Tops Together

OK, last post for the day, really.  I just got the two tops together for the Christmas BOM quilts.  I don't have much for borders and backing though.  I feel a need to shop.  Unfortunately, the ice skating show starts at 4, so the girls need to be there at 3:15, it takes half an hour so we need to leave at 2:45.  Yikes, I'd better get  moving.  I've got the binding ready for hand sewing on Double Delight.  It will keep me warm and busy while I wait for the show to start.  Can't ask for much more than that. 

Making a List and Crossing Things OFF

While everyone is getting ramped up for Judy's UFO challenge for 2011, I am still trying desperately to finish off a few more from Nancy's UFO challenge for 2010.  Double Delight has been in progress for quite a while.  It was one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts and  I was so happy with the way it turned out that I didn't want to do anything to mess it up along the way. 

I finally decided to take a deep breath and jump in.  Continuous curves grace each of the yellow and green square in a square units and a very odd feather flower looking thing is in the double nine patches. 

I attempted some feathers with blue variegated thread in the borders. I'll just call that a learning experience. I need to do a little reading on the best way to do borders on a frame. I ended up quilting the top and then working my way back down one side, across the bottom and up the other side. I'm not sure if that was quicker than taking the quilt off and turning it, but it's done now, so I'll think about it some more later.
For now, I've added a binding that matches the gold inner border and I'll sit to sew it down when it gets calm.  I'm not sure whether calm is going to happen anytime soon.  The kids are now officially on winter break so we'll all be bouncing about the house together for the next couple of weeks.  

Weekend Wrapup

I finally got Double Delight loaded onto the frame this afternoon.  I've been saving it until I got better at machine quilting.  Eventually I just wanted to get it done though.  I am doing a continuous nine patch pattern in the star blocks and a flower kind of thing in the setting triangles and pink squares.  The inner yellow border is getting a ribbon candy treatment and the big blue border is getting saved for later.  I found out after I got it started that the blocks on point are just bigger than the available quilting area, causing me to make some adjustments as I figure out how to quilt half a block at a time.  I think I got it about half done before it was time to take Anna to ice skating.  Ryan's year end football party was after that, so most of the afternoon was spoken for. 

I took the extra fabric from Amy's BOM to the iceplex and started trimming fabric for the alternate squares.  I'm going with an Irish  Chain sort of block to give the sampler squares some room to breath.  I've got the blocks separated into 10 kind of bright and 10 more muted.  It should make a nice pair of Christmas snuggle quilts. 

I have been enjoying free books on the i-pad.  The first one I downloaded was Anne of Green Gables because  I thought it might be a nice one for Anna to read.  I'm not sure how I missed this series as a kid.  It is just such a delightful story.  I've been laughing out loud as I read it.  I'm sure people think I'm a bit odd, but there are worse things to be than a bit odd. 

I couldn't let a post go by without another silly picture of Sydney.  She decided to use sidewalk chalk as make-up.  Anna and Ryan both have field trips tomorrow and Sydney is going to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.  She's a little bit bummed about that.  Maybe we'll go out for ice cream after. 

Odds and Ends

I started the morning piecing a back for Double Delight. I had extra blue from the border, and then started adding in whatever seemed big enough or matched the colors from the front. I cut out the binding as well and then nicely folded it all together for whenever quilting inspiration strikes. After hanging it neatly in the closet, I went to put away some fabric and found a huge piece of pink that I bought to be used for the back -- I hate it when I do that.
Then I spent a good deal of time puttering around the sewing room -- putting things away and organizing a bit. I pulled out Starlight and considered working on the borders, but ended up working on Happy Sock Monkey instead. The four quadrants have been waiting patiently for me to work up the courage to try quilting in sections. I've tried it before with connecting strips on the back, but this time I just trimmed the two back pieces an extra quarter of an inch beyond the edge of the top and turned one side under. I hand stitched that down and then finished the quilting. It seems to have worked out pretty well. It certainly was easier to push the small sections through the machine than an entire top.
I've got two sections done now, so that is half of a twin quilt. I'm not sure if I'm going to layer the next two sections or call it a night. I'm just about out of batting, so anything I do will require some puzzling together of leftovers. I guess I should check the Joann flier on Sunday and see if they are having a big sale right now. Last year they had great prices on batting about this time and I have just come to the end my stash from that.
I hope everyone else had a productive first day of 2010. I'm off now to see what everyone is up to.

