Happy New Year-A Year in Review

Good morning everyone I hope you had a great 2014 and I hope your 2015 is even better.  I've had some ups and downs this year but I always try to stay positive about situations.  It's rainy here today and I have to work tonight so no New Year's celebrations for me unfortunately.  Luckily I'm working with one of my favorite people so I shouldn't be bored.  I just hope it stays quiet and we don't have too many complaints since I'm working in guest services.

My Christmas ended up being good since I got to go out Christmas Eve with my husband.  We went to Busch Gardens since it was free and it was nice and quiet so there were no lines for anything.  They also had some great shows.

I didn't realize it would work but I did a series of rapid fire shots and that's what the moving photos are.  They turned out pretty cool!  One of the shows had Santa who called up all of the kids from the audience to sing a song with him it was adorable.  One little girl in particular who is sitting under the green elf was just the cutest thing I've seen.

Present wise I did well too.  I got $50 in gift cards for Michael's to support my stitching habit.  Probably will be going toward an Ott light.  I also got a new touch screen laptop which I'm writing this on right now.  My old one had a broken hinge and no battery life so it was really more of a desktop although it has a DVD drive so I'll still probably pull it out on occasion to watch movies in bed.  I still have to transfer over all of my cross stitch patterns and all my photos and videos to the new one though.  I also received some nice new clothes and a winter jacket since we're planning on moving to colder climates next year.  My hubby got a new winter jacket as well along with some new video games for his PS4 and a headset so he can talk to people while he plays.  We also got a big cash gift from his dad.  His stepmom passed away this year and it was our final gift from her.  The note his dad wrote made me tear up a bit, I didn't realize we brought her so much happiness so I'm glad I could bring her some comfort before she passed.

The good news is my mom is doing well.  She got out of the hospital right before Christmas and although she couldn't stay the night at my sister's like she was planning, they all went down Christmas Eve and spent a few hours with her before they went home.  She's also able to eat whatever she wants and is able to keep it down.  She's been scarfing down on hot fudge sundaes like they're going out of style :).

Stitching wise I think I finished a fair amount this year.  First off I started this blog and am currently at 40 followers so a big thank you to all of my readers!  I also started up my stash this year which is now more than enough for a couple years to keep me occupied.  My wind up this year is as follows:

 Finished Aurora Cabin

Started and finished 2 panels of Halloween Banners

Swirling Peacock started

Started and finished Legend of Zelda for my friend

Started and finished My Tinkerbell for hubby's friend

Started Magical World

My goal this year is to start and finish Paradise by October.  It's 42 pages and 800x202 stitches so I'm nervous about getting it done on time.  I'll be stitching on this exclusively though so I'm hoping I'll finish.  I already have the fabric dyed and gridded and I have the words charted out.  I'll be working off of two charts at the same time and I'm still trying to decide on colors for the words.  I'm thinking since there's so many colors in the pattern (100) I'll just do white letters with a black border.  It's for my cousin's wedding so it has to be gender neutral.  I was telling her about my Tinkerbell project and she said I should stitch a little something for her.  I already had this planned but I know she'll love it as she loves the beach and it's Broncos colors for her fiance.  I calculated it out and need to do a page a week to stay on track.  

Once I finish this I'm going to stitch Howling for my mom.  She loves native American design and wolves.  She also started stitching and she does blankets for her newborn grandkids but she isn't a big fan of stitching and won't do anything for herself so I decided to do something for her.

Non stitching-wise my goal for next year is to get pregnant.  I have some pretty bad fertility issues as I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was a teenager.  I won't go into much detail about it but basically I don't ovulate except like once a year.  I'll be 29 in April so really want this to be my year.  I've already started the first step which is a strict diet where I can't eat basically anything good.  I had to cut out all starches, dairy and sugars.  So my diet is basically meat and some veggies, eggs and hard cheeses.  I just discovered cheddar is considered a hard cheese so that made me happy.  Also all of the almond flour and almond milk out there means I won't be suffering as much as I thought.  I found a dairy, sugar and starch free bread recipe to try.  I just have to run to Whole Foods to get almond and coconut flour to make it since they didn't have them at my normal market.  I'm trying to cheat only once or twice a week which is where I just cheat all day and then start it again the next day which is what my endocrinologist told me to do.  My other goal next year is to move to our final location.  We've been living in Florida for about 5 years now and we both miss our families so now that hubby is graduating in May, we're finally moving back home.  The only problem is his family is in CA and mine's in CO so we're still "discussing" where we're moving.  We may just move to Vegas so we're halfway between the two ;).  My last goal is to start graduate school.  I should finish it in a year I just have to finish my exams that I need to get into the program.  I'm hoping to have these done in January.

So lots of changes in the new year and lots of nervousness. I hope to get my goals accomplished but we'll see how everything goes.  I hope you all achieve all your goals and happy New Year!  I'll be posting again tomorrow with my New Stitchy Start post.  Thanks for sticking with me I know this was long and detailed.

Until next time,

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?  Should old acquaintance be forgot and auld lang stitch ;)