Monday, January 01, 2007

A New Year

2006 was a good year. My ds really blossomed at his developmental preschool and you can almost carry on conversations with him now. He still uses a lot of stock phrases, but he really makes an effort to express himself and tell us what he's thinking, seeing, experiencing. He is surprisingly empathetic. He cried while watching Lady and the Tramp because he was so sad for the "poor doggies" in the dog pound. He recognizes when others are angry, happy, sad, frightened also. I'm hoping his expressive communication will continue to catch up to his peers.

His sister is continuing in her "very three" phase. She vacillates between extreme sweetness, obedience, and kindness and extreme stubbornness, defiance, and imperiousness. We're hoping that she will mature this year and become less egocentric; her sheer adorableness saves her some days because she is a darn cute little booger!

Dh and I are planning to lose weight and get healthy in 2007. We've joined a local recreation center where he can play basketball and work out and I can take yoga and aerobics classes. The holidays really did a number on me. In posting goals for my Flylady group I originally planned to lose 10 lbs. by summer, but I think I'll have to up that to 20 considering my holiday weight gain. We'll see what the scale says on Wednesday. Today's scale reading was NOT GOOD. I won't count it as official though because I've always done my weigh-ins on Wednesdays. There could be a huge difference between now and Wednesday. (That's me being highly optimistic . . . or just in denial!)

My local Flylady group challenged us to post our goals for 2007 so I will post those here also:
Career--continue as self-taught knitting student extraordinaire and branch into my own designs; continue as Home Executive for my family
Financial--continue to handle paying bills for the family; sock away some of my "yarn and coffee" transcription money rather than spending it almost immediately on yarn and/or coffee
Spiritual--prayerfully consider transferring membership to Kingsway, join Psalm 100 choir, spend daily time in scripture reading/prayer
Physical--lose 10 lbs. by summer, 15 lbs. by next year at this time; continue yoga at Bburg rec. center; try aerobics classes at BRC
Intellectual--continue to read a lot; pay attention to news
Family--spend more time reading to the kids and playing with the kids; spend more time talking with Scott
Social--continue as President of the home extension FiberArts Club; continue as codirector of home extension chorus, possibly taking on more directing responsibilities; meet with Flysisters at least once a month; go to more playdates with the kids

I'll have to check back in periodically on those.

Now for some crafty content. Here are some pictures of finished objects:
First up, a Sophie bag in its pre-felted state. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it post-felting so you'll have to use your imagination. This is the Natural Plum colourway of the SWS. The colors are SO bright; the picture doesn't do them justice. It turned out just gorgeous! This was a gift for my mom who swears she'll use it, but I highly doubt it. She's one of those people who carry everything but the kitchen sink in their handbags, and the Sophie just is nowhere near big enough for that after felting.

Next up a Branching Out scarf made from King Cole Luxury Mohair. I'm not sure if I took this picture before blocking or after. This was a gift for my dh's stepmom. She seemed to really like it. I was pleased with it, though the variegated yarn gets in the way of the lace pattern a bit.


Frou frou cardigan from Stitch n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker in Plymouth Encore worsted. I'm not quite happy about the collar. I couldn't get it too lay right even after blocking, and I didn't find out about the errata for the book till I was over halfway done so I had to work out the decreases in the fronts to match the length of the back. The recipient was thrilled with it anyway.



Ds in his Sherwood sweater from Knitty. He just looks so darn handsome in this sweater! It was worth all the headaches and wrist aches.


This is not the best picture for showing off her sweater, but here's a good picture of dd with her grandfather.

One other resolution/goal: to post a blog entry every day. I very well may fall short of that, but I'll be happy if I can post at least three a week. Happy New Year!

2 comments:

Rina said...

Visited via your post in craftster. Just wanted to say, that scarf and bag are soooo beautiful. I'm sure the bag felted marvelously. Just curious: what was the rough shrinkage rate on the SWS bag? I'm thinking of felting with the same yarn.

Rachel said...

Shoot, I'm not sure right offhand. One cycle was not enough to lose stitch definition. After two cycles on hot/cold, I'd say it was about half it's original size and there was NO stitch definition. It has a very pretty sheen before AND after felting.