Last Post of 2009

The rest of our trip was very nice, but Kurt's brother didn't know the password for his wireless network so putting up a blog entry wasn't possible. Ryan has a great time playing with his cousins on both sides of the family and told us that it didn't quite make up for not having a brother but that it was still pretty fun.
Anna decided to have a little New Years Eve party this evening and invited her friend Sierra over. She was impatient though and most of the festivities occurred at about 4:30. We had sparkling grape juice as well as ginger ale which the kids all thought was pretty fancy. They all wanted to stay up late but finally gave up about half an hour ago. Sierra and Anna went over to her house though, so they may be having better luck with being night owls.

I still haven't figured out how to do one of those fancy picture collages with all of last years projects, but I worked on a list during the car ride, so maybe I'll make that post tomorrow. It is almost time for a new year here and I was trying hard to finish off a few loose ends today.


I will definitely be doing a UFO a month again this year and will be sure to put it out there as an official challenge if Amy doesn't beat me to it. I saw that she is doing a BOM this year so I will have to add that one to my list. In between finishing the unpacking and laundry today I pulled out one last UFO from last year. Double Delight has been languishing without borders for quite a while. I did a thin strip of yellow and then a wide band of blue. I tried some square in a square cornerstones using extra nine patches, but as I look at the picture, I think they stand out a bit too much, maybe because I used different greens. It is done though, which is better than not done. I'm going to keep it as a flimsy for a while and do a batch of quilting at some point when motivation strikes. I keep toying with the idea of investing in a handiquilter, but it is just a fleeting thought for now.
Lizzie is settling in nicely now that we finally have her home again. She has become quite confident and very much enjoys being outside. She enjoyed meeting all of the big dogs during our travels, but seems to like having our undivided attention as well.

June is Over

I'm so close to finishing my June UFO. I'm not sure why I have been so unmotivated lately. Maybe just because I can be. So I'll just pretend that June is a 31 day month and finish this one off before too much longer. I think I'll quilt it with a light green thread and put some sort of round motif in the middle of each square? I'll have to see if I have any stencils that will work for that. I'm not exactly thrilled with the purple, but at the same time it reads pretty flat and I guess that gives it a little interest? I seem to enjoy the idea of sampler quilts much more than actually finishing them off. Somehow they take so much longer than regular quilts. I've still got the Starlight quilt out in the middle of the formal living room, so I should do something about finishing the border up on that. I could even pull out Double Delight and finish all three borders at the same time! On second thought, maybe that is too much ambition. I would like to get some of these checked off the list so that I can switch gears for a bit. I've had a number of requests for non-quilt sewing. It might make me nervous to sew on things that are not flat.
Summer has been peaceful around here. There are no more trips planned in the near future, and most of our summer camps are finished. We've been having play dates, sleepovers and even a few days of hanging out around the house. I've haven't accomplished any major projects, but I've had plenty of time to putter on small things. I organized part of the garage and laundry room, and sorted through clothes and closets. It is nice to be able to just hang out with the kids for a while, especially now that they are getting past the point of needing constant supervision.

