A new beginning and some finishes.

New Year's Day always strikes me as being a little odd. I mean it is the start of a brand new year, a clean slate and generally we wake up tired, lethargic, hung over etc etc. Hardly the right attitude with which to face the new year!

The weather again decided not to come to the party so the wind surfing business was on hiatus-Katy spent the day making cakes for my Caitlin's birthday and cluttering up my kitchen! Robin spent the day avoiding helping Katy and playing on the Xbox with Reuben and anton slouched in front of the tv (until I got him to help make tea!)

I did stuff! I cleared out two huge drawers of random pens, pieces of paper, objet d'art and other miscellaneous ephemera. I seem to be in a decluttering mood-only usually one thing a day, but today was special hence two drawers!

I finished IQ84 by Haruki Murakami at lunchtime. I have spent ages reading this, maybe a chapter a night, but loved every second of it. He is such a great story teller and I really cared about the main protagonists from very early on. I shall miss Tengo and Aomame. They have been a part of my day for some time now.

Another big achievement of the day...drum roll please... I finally finished my first ever quilt. Ok so I only had to sew a sleeve on the back so I could hang it up but I finally got round to doing it and it is currently, albeit temporarily, up on the wall. I told hubby I was going to get a piece of dowel  to hang it from and he disappeared, returning with a length of 'mostly straight' bamboo from the garden. Worth a try just to see if my sleeve was strong enough!

Frankly it needs a dowel. The bamboo has a major kink in it and the quilt doesn't hang straight! However when I said this to hubby, he replied, 'It wouldn't look right if it was straight. It would highlight the fact that the sewing isn't straight. It looks rustic this way!" I am going out tomorrow to buy a long piece of dowel and a shovel!!!!!!!!

I am proud of my quilt. It has embroidered bits which I loved doing and it was a steep learning curve. I can now see all my mistakes and what I would do differently but hey, everyone has to start some where!


I have spent the day wearing my new trainers, getting used to them and checking the fit. I really need to get some running socks. My chunky ones from Countdown just won't cut it! I am now looking for a marathon training schedule-can't find last year's and didn't stick to it anyway!

I am going to need to watch what I eat too. I started with good intentions today (don't we all ?) and probably did ok-cereal,coffee, banana and honey on toast for lunch, decent portion of curry, dhal and rice for tea but I so need to move the marshmallows out of the house, especially when I am pissed off with hubby (see above for details!). I really hope the motivation of running a marathon will keep me mindful of the need for decent fuel!

So now, could cross stitch, could stitch another sleeve on another quilt-which is far from finished but again might be a motivating factor... let's see...

Hugs
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