Where Does All My Time Go?

I haven’t been posting my craft and sewing projects lately. That’s partly because I’ve been working hard on a sequel to Christmas Wishes, (I think I’m about 75 percent done with that) and promoting both Friendship Star Quilt and Searching for Lady Luck through Facebook events and guest blogging. It seems I spend all my time online!

Still, I have been able to get a few things done. I’ve made a couple of quilts at my church, and made a bunch of promotional items. Unfortunately, I didn’t get them finished in time to send to the Romantic Times convention in New Orleans. I could have sent them along with some of the other authors who are going. Rats! But now I’ve got a bunch of stuff to send to people for other things. Not sure what. Or maybe I’ll be extra ready for next year!

Here are some little notebooks I made, using directions from the fabulous Joselyn Vaughn:

And here are some sticky note pad folders I made, inspired by a project from my scrapbooking friend Sharilyn:

So I haven't totally abandoned my crafty side! I'm hoping to finish this book in the next week or so, and then hit the crafts hard. I'm going to donate a bunch of things to Gabriel's Shoppe, a charity run by a friend of mine. I'll share more about that soon. In the meantime, here's the Facebook link where you can see what it's all about: https://www.facebook.com/gabrielsshoppe

What Will I Get Done This Year?

Image credit: jpldesigns / 123RF Stock Photo

Happy New Year! It seems that every year I start out with great intentions, and then they fall to the wayside before long. I guess I'm too easily distracted. But I would like to set forth a few things I want to do in 2014, based on what the past year was like. I'm no longer working in the bakery, so that's an extra 24 hours a week to get some things done. So rather than wasting time, I need to work on completing a lot of projects that have been shoved to the back burner a little too often.

Writing:

1. I need to finish the sequel to The Samurai's Garden. It's about half done. I just need to concentrate and get it finished.

2. I should blog more. I think I need to be more disciplined about this. I've had lots of guests here and I've sent posts to other people to advertise my new books, but I need to work on defining this blog a bit more. So I think I'm going to try to blog at least twice a week, and one of them is going to be a post I write myself - hopefully about something creative I've observed or done.

3. I've committed to one project due later this month. I'd better get in gear and finish it!

Crafting/Sewing:

I have sooooo much fabric and craft supplies it seems I could keep busy forever. I need to use some of this stuff up and give away what I'm not going to use. Last year I made a little dent in my supplies by vowing to post a picture of a project each week. I think maybe I ought to re-instate that. Make something and post a picture. Every week. Hopefully each project will be made with supplies I already have on hand.

Reading:

I have a lot of books on my ipad that I could be reading. I can't review books by Astraea Press authors but I can let them know I read and enjoyed them. I signed up for the reading challenge at Goodreads and I want to finish reading at least 50 books this year. That's not quite one book a week. I should be able to do this if I don't waste a bunch of time online playing games and reading articles about people I don't know and really don't care about!

Okay, these are my goals for 2014. My plan is to post my own blog each Thursday, and have guests on other days. Tomorrow is Thursday - I guess I'd better get in gear!

Happy News

My husband and I are going to be grandparents. We already have seven grandchildren, but this one has several distinctions that guarantee he or she will be spoiled rotten:

1. This is the first child of a child we had together. This means it is also the first great grandchild for my mom, who is a bona-fide child spoiler - when the child is not her own.

2. This is the first grandchild to be born to a pair of working parents, which means this grandma will be called upon to baby-sit more often. Thankfully, the family lives less than a half-hour drive away.

3. This grandchild has a whole slew of Japanese relatives, who are curious to see whether this child will have blue eyes (a very curious event in their world).

4. This is the first grandchild to be born after my retirement, which means I have more time to make stuff for him/her.

It's this last criteria that I'm hoping will help me clear out some stuff. I have a ton of fabric and other craft stuff patiently waiting for me to work on it. Obviously there will be quilts. This child will be born in January, but will NEVER be cold - because I will personally see to it there are plenty of quilts and blankets around!

I've also got patterns for nighties and jammies and there is lots of flannel down there. The child will sleep in the finest of stuff, if I manage to get the outfits cut out and sewn together.

And there will be toys - lots of them - stuffed teddy bears, and a whole menagerie of animals. I’ll probably buy more than I’ll make, but I’ll have fun planning my projects.

Now all I have to do is find out whether it's a boy or a girl, and what colors his/her mother plans to use in the nursery. My daughter is a very particular decorator. Things will have to match. So I might have to get some more fabric to match the planned décor.

I can’t wait.

Making Choices

If I’ve done this right, I have managed to pre-post this blog. That is, I wrote this ahead of time, uploaded it before I want it to appear online and programmed it to show up on a specific date. Since I’ll be gone for three weeks I asked my writing friend (a prolific author and internet whiz) how to pre-post. She responded almost immediately with easy-to-follow instructions. So now I can continue my tradition of blogging every Friday even when I don’t have internet access!

Last Saturday I went to a wedding. A co-worker got married, and several of us attended the ceremony at a local park. The day started out with a bang - literally. I woke up to thunderstorms crashing around. I felt so bad for the bride. I had never been to an outdoor wedding and rain is the worst nightmare. The weather forecast was for storms all day long. But fortunately, the rain stopped in time for the wedding. By that time the chairs had all been moved indoors, but the rustic atmosphere of the building was charming.

Later on my daughter served as my "date" to the reception at a great restaurant downtown. The food was phenomenal, the decor was beautiful and after a slow start, the dancing began. What a great time!

As an avid crafter, the thing that impressed me most about this wedding was the number of things the bride created herself. Each flower in her bouquet, as well as those carried by the bridesmaids and flower girls, was handmade from tissue - but they looked so real no one could tell without looking closely - REALLY closely. Look again at the picture above. Could you tell they were tissue flowers? All the table centerpieces were hand-painted and filled with pictures of Michigan lighthouses. Little rocks surrounding the centerpieces were each inscribed with a drawing or wedding-related word.

The invitations were designed and printed using a home computer. Cupcakes were served (I'm assuming they were baked by either the bride or the groom since they’re both culinary school graduates). A styrofoam cake (another example of the bride’s creativity) was on display for the traditional "cutting the cake" photo opportunity. Each guest received a jar of homemade jam provided by the bride's mother.

Weddings are expensive. There's no getting around the fact. We've already married off several children, so we know. But they don't have to be extravagant. This couple decided what was important to them, and made it happen by being smart. They put in time doing some things themselves so that they could afford to pay for other niceties.

I guess this is a life lesson we've all had to take heart from time to time. We cut back on some things so that we can have the things that are important to us. I'm here on a wonderful trip on the other side of the world because I did without some other non-essentials.

Now, if only some of our world leaders would take hold of that notion, we’d be in less trouble.