Shuttle Home and Summer Begun

This isn't a picture I took. Mine looks like a little white blob behind a power wire. But here is the shuttle coming home again. Each time I see it now I can't help thinking that there won't be too many more opportunities. They keep talking about extending the life of the shuttle program, and people around here are obviously in favor, but the idea makes me nervous. The odds of something bad happen seem to grow exponentially with each passing month, and I can't help wondering if it is worth the risks. I'm sure the job losses will be painful until the new program is up and running, and I can see why everyone would want to minimize that impact as much as possible. There are no easy answers I guess.
On a related note, my husband's company laid people off today. They didn't just announce that there were going to be lay offs, they fired 170 people and had security escort them out of the building. Can you imagine? I think the number is something like 1,000 company wide, but not all of those jobs are local. He is quite sure that his job isn't in any danger at all, and nobody on his program was on the list, but it seems to be hitting too close to home for my comfort. My own company has made cuts as well, and our contracts for next year contain renegotiation provisions that will take effect if things don't improve. I try not to dwell on the negatives, but it does all leave me a little anxious.
On to other topics! I finished the binding on Things Quilters Think today. It has a hanging sleeve and only wants for a label. I'm a bit up in the air over what to work on next. The June UFO hasn't been announced yet. I need to work on a border for Double Delight. I also have a BOM from Connecting Threads that is calling my name. So many choices -- luckily they go nicely with so many days in summer vacation.

Weekend Fun

Boy does buying a new car take a long time! It's not like you can just walk into the dealer and say, "Give me one of these in blue, I'll take it to go." It took two days of driving and testing and debating, but in the end, I got a new Kia in blue. I got everything squared away yesterday and just had to send Kurt in today to sign so his name could be on the title too. It had 14 miles on it, but then I used it today and it is already at 34 miles. I'm sure eventually I'll stop checking. I haven't got everything all set up yet, but there is a plug for my I-pod and plenty of nooks and crannies for things to fit in. I did some cleaning and organizing in the garage today to make sure it doesn't get dinged up when people get in and out.

Yesterday morning was the Girl Scout rock climbing. The bigger girls seemed to spend more time worrying about whether or not they could do it than the little ones on Wednesday. They started with a lot of being scared, but soon got over that and worked on getting up the walls. I saw one of my girls this morning already and she couldn't wait to tell me how much fun she had and that she wants to go again.

Today was spent trying to get the house recovered from me being gone the past two weekends. Kurt did a good job trying to stay caught up with everything, but it was feeling a little neglected from the general activity level lately. One of my cleaning tasks was getting OHR finished so that I could get it up off the floor and turn the dining room back into a dining room again. I got carried away with car shopping yesterday and missed my January deadline by one day. It is almost done now though. The binding is on and ready to get some hand stitching during the superbowl tonight.
I need to find the list of my UFO's so I can pick a project for February. I also need to get a border for Double Delight and for The Inaguration Quilt.
The kitchen got a little extra attention this month, although I still have couple of small projects I'd like to take on as time allows. I think the garage will be the room of the month for February. We are in need of a garage sale followed by a trip to goodwill. I've amassed quite a collection of stuff, and I don't care what happens to it, as long as it can disappear. I'll also have to spend some time turning the study back into a guest bedroom before my mother-in-law shows up in two weeks. The Old Hurricane Road quilt is meant for that bed, so that works out well.

Running Update for February:
Miles this week: 16.5
Miles this year: 80.92
Average per week: 16.2
One week to the marathon

Camping and Such

I worried a lot about the weather being too cold to camp this weekend. Although it did get a little chilly at night, it was quite nice during the day. This was the weekend for the annual leader daughter camping trip hosted by our Girl Scout Service Unit. I took both girls for the first time this year as it is Sydney's first year as a Daisy Scout. Much camping fun was had by all, from geo-caching and fishing to s'mores and campfire songs. We found two caches in our first try with the GPS, but didn't manage to catch any fish. I'm pretty happy about that 'cause I didn't bring anything to clean or cook the fish with if we had caught any. Honestly, I forgot to bring the bait, but Girls Scouts are always prepared and everyone else seemed to have plenty to share.

Sydney took a little power nap in the afternoon while Anna was off to do a mail-box trail with her friend Meredith. The day ended with the required campfire songs and s'more roasting session. I'm always amazed at how readily we hand sharp pointy stick over to young kids and sent them over to a roaring blaze with only a hat or bandana for protection.

Ryan was pretty excited to have all of us girls out of the house and had all sorts of "boy time" planned for the men folk at home. They were both a little sad that there was no football on TV, but they still managed to have some quality time together.

