HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have to admit, I wasn't sad to see 2015 go.  

I'm hoping for a better 2016.  

My Shug said, "Except for Mom passing, which was awful, what was so bad about it?" 

I explained, as I moved my hand way up high and way down low, in a hilly kind of movement, "it was the HIGH's and LOW's.   Too many of them, and too close together." Then I put my hand in front of me and just kind of waved  it along...."I need more of an even calm kind of life for awhile."

So, this year, we started the year off calmly.

We were going to go out to eat but my Shug wanted to cook dinner!  He made mashed potatoes, chicken and noodles, and veggies. I popped open the crescent rolls and rolled them onto the baking pan!   Vickie brought a pie and the whole meal was yummy.

We went to see Star Wars 3D.

Action packed and a feeling of nostalgia when Harrison Ford popped up on the screen!

Then we came home and toasted in the New Year!

 Simple.

Oh, and yes...it was our 21st Wedding Anniversary.  We were married on New Year's Eve.

Today, New Years Day....

Vickie, Theresa and I celebrated our little Christmas gathering that we've been doing for more years than I can remember. They came over to our house. 

We had an exchange, then opened gifts and went to a movie!

We saw "Sisters" and it was hilarious. 

And yes, I am making New Years resolutions.  I find that when I write things down, they tend be more apt to happen.  I don't know why that is, but it is....Maybe it's subconscious. 
So what about you....are you making any changes this year?  Any resolutions?  Doing anything different?  

Cindy Bee

Finding my Mojo - part 1

So the other day I had coffee with some 'friends?'. I say 'friends?' with a question mark, because they said things like...."I bet she has a niece she doesn't even know about in that basement of hers!" And,
"you need to stop analyzing stuff so much. Look at you, you can't just write something down Bee"...."you have to talk about why you are writing each thing down. Just write Bee." Don't hate. They're right. I analyze.

What I did, was bring three composition notebooks and some colored markers and said, "we're going to write out resolutions, I need motivation." Jeez I barely laid the notebooks on the table and they were writing! Having coffee with friends did more for my soul than the resolutions though!

So anyway, I started writing...finally...and explaining.....

1) Focus.

Here's an example of what I do. I just now came in the house and I started downloading pics on my blog. Then I switched to some different pics..then I went in and cleaned a bit of the counter top off, after letting the dogs in...then I remembered I was downloading pics. LORDY! I need to focus. I'd just like to get one thing done, completely, before doing the next. FOCUS DAMMIT!

2)Hang out with nicer people...well that one came to me after I was told by my 'friends', that I probably have an unknown niece in my basement. (In the picture above that is not my hand. It's RJ's hand...telling me what to do!)

3)Follow a healthy eating plan. More on that later...when I decide to do it.

4)Exercise Dammit - well I don't really want to exercise. They told me I had to if I want to lose weight. Bummer. Then her hand started doing what it's doing in the picture above and she said "write it down Bee....exercise." Jeeesh

5) Work on getting a style. I have a mish-mash of stuff and nothing really goes together anymore. They told me I need to get a house first! See Number 2.

6) I want to be more colorful...not so drab. More on this later too.

7) Donate more stuff

8) Take guitar lessons for one year.

9) Make more things to sell...either at the Granny Bee workshops or Etsy...but only after I get a style.

10) Stop the Analysis Paralysis....sigh...I'll try.

11) Follow patterns for crochet and knitting...

Those were some things I wrote down. However...Scribe looked up and said, "Hey there's some resolutions...right there on the wall...we don't need to make our own." And right there on the wall it said,

Recharge

Share good food

Make today better

Take a Risk

Live Each Moment

Look Up

Share Laughter with Friends

Be the change....

And a couple of days before, when I was still looking for my mojo...I got a call from The
Granny Bee....She said, "Cindy...would you be interested in teaching how to make Granny Squares at the Winter Woolen Workshop? Heck yeah! Something to focus on!

So I got out my colorful cotton yarn, Roofus, a dvd, (all things I enjoy)

put it all in my LuCindy bag

and started hooking.

Looking for color patterns anywhere, even in my pjs,

and trying to figure out what would look good together and what wouldn't.

Then today I had lunch with the Granny Bee. She loved my Granny Squares. I was telling her I want a style. I want people to look at me, my house, my stuff, and then when they see something they say....that's Cindy Bee's style.

I just gotta figure it out.

Cindy Bee

PS - Don't go saying mean things about my 'friends'...I'm teasing them and they know it.

PPS - Scribe and RJ - don't go calling me asking if I'm mad. I'm teasing you and you know it!

Resolution 3, 4, & 5

What do these pics have in common? Can you figure it out?

yup - lotta plastic going on in this house.
This is not my first rodeo on this resolution. To stop using plastic.

It's like the 'gonna lose 10 pounds one'. I make that resolution every year and just lose interest. Now I'm up to 'gonna lose 30-40 pounds'.

And the plastic one, I've already broken it...I went to the grocery store Monday and forgot to take my cloth bags inside. I'm gonna keep on trying though.

