  My major goal is to get on track with the household chores and menu planning. I am really wanting to cut our spending drastically.  I am the major offender, so I will do all I can to change this. I actually sat down with my recipe file and planned out about 6 weeks of menu plans.  I was just so proud of myself, had even started on a grocery list to make sure I had all the ingredients I needed.  That was one of the reasons for the pantry clean out, so I wouldn't buy what I already had.  Then came the realization that I had not thought out the menu planning well enough.  I was so concentrated on making sure that we didn't have chicken each night (because I have a lot of chicken in the freezer) that I filled out the month with every other day a chicken dish.  That will not go over well in this house.  I also discovered that I have a freezer half full of beef that the family prefers so I need to incorporate the beef more. SO, since I have beef, chicken, pork and a bit of fish in the freezer, I printed some clean blanks and have decided to go about the menu planning in a different direction.

This evening, I will pull out the files and start over fresh.  I will color code according to the four kinds of proteins.  Then, will plug in beef every fourth day, chicken every fourth day, filling in with the pork and fish.  I have such a huge collection of loose recipes, cookbooks as well as back issues of a few cooking magazines, that when you add in the internet that gives me access to an unlimited supply of recipes.  This time around I will plug in once or twice a week a family favorite for that meal.  Also, will be paying much more attention to prep and cook times.  I will be keeping the grand baby until late two days a week while my sweet daughter-in-law begins taking college classes in the evening.  I sure don't need a complicated or time heavy evening meal that will take hours to prepare on the those nights.  At least now I feel like my head is working a little more correctly.

So, here is the plan.  Create several weeks of menu plans, making an effort to be more nutritional minded with them. Set time limits for the activities that eat away my day, such as Facebook or reading blogs.  Schedule my day to organize my chores in to manageable task so as to not overwhelm myself.  May give Fly Lady another try with that.  Most important to me at the moment is two areas of great need.  Setting time aside in my day for studying God's word and getting my family back to the dining table for the evening meal.  It is a sad statement that I fix a meal and hubby takes his plate to his chair in the living room, I bring my plate to my lounge (so I don't have to watch what hubby is watching) and Miss Zebra takes her plate to her room.  It is the only time of the day we are all together at the same time, just seems we should be taking advantage of that.

So, that is how things are rolling at this end of the street.  Thanks for stopping by and come back any time.