Most of the weekend was booked, but I did manage to lay out my Old Hurricane Road quilt on Sunday afternoon while everyone else was busy with an Odysey of the Mind practice. This is my UFO of the month for January, and I'm running out of time to get it finished up. I got a few rows quilted before dinner tonight, and I think it will finish up pretty quickly. I'm going to put some palm frond like shapes in the dark colored rectangles and some sort of circular hurricane type shape in the pinwheel areas. I'm tying it all in to my theme of "Florida in the Fall". I'm hoping by the time I get this one finished up I'll have come up with some inspiration for my Double Delight border.

Border Options

I snuck out of the house today on the excuse of needing to mark papers for school and had a lovely lunch at Jason's Deli and visited Joann's in search of some border fabric. I found a nice green and some more of the gold for the border I had in my mind. They are having a HUGE sale right now, and everything was 50% off! Then I came home and started playing with options. I started by setting some extra 9 patches on the diagonal with different combinations of blue and green. I thought it was nice, but Kurt thought it was too busy. He always thinks that a pieced border is too busy, always for the same reason, "the middle is already too busy". I liked the way that the blue looked and started messing around with an applique border. I'm pondering making some little flower blobs out of more pink 9 patches and connecting them with some green leaves and bias vines. No decsisions yet, I'll let it simmer. As much as I'd love to jump in and get it all finished up, I've got to pack for camping in the morning. It's still really cold here, so I'm trying to find lots of warm clothes. I think I found a pair of gloves, but they don't match, and Anna has a purple scarf I can steal. We used to have warm clothes, but they get worn so rarely that it seemed like a waste of space to keep them on. We're off school on Monday, so I can use that time to try to catch up on all of my normal weekend things like laundry and cleaning.

Done

It's not "Done Done", because I still need to make some border decisions, but the top for Double Delight is to the flimsy stage (Insert Big Woohoo Here)! I'm thinking of a 1.5 inch gold border and then a 3.5 inch in the blue or the green. I don't have any of those fabrics, but that's still what I'm thinking. Tomorrow is Friday, so maybe I'll have time to sneak out to Joann's after school and pick something out. I should inventory my backing stash at the same time and see what I can cobble together. I still have Old Hurricane Road all layered and ready to go, so I'll have to have a basting party very soon. and then get ready to go crazy with some quilting. I'd love to be able to do it this weekend, but I have to go to camping training. I've been camping with for years. Camping in college when we were too poor for a hotel, camping with my family on holidays, camping with my troop. I'm not a professional camper, but I'd say I'm at least competent. The Girl Scouts like training though, so I'm going to a camping training weekend with Sheila, my co-leader. I realized on Wednesday that I had missed a Team Meeting on Monday, so I'm feeling like a slacker all around. Cookies are underway already, so I won't be able to slack too much and still get it all done.

I'm still figuring out the new computer, I don't have all the right software on it yet to edit the pictures the way I'm used to, so for now, I'm just uploading them HUGE. It's always the little things you get stuck on when you have to switch over to a new machine. I got a new desktop at work last summer and I still can't find the exact right version of my favorite test generator program so that I can open up all of my old tests. Fortunately, my old laptop is still hobbling along, so I keep going back and forth when I need to find something old. So many issues our ancestors never had to deal with!

Oh, I almost forgot the weather update. Everyone is posting snow pictures on their blog and going on about how cold it is up north. We've had the same cold front come through down here and it almost got to FREEZING last night. I don't think it really did freeze, the hibiscus is very sensitive to frost and it looks fine, but still, ALMOST. I had to wear a jacket and gloves when I went out running this morning. BRRR. I tried hard to see my breath, but maybe it had warmed up by then. Even worse, I actually caved and turned on the heat this afternoon. I always hate to do that. Mostly 'cause I like to say, "the heat, no I haven't turned that on in years!) now it's all blown and I'll have to fess up. It may not seem all that harsh to those of you up north who have insulation in their houses, and own winter coats, but we're just not equipped to deal with it down here.