I know how to get rid of all of the plastic except the containers. What would I put my husband's lunch in? He takes leftovers quite often. And he takes his lunch every day. For example, today he took some leftover lasagna...what would I put it in if not a plastic container?

Help me with this one bloggers. I really need to change this because he also heats his food in those plastic containers. Not good.

And besides trying to lose weight - which I haven't started on yet because we have leftover Christmas cookies in the house (see them hiding there in the PLASTIC bag).. . .

I am going to purge.....no not the cookies! Purses (I'm a bag lady)...magazines (addict)...books (addict).....stuff. I have to get rid of a lot of stuff as we are moving this year. I've been working on that one already.

And those are my resolutions.

Now on to other stuff.

Tomorrow (or my next post) I'm going to talk about some of the comments on my last couple of posts....I've been thinking a lot about my blogger friends, but for now...

I like Ted Williams. I want him to make it big. He's the homeless guy with the big voice. He seems so genuine and happy. His happiness is contagious. He keeps tearing up about his good fortune. I think I'm going to cry. I think if he makes it, he might do big things someday. He's been through tough times. I want more happy stories on the news like this.

So far, nothing about the birds. Nothing.

Cindy

PS - Queen. You better not call me a hoarder!

My unfinished projects...

My second resolution is to finish all of these unfinished projects I've started. And I actually started on this resolution a couple of weeks ago, before Christmas. I was trying to clean up a "computer/craft" room that has been renamed "clutter room" by one of the boys I watch! I realized it won't get cleaned up until I get some of these projects finished that are all over the place in baskets and bags. So, I have actually started on this resolution, and I'm giving myself the entire year to finish it, but I need to stay focused.

I wove this rug on a loom which is in our pioneer village at our county fair. It's part of a project we do every year with the spinning group I'm in. The thing is, I've had the rug since September, but I never tied off the ends, so I couldn't put it on the floor.

The ends are now tied off. It's on the floor. DONE!

This blanket is huge. It lays all the way across our queen sized bed and down the sides. My MIL asked me to get her "something to work on" for the winter months at this church garage sale that I go to every year. She used to go, but she is now 88 and doesn't get out like she used to. So, I got her a bag of squares to make a blanket. She put the squares together. Then I got the material to go in between the squares and she put the whole blanket together, except for the edges. She can't do the edges because it requires laying the blanket out on the floor and she can't get on the floor. Well, she can, but then she can't get up. So, I started whip stitching those edges, only I was having a hard time getting the needle through the material, so after a year of it laying around on a rocking chair with pins in it, I took it to my sewing machine and finished it. It's not the best looking, but no one is going to see it, and at least now it's on our bed. DONE! BTW- that was LAST WINTER that I got those squares for her! I finished this blanket right before Christmas.

Now this...oh jeez....almost done, but not really into the earthy colors anymore. It is a log cabin knitted blanket from a class I took about three years ago at Stitches N Scones in Westfield. The pattern came from a book called Mason-Dixon Knitting and I love it. This blanket is going to have to get finished next, as it's just too close to being done. But what am I going to do with it? I guess I can find something to 'throw' it on and use it as a lap blankey. In the mean time I'd love to start another one in different colors! Should I?

And this....I started several years ago. It's a blanket out of wool yarn on small needles and yes those are cables. Different kinds of cables. This is no where near finished. I can only do about 2-3 rows of this at a time as I have to really concentrate on it. Most of my projects are something for me to do while I sit down in the evening to watch a little T.V. No tv watching while working on this baby.

I know, you can't even tell what this is. It's an appliqued bunny with a bucket of flowers done on wool. It could be a wall hanging or a pillow. I was working on it last winter and put it away when I didn't finish it by Easter. I never got it back out. I just unrolled it and left it with all of the pattern pieces and pins and such on it to take the pic. I was afraid I'd lose something if I tried to move it all. This is a Granny Bee project. It's the only one I even started. {sorry Beth}
My crocheted Sand and Sea blanket, which I don't even feel bad about because I started it a few months ago and I do still work on it.

This....it's a "beachy" triangle wrap that I started this summer at a Granny Bee garden weekend. I needed something to do, besides make this "bluppy" rug that I was working on, so I undid a scarf that I didn't like, and started making this out of the yarn. Didn't get very far, but it's a quick and easy project. I think I'll get it done right after I finish that log cabin blanket.
Then I'll have something to wear to the beach. What beach? Good question.

And this folks, is locker hooking. It's not hard. Very mundane actually, unless you are following a pattern. It's something I started doing to use up material that I have. It was going to be a gift, but I didn't get it done in time. I have spent hours on it, and I have a long way to go. And here's the thing...I don't really care for it. It's kind of like TH (Places Where Grace Is) said in one of her posts, what do you do when you have a lot of time in something, but you don't really care for it anymore? Do you finish it because you do have so much time in it, and hope you will like it again, or do you call it quits? I THINK I could find a place to put this in our new house...maybe. What should I do? The colors are black, dark green, reddish mauve.

So there you have it. And it's a partial list. I have other smaller things that need done, but this gives you an idea of why I am making a new years resolution to FINISH WHAT I START.

Cindy