Today — What Does it Hold?

 Today is going to be a good day — weather wise it is going to be warmer which has to be a good thing.  It is looking to be sunny and nice and I think we will be enjoying lunch out since we ate up all the Christmas leftovers yesterday.  

I am thinking about making a pot of soup.  However that requires a trip to the store because I don’t have any cabbage and I love cabbage in my vegetable soup.  I will have to think on that.

A week ago, when we were having all the bad weather and so much wind, our lights on the deck blew down — seems the bolt they were attached to broke and it all came crashing down.  It was too cold to do anything about at the time so yesterday we restrung the line they were attached to.  I say “we” because I was not about to let Hubs go out there and climb a ladder with his back hurting.  We got the wire back up but will restring the lights today.

I am about to finish up my 2022 reading challenge.  I am currently reading another in the Garden Girls cozy mystery series by Hope Callaghan.  It is good and I am almost finished and I think that will wind up the  year.  I had originally signed up to read 25 but I have gone well over that and am close to 40.  I will up my challenge next year and have plans to read some other genres — I think I will start the year with something Young Adult — if I can find something that isn’t hopelessly depressing.  And I have a few children’s books that I would like to add.  When I look back over this years selections I have to say one of my favorites was “The Midnight Children”.  It is a children’s book, ages 8-12, but it read like an adult book and was very engaging.  It was my “surprise” book this year.  I recommend.

I have been doing a fair amount of cross stitch this year and will continue.  It has been a challenge with my newly crippled hand — you think I jest — I don’t, it is sad.  Anyway I am working on a project for the Bean — a little something to commemorate our viewing of “Stranger Things”.  I hoped to get it finished before Christmas but that didn’t happen as this project was problematic from the start.  First off I decided to stitch in hand which has been easier on one hand and more frustrating on the other because my stitches just aren’t right.  I also had a lot of trouble with my thread — all newly purchased—the 310 especially because it just wouldn’t work correctly and kept shredding and tangling.  Seems DMC had a bad batch of 310 and this was one of that batch.  I am almost done and hope to have it completed by New Years — here is a sneak peek. 

Sorry it is a little askew but I was trying to hold it with one hand and hold the iPad with the other.  I will share a better photo when I am done which hopefully will be SOON!  If you look closely,  I don’t have much more but it is like watching paint dry and I am so unhappy with how much fabric you can see through the stitches.  I think this will be my last foray into stitching without a hoop.  Maybe if I move to smaller hoops.  Q—snaps are a thing of MY past I am afraid.  I will work it out but this project has been a bear.

I don’t make New Years’s Resolutions anymore — I was always rubbish at keeping them.  I thought about adopting the modern version of that — choosing a word to define your hopes for the coming year.  Not going to do that either.  I have decided on a phrase instead —

                                                       ONE DAY AT A TIME

Yes, it sounds like a tv show doesn’t it?  I think this is a good way to start the year — hopefully it will spur me on when I am slothy, slow me down when I am racing, help me to focus on the here and now and not go down the rabbit hole of “what if’s”.  In order to stay focused on my chosen phrase I might have to make lists, or notes, or sit and breathe to calm myself — I am not sure how it is going to go yet but that is how I am going to TRY to maneuver 2023.  

Off to see about getting cabbage for that soup.  I should have made it when it was so cold but now that it has warmed up I guess I just need to be thankful for crockpots!