Anyway, let's start out with a scrapbook layout from Okinawa. I don't have a whole lot of layouts left to do from our time in Okinawa...on the one hand, that means I can finish up those scrapbooks; on the other hand, that means no more Japan pictures.
You can see more pics here. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, but you know how I like macro shots of flowers so most of my pictures are closeups instead of the whole arrangement.
Today's color palette includes Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant (it's dark purple, not black, I promise), Lemon Lime Twist (I put Granny Apple Green in the palette but it's actually Lemon Lime Twist), Highland Heather, and Whisper White. I've done Pink Pirouette as the page base for floral pages several times, something about that soft pink just appeals to me with flower pictures.
Supplies, all SU!
Stamps: Morning Post Alphabet, Strength & Hope, Carte Postale
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Highland Heather, Lemon Lime Twist
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Highland Heather, Whisper White, Botanical Butterfly DSP
Accessories: None
Okay, so now it's goals time. First, let's check in on my 2019 goals.
Scrapbooking:
1. Make 200 pages. Well, if I count my future nephew's baby book, I ended 2019 at 188 pages, which is nothing to sneeze at. Not quite up to the goal, but pretty darn close.
2. Finish Ryan's baby book. DONE, BABY! I'll start sharing those pages soon. The album is all put together (it's huge, I'm sure it weighs more than Ryan did when he was born) and it is now at my parents' house because I didn't want to chance something happening to it when we move overseas this spring.
3. Organize pictures. Uh, this one didn't happen.
Reading:
1. Have fewer unread books on my Kindle than I started with on this day a year ago. Yeah, 2020 me is laughing at 2019 me. I started 2019 with 125 unread books; I ended with 134. Oops.
Cross stitching:
1. Finish The Accolade. DONE, BABY! I finished this in late July and immediately went on a pattern-buying binge and have a zillion more projects I want to tackle. I need to clone myself.
So, out of those five goals, two were unequivocal successes, one was pretty close, and two were failures ;) Still, I did a lot of scrapbooking, reading, and stitching in 2019, and that's good.
And now it's time for 2020 goals.
Scrapbooking:
1. Make 200 pages (100 two-page layouts). I was SO close last year, I'm going to keep that as my goal this year. Might be more difficult since we're moving overseas and I might not have access to my stuff for a couple of months, but I'm really going to have a go at this. I don't have a specific scrapbook project I'm working on, just plugging away at years and years of pictures.
ETA: Oh, I have to change this goal. Plan is for me to find a job once we get to Germany, which obviously will take away a lot of my scrapbook time. So let's shoot for 100 pages.
2. Speaking of pictures, I really DO need to get those organized and pared down a bit. This goal fell by the wayside, and I need to tackle it.
Reading:
I don't think I'll make a reading goal this year because I have a feeling my TBR (To Be Read) pile will only ever increase. I'll just read as much as I can and give myself permission to not finish books if I'm not enjoying them. I did read two nonfiction books near the end of last year that I found fascinating, if rather depressing: The Five and The Radium Girls. Maybe this year I'll just track how many books I read.
Cross Stitching:
3. The Accolade is finished (and I finished a couple of other projects last year too), but I have one last Scarlet Quince that I've started and not finished yet: The Quarry, by Julian Onderdonk.
I pulled this one out after a 5-year timeout and I remember vividly why it was in timeout. It's 99% blended threads and 99% confetti, which means it is SLOW and it's hard to feel like I'm making any progress on it. There's a lot of electric blue and purple in the bluebonnets, which I like, but this might just kill me :p I'm at 31% done, so my goal for this year is to get to 40%. Might not sound like a lot...might not look like a lot...but it's going to take a lot of work to get there. This is my odd days project (so I work on it on odd-number days), and I've got another project for even days, because if I worked on this one and nothing else I'd probably set it on fire. Here's what it will look like probably when I'm 80:
I've completed six Scarlet Quince designs (all large, full-coverage pieces) so this ain't my first rodeo, but this is still on another level even from The Accolade, which may be slightly larger (150,000 stitches vs. 130,968 on this one) but didn't have nearly as much confetti as this one. This goal is going to be hard to achieve.
Fitness:
So I think I've joked on here that I joined Missy's fitness cult (Missy: "Stop calling it a cult!") at the beginning of November. I've worked hard on improving my diet and still working out, and I'm down around 18 to 19 pounds from when I started, so yay me! I can actually wear my wedding and engagement rings after several years of them being too tight to wear. I'm wearing pants I haven't worn in years and they're loose so I have to wear a belt (which is now two notches tighter than it used to be, too). I don't necessarily have a specific weight goal in mind, but I do have a fitness goal:
4. Be able to do a full chatturanga (which I don't know how to spell). It's a yoga move, basically a slow tricep pushup. Since I started this program, I've been working on trying to strengthen my wrists as I've had longstanding issues with both of them (especially the right one) which has kept me from doing pushups and necessitated the modification of lots of exercises. My flexibility has improved A LOT over the last two years thanks to regular yoga and pilates classes, but this is one thing I haven't been able to do yet. I'm gonna have to figure out those dang tricep pushups.
So there are my four goals for this year. I'd better get off the computer and start working!
