Happy New Year

Once again we are at the start of a brand new year, I like to see it as a clean slate or a fresh page of paper poised and ready for my pen to start writing what I would like to do during 2018. I have put my new calendar on the wall all those little squares of endless possibility just waiting to be filled.

So let me start off with a few of my goals, plans and ideas for 2018. I was going to take part in the First Day Hikes presented by the Florida State Parks unfortunately the day broke with heavy rain which lasted through most of the day. It was like mother nature washes away the last remnants of 2017.  I will be doing a hike at the Silver Springs State Park, tomorrow this will kick off two of my goals for 2018, the 1^st is to work toward a healthier me and the 2^nd is to hike a trail at least once a month.

I may have mentioned I joined the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2018. I thought this would be a great project to gain more confidence in using more embroidery stitches and improving my skills. So often I have done projects that required only a few stitches and several where I just used the back stitch to outline the pattern and while those look great a few years ago I was working many new stitches each week then some where along the way I stopped.

I mentioned in my post yesterday I joined a few reading challenges for this year, something I neglected to do last year and maybe that's why I didn't read as much as I usually do. To get things off to a good start I reserved a few books from the local library: 

Let Me Tell You: new stories, essays and other writings by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson: A Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees by Rob Penn

I recently ordered two books from Amazon both by Ellen Stimson which should be here by the end of the week they are:

Good Grief

Mud Season

The new 1 Year of Stitches project started for 2018, this is a group on Facebook for hand embroidery, here is the link if it may be something you are interested in joining. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1294313713974098/

I plan to fill the new calendar with all kinds of projects from quilting and crochet, knitting and embroidery, some beading and reading a few classes too. Toss in some healthy activities and an exercise class or two and I should be able to meet my goals for 2018.