What a (Insane) Year!

Hullo Hullo everyone, if anyone is still out there. It has been a really long time, but 2016 has been the year that officially kicked my ass. 

I think, scrolling through the past, the last life update I made was June,  the last stitching update July and the last reading update was in September. It's now December. I can only say I am sorry. I was all set to do another update mid September,  it's still sitting here as a draft. It was going to be title "Normal Sweet Normal". I think that jinxed me if I'm being honest.  

If any one remembers, my Nanna passed away in March and that threw me for a bit of a loop. Especially since it was followed so close by my great uncles passing, and a theft at work. The drama killed my stitching bug entirely and left my reading bug unchecked. Just when I thought everything was starting to return to normal (hence the unpublished update), my other grandma passed mid September which funnily enough renewed my slumpy mood. Things with my dad remained tense, but hey ho what you going to do. My uncle was then screwed over by his partner and left with nothing more than a can of beetroot, my aunt was thrown from her horse and spent two weeks in hospital and finally,  to round off the year my mum sprang on us at Christmas that she has been seriously ill for the last six months.

So, all and all, I haven't really had the brain space to do much at all,  blogging not withstanding.

But that's enough of the doom and gloom.  I'm ready to rejoin the world.

Even with the lack of stitching motivation,  I did have a few finishes this year. Six in fact.  Not a huge number but certainly more than I was expecting.

This one was the first of the Christmyth ornaments that I've started. They were free patterns put out by Dragon Dreams. Not sure if they still are or not, but they were when I got them.  I thought something small would be a good way to ease back into the whole stitching thing.

 Certainly everyone knows this one by this point. I left the boarder off from top and bottom because in my head, once I frame it, I don't think that boarder will add anything. I can always change my mind.

Finished off Pandoras Box, another freebie, this time of the Liz Almond variety. I used a Carrie's Creation cotton in Chimera, DMC 310, a silver DMC satin and some random clear silver lined seed beads I found in Spotlight. While I did enjoy working on it, not entirely sure how I feel about the finished piece. It did teach me a lot though - which is always nice.

This was my oldest wip that I finished early this year. Without looking it up,  I don't remember any detail beyond its done and there was a boat load of fractional stitches that I hated doing on Aida.

Joan Elliott Reader. This one defiantly gave me a love of Joan Elliott patterns. Can defiantly see me doing more of them in the future.

And finally

My mums tartan cushion. I finished this bad boy with a couple days left till Christmas and with two crushed fingers. Handy life lesson - don't try and catch a falling 30kg bucket. But I pushed through it and finished the cushion in time to give it to her at Christmas,  which she loved.

Reading wise I did far far better. I read a total of 100 books (101 if I finish my current one before saturday)  for a grand total of 35,559 pages - at least according to Goodreads. I am a little bit chuffed with that achievement.

Looking forward to the new year, I am really really hoping that life becomes a little more settled, or at the very least not as upsetting. I have set up spreadsheets to try and get some more accuracy and organisation to my workings. I am setting my Goodreads goal to 75 again, but I am hoping not to ignore my stitching so much.

Before the weekend I will update all the tabs up top, so we have a good starting point for the year. I'm not going to make any goals - me and goals don't seem to get along very well, but I would like to make a dent in the number of projects I have going - while I have great admiration for those of you with many multiple wips going, for me, my number is getting up there - especially since most have not seen the light of day in the longest time.

I did treat myself to a set of quantum frames for my thirtieth birthday - I have had them for two days now and am in love, so here's hoping it makes working of some of the older wips more enjoyable.

I think I will leave it there for now.  Unless some one tragic event happens I don't forsee me being awol. I am hoping to get back into a regular routine with posting again. What I will do, I think, is try and keep the reading and the stitching posts separate,  but we shall see. The only real objective I have right now is routines.

So if you are still here - thank you

Until next time