Happy New Year!

Hope everyone that celebrated had a great night! Erich and I didn't do much, we both had to work today so celebration was limited to snacky stuff for dinner (crackers and cheese, mozzarella sticks, pizza bites, that sort of thing) and movies. I wasn't thrilled about it in the beginning but Kung Fu Panda turned out to be really cute and is probably on our to-buy list now:) As for stitching into the new year, I opted to pick up something I haven't worked on in a long time instead of a new start. I've got a bunch of WIPs right now and I know stitching this year probably isn't going to be of the highest priority for long with the baby on the way so I picked up HAED's Dragon Moon by Lisa Victoria and made some progress on a cloud. I think I'll stick with it for a week or so and then try to finish up Noah's Sub. I'm getting so close!!

Everyone's making goals for 2009 so let's have a look at mine and see how 2008 went too. This is what I thought I was going to accomplish in 2008...

Stitching
-Finish Noah's Sub
-Finish TW's Nativity
-Finish Celtic Christmas
-Finish Santa's Magic
-Frame Santa's Magic
-Frame The Lord's Prayer piece I finished a few years ago
-Start Skeleton Crew
-Finish ornaments with at least one new technique
-Finish QS Believe (HAED/Jessica Galbreth)
-Finish 3 full pages of a HAED/Lisa Victoria dragon design

So the stitching goals didn't go so well. I got a lot of stitching in, just not on the stuff I thought I would last January. Good news is that Noah's Sub and Nativity are really close to being finished and I did buy the stuff to frame The Lord's Prayer, just haven't done it yet. The HAED goals, not so much-Believe is only about half done and Dragon Moon (the Lisa Victoria design I decided on) has maybe the equivalent of a full page done. Oh well, I had fun stitching and that's what counts!

Nonstitching
-Lose 30 lbs
-Paint front porch railings
-Get furniture for the craft room
-Install baseboards in the family room
-Have lilac bush removed from back yard
-Have bushes removed from front yard (they're half dead and ugly anyway!)
-Go camping at least once

Nonstitching goals went much better. Weight loss was good up until we started the adoption stuff, I was down about 15 pounds but sadly gained about 10 of it back since Summer. Oh well, as soon as I get out of physical therapy for my shoulder I should be able to correct that unless of course we get the call to leave for Russia and then I'll try to maintain and get back to losing as soon as I can. The bushes out front didn't actually look too dead this year so we left them with the promise that we'll get rid of them if they look dead this Spring.

So for 2009, here's the current plan which will probably change once the baby comes!

Stitching
~Finish Noah's Sub
~Frame Noah's Sub before the baby arrives
~Finish TW's Nativity
~Frame Nativity
~Finish Santa's Magic
~Frame Santa's Magic
~Finish Skeleton Crew
~Frame The Lord's Prayer piece I finished a few years ago
~Finish ornaments with at least one new technique
~Finish QS Believe (HAED/Jessica Galbreth)
~Finish 3 full pages of Dragon Moon (HAED/Lisa Victoria)

Nonstitching
~Lose 30 lbs
~Paint front porch railings
~Paint front door
~Paint and decorate the baby's room before he/she arrives
~Plant grass around the back patio
~Plant more day lilies behind the garage
~Make two trips to Russia and bring our baby home

I know the stitching goals are ambitious again but I hope to actually accomplish most of them and keep the new starts to a minimum this year.

That's about all for now, thanks for all the compliments on Noah's Sub. I'll show you some pics of it and Dragon Moon when I make a little more progress.