18 is less than 26

My last long training run was 23 miles. It went so well, I was sure that 26 would happen just as easily. I should have stopped to consider a few small facts, I spent most of the week sick, preventing from running much this week, and I'm still not back to 100%. I was doing pretty well for the first 15 miles or so. Then I started to get tired. Really tired. I know it seems silly to complain about being tired after running 15 miles, but I still had 11 more to go! Meisje and I met up with Tom at that point and I kept plodding along, but I could see myself falling further and further behind. Then my legs turned into lead and I couldn't keep caught up on breathing. When I started to get nauseous and dizzy, I finally gave up and called it quits right before mile 18. No 26 mile training run for me. I still have 4 weeks until the marathon, theoretically I have time for another long training run, but both of the next two weekends are booked already so I'm running out of time in a hurry. Sorry for the quality on the picture above. It is a picture of a picture from the Space Coast Marathon on Thanksgiving weekend. It's been great to have friends to run with. I would have given up long ago if I was out there on my own.

I got showered and had lunch when I got home and then puttered around with some more double delight blocks. All of the double nine patches have been happily complete for a while now, but I'm moving along slowly on the rolling stars. There are a lot of points on that puppy that need to be matched. I'm not one of those "perfect point" people, but the mistakes in this one really seem to pop out. There is also a lot of bulk at the seems where the points meet, so I'm trying to work with that as well. Still, I'm just about to get it tackled. I was running out of pink and didn't have enough to cut the setting triangles, so I put in an order to connecting threads for some pinks and some thread. I had to add a couple of more odds and ends to the cart to get to the $50 minimum for free shipping. That came in yesterday and now it is washed and ready to go. I could get this puppy finished this weekend if I am very lucky.

I promised to take the kids to see a movie in the morning tomorrow, and we are driving to Orlando for dinner. We don't usually drive to Orlando for dinner, but there is a story there. I got a call from a long lost college friend of Thursday. Grant is in town for the weekend to run the Disney Marathon! I didn't even know that Grant was running, I never would have guessed it. I hadn't talked to him in almost 5 years, it was great to hear from him again. I'm glad he's better at keeping in touch than I am, he filled me in on the happenings of all of our old college friends, so it was a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I'm looking forward to seeing him again and to meeting Sarah, his wife.

Thursday is a Good Day

I always enjoy Thursday. It isn't the weekend yet, but you've made it past the hump while still having time to finish what needs to be done for the week. It helps at my house that the housekeeper comes every other Thursday. I come home from work to a clean and peaceful house with the pressure of restoring order gone for a brief respite. If we are going out to dinner, it usually happens on Thursday so that the kitchen can stay spotless for just a while longer. Tonight I bucked tradition and made dinner for the family. I was in a mood to try new recipes. As a child, I remember my Grandfather making potato pancakes out of leftoever mashed potatoes. I don't know why I have that memory, because he wasn't from a generation where men did much of the cooking, but the images still linger in my mind. So tonight I combined potato pancakes with home made applesauce and some turkey sausages. Quite a departure, from our usual fair, but it was fun to branch out. I got a few more Rolling Star blocks put together for the mystery quilt, no new pictures yet, but I may get a few more together after the kids are in bed.

I do have exciting vacation news. For the first time this year, my school is taking a "winter break" week in February. We still end up with the same number of days off, but they've grouped all the random holidays together to make a week! My kids don't get the week off, so Kurt and I have booked a Caribean cruise for that week. Him mom is being kind enough to come and stay with the kids (Thank you so much Bonny!!!), and we will have 5 days and 4 nights of relaxing dinners, calm afternoons and random leisure time. I'm already starting mental a list of books to read and handsewing to bring along.

