Happy New Year

Welcome to 2009! I hope everyone made it safe and sound into the new year. I celebrated the holiday in solitude as everyone else in the house was fast asleep. I turned on the TV to watch the festivities and happily cut out the first step of Bonnie's new mystery. I decided to build the quilt around a stack of shirting fabrics that I have been collecting for a while. They are fairly historic looking, so I was trying to find other fabrics that look less modern. Not having much of a stash of reproductions made it a little hard. I found several blues and greens that worked, but have almost no pink that didn't look too little girlie. I found a couple of reds that worked well, but I don't know if I want to do another red white and blue quilt. I don't have any browns, so I'll use the greens instead. Fortunately the first step doesn't use any of the pink/red, so I can save that decision for later. It's good that the mystery comes in steps so that I don't have to figure everything out all at the same time. I had everything cut out and organized into nice little groups of 10 last night right after the ball dropped. I've been cleaning and organizing this morning, but sat down and chained a set of 10 through the machine to get an idea of how the colors will look together.
Yesterday afternoon I organized a group of friends to go see Twilight together! I've finished all of the books now, so it seemed like a good time to see the movie. I'm glad I read the book first, it has the same plot and characters as the movie, but so much more detail. It was nice to get out without the kids and spend some time with grown ups for a change.
As far as new years resolutions go, I am going to break down my goals one month at a time. So here's the plan for January:
The WIP I am going to tackle this month is Old Hurricane Road, my version of Bonnie's last mystery. It's been finished for quite a while, but got put away when the Girl Scout quilts took over. All three layers are ready, it just needs to be basted and quilted.
As far as the house goes, I'm going to pick one room each month to focus on. Maybe then I won't feel like I have to tackle the whole thing at the same time. So January is going to be the kitchen. We've been in the house for almost 5 years now, and all of the cabinets could use a good dose of purging and organization. I also want to get some sort of pull out drawer/organizer to put under the stove top for the pots and pans. I got a start this morning by pulling our everyday dishes and rotating in a set that used to be our "good" china. Our old dishes were getting pretty tired and chipped, so I threw them in a box for the garage sale. We have a disaster drawer that keeps the kids stuff, I'll look at that again, as well as going through the pantry and fridge. If I finish all of that and have time, the baseboards and grout could use a little attention.
The marathon training is still in progress on the fitness front, I think I only have one more long run left before the taper, I should check on that.
So that is enough of a plan to get me through January, I'll think about February when it gets here. Now I'm going to go through the mystery quilt ring and see who else has joined in on the mystery.