Laundry Upgrade

What, No one else hangs their laundry to dry on a cast iron cook in the big fireplace next to the bow and arrows??

Just me, huh.

I can't wait for spring when I can hang this all outside instead of cycling it up from the basement.

I may start beckoning. (Beckoning for the uninitiated, is dressing for the weather you want to come while blatantly ignoring the actual weather outside. Ami is the expert.)

Finished Scarf

I started this scarf in October maybe November. It's my own design, it's about the third version or so, I got it half-way finished at least twice and ripped the whole thing out and started over with a totally different pattern. It started knit and ended up crocheted.
I like it. It makes me happy. It is warm and wonderfully soft, plus I like the way it drapes. I have a pattern picked out for a hat, but I can't decide whether to buy the yarn and start it now or wait till next year.....I'd better start now If I want to actually wear it next winter.
Also, Aren't these wood floors Lovely? The are original to the house, but they were up in the Attic. My FIL put plywood floors in the attic and moved these down to replace the damaged downstairs floors.

Resolved

So I haven't really dug into my resolutions yet. I made them but I have not made any real forward progress. So I'm sharing them here in hopes that accountability will be a better motivator.

I made two lists on note cards. (I have a note card addiction.)

The first list I wrote is more about the person I want to be in 2011. It's pretty self explanatory I guess. Some of these will lead to others and overlap - I'm a complex person. It's not in any order.


I guess the second card is a bit more like my "real" resolutions (they're not in any order either):

• Memorize Philippians. There are 104 verses in Philippians. May 20th is the 140th day of the year. I started today the 55th day of the year. The original plan was to do a verse a day, but I'm playing catch up - today: Philippians 1:1-2 (ESV). Feel free to ask me to quote what I have so far next time we talk. (Also, by the time I'm done I hope to be able to spell Philippians. I always want to double the L's.)

• Crochet 26 snowflakes and angel. 26 snowflakes and one angel for the top of my Christmas tree. This includes pinning and starching them too. I'm hoping my mom will find the pattern she used for the angel on her tree, and send it to me. Any other angel looks "wrong". I found a pattern that I thought might do this past Christmas, but she ended up about 4 inches tall. I'm blaming the pattern. She looked silly on top of the tree, so we just had a bow this year. It felt wrong. Next year I want snowflakes and an angel. 26 is half of 52 weeks, Monday is the start of week 9. I'm behind 4.5 snowflakes.

• Post 180 times on Blog. I have no clue where I came up with 180. (I think it may have had to do with sloppy math - 365 divided by 2.) Currently I'm on track to post about 66 times. I need to pick this up. I need to be more interesting (and possibly lower my standards.)

• Complete 100 Push ups and 100 Sit ups. I'm a sucker for a program and I am a scrawny wuss. Plus I envy Michelle Obama's arms... Technically the sit up program is 200, but I would get bored counting halfway through anyway.

• Sort Recipes, Articles, Project ideas and create a file architecture. I download things to save for later. Later never comes, my hard drives fill up, and I can never find the things I really want. Web Feather fits into the solution somewhere here. As does the self discipline to start. (And the ability to convince myself that I will never sew an 8 foot squid. And I'll probably not knit the mittens that look like hedgehogs either.) This is a later in the year project. (I can not spell recipes without spell-check an extra "I" always pops in somewhere.)
  

• Read Through the Bible. I use the Daily Audio Bible reading plan. Today should be Leviticus 15, Psalm 40, Proverbs 10 and Mark 7. I just finished Genesis on Tuesday and have plans to finish Exodus tonight. Next week I'll catch up on Psalms, Proverbs and the NT.
  

• Complete BBE MkII. The Big Book of Everything, a sort of master document filled with all of the information anyone could possibly need to know about your life. Basically the kind of info that you want all in one place to save time searching when you need it especially in an emergency. we move around so much that all this information is scattered through a thousand notebooks and folders and scribbled on the backs of notecards. By the end of 2011 I want to have it all in one place.
  

• Stick to a budget. We'll start in March by actually making a budget. :/ (this is my new favorite emoticon)
  

• Build and Maintain routines. I function so much better when I have defined routines, schedules and to-do lists. Call it a weakness if you want, but it's what I need. I'm inching along here. Actually I'm furthest on this than any of the others but like i said, it's what helps me be able to actually function and get to the other things.

So I resolve that by the end of the year I'll have done all these things.


~-------------------------~

Additional Resources I'm using in case you want to play along (you're not behind and if you start most of these today, you will be ahead!):

Memorize Philippians - An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture | Dr. Andrew M. Davis (PDF)

100 Situps

100 Pushups

Squid Pillow that I'm not making

Cutest hedgehog mittens EVER!

Daily Audio Bible
reading plan (PDF)
RSS Feed
Podcast

Big Book of Everything

January

Ok fine, so it's a week into February. What's your point?
At this rate I may never blog (or even begin) my new years resolutions. I'm going to start calling them my groundhogs day resolutions. I'm still behind that way but not so bad. Anyway that post is coming. But I don't want to be negative so this post is about stuff we actually DID in January.

We started off the new year in MD at Ami & Mark's new place. Fun was had by all. it was even warm enough one day to hit the playground.

We also spent time in State College where Micah "finished" Nate & Angie's basement and I did laundry. The before photos are all in my 2010 folder so you don't get to see them.
I can't believe that I didn't already blog this. One evening in the middle of a snow storm we drove to Cranberry to pick up a movie and check the price of something at Sears. We ended up running into Ollie's and on a whim purchased "scratch and dent" laminate flooring. We took it home and installed it that night. Micah had to make another ill advised trip out int he snow storm for more flooring and we didn't watch the movie. But the bathroom floor looks nice doesn't it?Oh and Ben & Leah got married. I did the photography and Micah gave a toast. Both went well. (Except that Micah's toast was so short that I didn't get a good picture. I am my mother's daughter)
So January is over, February is flying by and the adventure continues.

January Mantle

I read too many homemaker blogs written by creative women with pretty houses.

I myself was feeling creative the other day, and the mantle in the living room was feeling naked after I had taken down my nativity. So I made a wintry mantle display.


I don't think it’s too bad for a beginner and I really do like it.

Micah requests that the next time I feel like creating something, could I just channel that into cooking and make him some brownies or something. He’d also like to know when he can have that middle book back - he was in the middle of it.