Happy New Year

To all of my blog readers and followers:

I haven’t been too excited about this new year….but I will get there. I have spent a little time thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. I didn’t do too well with last year’s list; I think I didn’t stay as focused as I should have. It’s very easy to get caught up in “busyness”, which generates a lot of activity, but none of it is very intentional. In fact, I felt like I was sort of jumping from one thing to another—“putting out fires”. My general lack of self discipline doesn’t help either. I’m really good at putting off the things I don’t want to do. I’m not sure how to overcome all of that, but I want to work on it. At my age, I am not going to change much, but there is always room for improvement.

One area that needs to improve is all the health-related things. I spent November and December eating whatever I wanted and packed on six pounds in just two months. My pants are tight! Starting today, the unhealthy foods are not an option. I eat lunch out a lot, and it’s frequently Mexican food, but I can find healthier options for that too. I use a smart watch that tracks my daily steps, and I typically average 6000-7000 steps a day. For the past few months, I’m lucky to reach 3000 steps. That can definitely be corrected. My blood pressure has started to creep up, and the cardiologist asked me if I was getting enough physical activity. It will be interesting to see if it goes down when my step increase.

My quilt related goals were the hardest to figure out. There are just so many choices! There are a couple of “have to do” things.

1) Raffle quilt for Trinity Lutheran Church (my church).

2) Raffle quilt for Christ the Victor Lutheran Church.

3) Raffle quilt for the Refugio church (I don’t know the name or the denomination—they just show up every year and buy a quilt from me).

4) Quilt for the Trinity auction.

I started two BOM’s last year that didn’t get completed. I think I would like to get those finished and maybe start one or two more.

I also started the Barn Star Sampler quilt and got stalled out on the first block! I want to get that out and start working on it. I just hope I can find all the pieces!

About this time last year, I started the Women of the Bible quilt. When I put section A together I found a mistake, and then I lost the desire to work on it. Again, I’m good at putting off the things I don’t want to do. I could pass it on to someone else who might finish it, but after thinking about it, I really do want to finish it myself. I just need to get past the reluctance to fix the mistake. 

I wanted to make a goal about using up my scraps, but I don’t think I will ever use all of them. My longarm quilting continually generates more plus I have friends who gift me their scraps. One thing I want to do is to get back to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I sat last year out, but I found I missed it, so I will start again this year. 

One more goal: I want to make at least six charity quilts. I need to do two more for Day One Graduation Project, and I have some baby panels to finish for Gabriel Project. Oh course, more is better, but I would be happy with six. 

I hope it will be a successful year for all of us. I am anxious to get started on these goals and maybe see some progress each month.