Fighting Through

I've been fighting off a head cold since Monday. I got sick earlier this year and made it through without taking any sick days. I staggered through each day and then came home to sleep until it was time to get up and go to work again. I decided this time to nip it in the bud and took a sick day today to stay home and rest. I feel 100% better now, so I think my plan worked. I did take some time between naps to get a little more done on the double delight quilt.
I got out the shapemaster and made quick work of the nine patches. They were turning out so darn cute that I even cut extras to whip up a couple of baby doll quilts for the girls. While the kids did their homework this afternoon, I FINALLY finished squaring up the square-in-a-square blocks. Yikes did that take forever. I got enough of those sewn together to lay out on the floor and appreciate. It's 9:30 now and I'm ready to call it a night.
I'm quite happy with the way this quilt is turning out. I'm glad, because some of the steps have been fairly time consuming. I would hate to have put in all that work and not been happy with the outcome.

Big Fat Cheater

I try not to peek ahead on mystery quilts. I get motivated by wanting to see what is next and therefore wait to look ahead to the next step. If I had one more day to sew my little heart out, I could finish this quilt up. One more day is not something I have. School started again today and I should come up with some lesson plans, the laundry still isn't put away from the weekend and 9 girl scouts will arrive at my house in just a few hours. So instead of diligently finishing each step, I've gone ahead to the end and gotten enough of each step done to know what the pattern will be. It's not as bad as it seems. Step one and two are completely sewn and half squared up. The strip sets for step 3 are sewn, they just need to be sub-cut. Still, even if I don't have enough time to finish, I had enough time to start, so I'm a big ole cheater and I don't regret it a bit. Now that I've satisfied my curiosity, I need to go figure out what the scouts are going to do and make the house presentable. The kids are home all day today, so making the house presentable is a bit like pushing Jello up a hill.
While I'm on the subject of things I wish I had more time to adequately enjoy, I got a new laptop yesterday! I've been shopping for one since before Thanksgiving as mine is on it's last feeble little legs (it is flashing error messages at me as I type). Of course, as soon as I got it home, Kurt whisked it off -- to get it set up for me -- and I haven't seen again yet. So I'd love to hop on and play, but It goes on the "later" list as I take care of the immediate necessities. I am going to take time to peek in on everyone and see if they managed to get to a more satisfying stopping point than I did before Monday happened. Happy quilting.

Slowly

I'm still plugging away on step 3. Normal Sunday activities got in the way. Exciting things like laundry and grocery shopping took up a large proportion of the day. We did get the tree down, and restored at least one room to some semblance of normalcy. I'm back to school tomorrow, but the kids don't start back until Tuesday. We've got a sitter coming, so they are all excited about that

Sunday running report:
Miles this week 21.75
Miles this year 21.75

Step 2

After plugging away during the free moments today, I finally finished step 2! I still have a bit of squaring and trimming to do, but decided while I was at it, I should go ahead and cut out step 3. I'm still not happy with my pink/reds, but I'll try to use what I have. If it doesn't work, I can always make a nice baby doll quilt and find something new.

I had a 10 mile run this morning and then went home for a nice steamy shower. I used up the last of the shampoo and was trying to take the cap off to recycle the bottle when it broke and the sharp edge sliced three of my fingers. I sit and cut away day after day with a rotary cutter and then cut myself with a shampoo cap! That takes talent.

I made some progress on my January goal of organizing the kitchen today. I cleared out some more dishes and glassware that we don't need and tidied up two sets of cabinets. Not a huge undertaking, but it's all about baby steps. We'd better have that garage sale soon or the attic and garage will overflow.

Step One

In celebration of having the house painting done, I settled in today to sew myself silly on the Double Delight mystery quilt. I spent some time studying the mini batch of 10 blocks I put together yesterday and decided I didn't like the yellow I was using. After switching to another shade, I pulled the DVD player from the car and settled in to sew all those together. They are all pressed and waiting to be trimmed down.
Sydney was in need of some mommy time, so I sat and watched her dance her little heart out to Barbie and the Island Princess while I cut out the pieces for step 1-B. I sewed up just a few and am happy with the two greens that I substituted in where Bonnie is using brown. Now I should decide If I'm going to be good and finish all the squaring up or save that and move on to the next step. Either way, I need to get to bed early tonight, I've got a long run scheduled in the morning so I should be well rested.

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.