Monday, January 1, 2018

Here’s my list for 2018!

• It really is time to get something done with my boxes and bins of photos. I probably have just as many photos stored digitally too.
• We’ll continue with the House Concerts – three more scheduled for the Spring. We don’t have to make a decision until the summer as to whether or not we will sign up for another year. They are a lot of work but people enjoy the shows and Pat enjoys being involved.
• I’m already committed to another year with the Guild Library and I can’t seem to get out of writing their blog or monitoring their Facebook page. My time on the Cranberry Hall Board could end in April, but I’m planning to volunteer for another year – I hate to give it up when I kind of know what I’m doing!
• My needlework for the next year will likely be finishes rather than starts – although I have lots of starts waiting. I currently have two cross stitches that are in plain sight in the studio on Texada, with another two sitting in one of the cupboards. Dad’s cedar chest is full of UFOs and a few new kits so perhaps I’ll be able to make a dent in some of them.
• I’m going to continue to try and use up my yarn supplies. The Prayer Shawls have been very helpful with this and I’ll continue to knit for the Salvation Army.
• One of our challenges with the Guild this year was to try to get six UFOs finished – I have four left on my list so maybe I’ll concentrate on getting them done. I was in charge of the member’s challenge this year and I still don’t have my own done. We do a scrap block of the month (which I’ve kept up with) and a row by row of the month (I’m one behind right now and, as of January’s meeting, I’ll be getting two more).
• I don’t know if Goodreads will have their challenge again but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest I’ll get 35 books read this year. Getting rid of my books continues to be a challenge and one that I don’t have a good solution to (although I think the Texada library will accept books).
• Although I’ll cut down on the number of cards I make this year I still hope to send some. I’ve started to use some of my other projects as cards (watch January birthday posts to see what I mean) so being more diverse might make it more interesting and less like a “have-to”.

That’s enough don’t you think?

Sunday, December 31, 2017

It’s that time of the year to look back and see how I did on my resolutions.

In the reading category I did very well. My Goodreads challenge was to complete 20 books and I doubled that. I’m currently working on my 41st book and it just may be done by the time you are reading this. We also managed to see thirty movies over the year, although the movie going next year is likely to be cut down by trips to Texada.

My hope to finish one quilting UFO a month didn’t pan out very well. On the plus side though I managed to finish quite a few needlework UFOs since we moved to Texada. I didn’t keep up very well with all the the Guild challenges. I finished the member’s challenge in time for the quilt show and I did both the Spring and Fall retreat challenges. I only finished two blocks for the Guild’s Block of the Month mystery quilt – I’ll finish it some day! I managed quite a few other quilting projects – four quilts and about ten smaller items.

My fabric cards take up a lot of my sewing time. I was unable to keep up this fall when I had my surgery and I’ve decided to cut down on the numbers. I made 44 cards last year, not counting the ones I made for Christmas.

My yarn stash is almost as big as my fabric stash – and I’m not counting the trunk full of yarn in the shed! I made a sweater for Christy, and I taught Emma how to knit when she was here this summer. I’ve started making Prayer Shawls for the church where the Guild meets and I made a large donation of knitted items to the Salvation Army.

I finished two large cross stitches – the Antique Gardener and my Canada 150 project. I’m focusing more on cross stitch when I’m on Texada; it is so very relaxing and I have so many projects already started.

I expected to finish with the Guild Library in June but I found myself being convinced to stay on for another two years. Cranberry Hall duties kept me busy between Board meetings, concerts and visits to the bank. Cranberry Day was a huge amount of work but it was really appreciated by the residents. We’ve increased our membership from about 5 to almost 90 so the extra exposure worked. Our shows have been selling well too and this fall we found a couple of very willing volunteer members to run the concession.

We finished off the Spring House Concert series in April and have hosted another three this fall. Most of these shows are sell outs, which mean we have anywhere from 33-35 people for the evening. The highlight for me (and I don’t think it will be any better ever!) was having Karen Savoca and Pete Heitzman “in the house” – literally.

I seem to have given up on the Ukulele. I don’t sing so playing chords isn’t very interesting, and I don’t make the time to practice in order to learn any picking. We may take the keyboard over to Texada and, if that is the case, maybe I’ll play a bit more music.

I think I may have mentioned doing something with my photos – that didn’t happen at all, unless you count moving the photo bins from one side of the room to the other. I did a bit of a Guild archive for one of our projects so I may be able to make that idea work for some of my own photos.

I’m sure I hoped to do more than this in my posting from last year, and I’m hoping I perhaps did a bit more than I’ve reported on!

Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 23, 2017

This was my day in the kitchen; I baked a Cranberry Bundt cake to take to our neighbours on Texada and I got the filling prepared for our Tortiere. We are taking a lot of food with us in anticipation of the market being closed but I guess it is a good thing not to be short of food!

While the cake was baking I finished off three loads of laundry. I’ll be spending at week at the studio – my longest continual visit yet – and I don’t want to be doing laundry until at least past Boxing Day.

I couldn’t believe I was back at the store today. We are going out for New Year’s Eve dinner and then going back to Geoff and Brenda’s for pot-luck dessert. I want to make Deloise’s Expresso Mousse but I needed to be sure I could get the expresso powder the recipe called for. By the time I was out the door a few more things had been added to the list, but fortunately it was only one stop.

Pat has packed into the truck everything that won’t freeze. He has a ride to the party tonight so by packing the truck now we gain a bit of time in the morning. The ferry service isn’t as good on the weekend so we’ll be taking the early ferry across; we’ll want to be in the line-up early though as it could be crowded.

I’ll be out the door early this evening as well. The concert I go to is always packed and parking can be a problem. The doors don’t open until 7:00 PM but in order to get a parking spot I’ll leave home shortly after six. I don’t mind sitting in my car for a short period just to know that I’ll have an easy spot to get in and out of.

I have a few last-minute things to take care of (what would we do without those last minutes?) and then I’m going to do some knitting – one mitt done and the second one started.