4 weeks already??

Yea, how does that happen? I write a blog post, then suddenly it's a month later.  I'll try writing BEFORE I take my morning walk now & see if that works any better.

The decluttering is going well.  Lots of things have been either given to others who wanted them or donated to women's shelters or Goodwill. I no longer needed 3 sets of Christmas dishes. When I used to have 32 for Christmas dinner, that was OK. Now I may have 7 for brunch - all those extra dishes can go. Lots of other items have also departed the house. It's like potato chips; hard to stop once you get started.

Weight? Ah, let's not talk about it except to say "not good". Definitely not where I want to be but never, never, never give up.

Sewing: here are a few things I've done in the last few weeks:

I also went here (which explains part of the weight issue):

 (Don't kiss blue people or you'll look like this:)

Time for a little pampering after all that!

I'm also on target for "finishes", even if they were small:

 Lots of my little Art Dots got finished, and they count. :) They are little works that will add a dot of color wherever it's needed. I'll list them on Etsy within the next few days.

And that's what I've been up to. Nothing terribly interesting, but it sure beats having to go to work every day!

Thanks for stopping by.

13 Weeks 2.0 (AKA "26 Weeks")

Soooo. My blog has been neglected this year. I want to change that. I've been thinking about doing a "26 week" thing and when I looked at the calendar this morning, I realized it's 26 weeks till I leave for my-next-great-adventure. How convenient!

In a nutshell, the original "13 weeks" was me deciding to lose 13 pounds, make 13 quilts, and try 13 new recipes - 1 of all of those, every week, for 13 weeks. It was pretty successful and I went on to lose a LOT more weight!  Now I'm ready to kick-start myself again, see if I can get the rest of this weight off, and get some more "finishes" on the list.

It helps to commit publicly, so my goal this time is: 1 pound a week (it's reasonable AND reachable), one "finish" every week (doesn't matter how big or small, as long as it's a finished project), one "declutter" every week (I am on a current roll of extreme decluttering), and writing at least one blog entry on my politics blog (so many things bugging me these days; writing helps. A lot.)  For the record, my extreme goal is 1.5 pounds per week, but I will be pleased with 1 pound. Keep the goals attainable. So off "we" go, counting down to the Great Road Trip 2014. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

I have not been idle, oh no sirree! I've taken up teaching again, so June found me frantically making samples to prepare for the 3rd quarter schedule. Here are some of the things going on:

 Classes have started already, and we're having a blast!

I've also finally delved back into my long-arm machine after a break of a couple of years. I miss the quilting part; I really enjoy it. So you see I should be able to get "finishes" done easily enough. Full disclosure: the last pic, above, is not yet finished - the binding needs to be sewn down. It's those kinds of things that have kept my UFO pile WAY too high.

On a closing note, I started a quilt today (another sample) that just might do me in. I made one block in about 5 hours. Yeow! Fortunately the quilt has only 9 blocks (24"), but still that is a lot of time! Stay tuned!

So let me get started with 26 Weeks and we'll all find out together how it goes. Thanks for stopping by!