Revamping - Bit by Bit

Ah -things are beginning to change here. Even looking up from my standpoint anyway. However, I'm not so sure Mandy would agree with me.

I'm feeling much better -head is finally clearing out a good bit. Still have some cough residue but not near as bad as I had back in September. As much goop as I had coming forth on a constant basis for the past week, there really should be nothing but cleaned out fields now in my sinus cavities but don't you know all that stuff I was getting rid up apparently left a bit of a vaccum there as I got up today with a lousy sinus headache. Go figure, huh. Took two aspirin, which kicked in about a hour later making me really sleepy so I took a nice afternoon nap and when I got up, I realized I was starting to feel civilized again.

It was about that same time too that Mandy started to complain her throat was scratchy, headachy and cold - very, very cold so she's been on the couch now since about 5 p.m., trying to get warm, feel a bit better.

While she's been reposing and I've been reading blogs, etc., I noticed something else had been going on behind our backs this evening too though. Someone in the house has been a busy little beaver and doing some "revamping" apparently. A recent trip to the bathroom revealed the handiwork that has to belong to a certain little four-year-old here. Thankfully, it's not traces and smudges of the real thing -not really lipstick or rouge but rather some of her "Bratz" products but I thought I'd take a nice little snapshot of her art work, save it maybe for posterity -or perhaps years from now, Mandy can haul it out and show it to Maya's children so they can take it as instruction of ways to drive your parents crazy!

Lovely, huh? Well as I said above, thank goodness it's not the "real" thing as makeup goes cause this stuff will at least wash off without too much problem. Ah yes, just another of the fun sides of parenting/grandparenting, isn't it?

I know I have commented on several other blogs this past week about resolutions and that I didn't make any specific ones. For me, they never work to do anything for me except create an added element of failure and then depression -mainly because I lack a lot of follow through.

However, because I do have so many things I would like to accomplish sometime in my lifetime, I am going to try to tackle some of these projects with a little bit more "Stick-to-it" theory. See if I can do a little housecleaning -of sorts - that way.

I have two books -one given to me back in 2004, when I had my first surgery - "The Count of Monte Cristo" and I've been struggling, trying to read it for almost four years now. I don't think I've gotten beyond the first 100 pages in it yet. As a classic, it would be nice if I could complete reading it at least before I turn 65, don't 'cha think? That gives me about 20 months to complete that project. Then there is also the book "Anna Karenia" that I bought about two years ago and still have not finished it either. I have managed to read a bit further in it - up to almost 200 pages completed now but still, for someone who used to be noted for picking up a book, regardless of the size, and not dropping the reading ball there until the book was finished, I'm really way off base with both these books. I have two books I am currently "reading" - one is "The Last Promise" by Richard Paul Evans and the other - a book by Susan Senator - "Making Peace With Autism" Neither is a difficult read - but I just keep finding other things to play with - like the computer - and haven't finished either of these. Then there is the book sent to me by some sweet blogger down south - J.D. Robb's "Glory in Death" which looks really interesting and should provide some reading relaxation in the near future. I also have four other books out in my room I purchased when I did my online Christmas shopping back in November from B&N - love that place - and also, there are four other new books that Mandy got for Christmas (from me) that of course, I'll want to read them once she is done with them. Add to the mix the book "The Basic Book of Photography" that my son gave me as part of my Christmas gifts and I've definitely got my work cut out for me in the reading department for a long, long time to come now don't I?

THen there are craft projects I've started and not yet completed. I have a quilt I embroidered for Maya the spring/summer prior to her birth that only needs to have the finishing touches applied to it - binding the edges, ya know. However, I have never done anything like that before and it really kind of scares me because I'm afraid I'll end up mucking this little quilt up then. Even though my cousin Julie gave me instructions at our last family reunion 18 months ago - even wrote them down and I have them folded into the middle of that quilt but I'm still leery. A friend of mine who does quilting with the women's quilt group at St. Severin's Catholic Church near here has also told me she would come down and help me get started once I decide to tackle completing this project so I think I'd best get myself moving to do that one. Get it finished and out of my hair. I also have a quilt I began shortly before Kurtis was born too - this one is just an embroidery project though as it was already quilted and the edgings done - I just have to finish embroidering it. I have more yarn set aside to do up into crocheted six inch by six inch squares too - granny squares ya know - to get done and packaged up to send to Texas to my blogger friend, Shelly Tucker of This Eclectic Life for the Share A Square quilt project she is running. These squares will be used with others sent by folks from all over the world to make afghans for kids at a chemo camp. Great project, beautiful afghans Shelly and some others are piecing together to give to these kids. Afghans make such lovely and very warm, comforting pieces to wrap around yourself and for kids dealing with chemo treatments, I can't think of a nicer way to try to do something to ease their recovery, can you? And, if you go visit Shelly's site, be sure to click on the youtube video she has posted there too. Great entertainment in that piece there is!

As one who has enjoyed sewing a lot over the past 27 years - made many clothes for Mandy when she was small as well as some things for my son too - including one year when I made him a three piece suit that almost was enough to send me away for the cure at the wacky ward with the lovely little fake-type pocket in the jacket -along with the long fancy dresses I made that year for Christmas for both the girls - matching dresses of green velvet that had a special ribbon trim down the front of each dress. If I say here and now that I have never tackled anything made of velvet since then, does that tell you how much those dresses took out of my already small supply of creative talents? But, over the years, like most all others I know who indulge in sewing, I have accumulated several large storage units -those big plastic bins ya know - which are all filled to the gills with different pieces of fabric and it would be kind of nice if some day I managed to whittle the amount of material I have on hand down a tad too you see. At least make SOMETHING out of some of it so it doesn't all go totally to waste. And the same thing applies to the many other plastic storage totes I have -also filled to the gills - with yarns of all types and textures. I could knit or crochet from the yarns I have on hand for several years I'm sure if I'd once get started into making and finishing some projects there too.

And finally, another project I've been working on for the past three years or more and that's the research project I started through the historic newspapers listed online at Ancestry.com. I've been reading copies of our local newspaper through that site because they do have a pretty decent sized data base of copies of that paper from 1913 through 1976. Been researching any articles about my home town and/or the people who lived here during that period. Then, my goal was to also go through and research the other little villages here for the same type of articles about them too and compile all this data into some type of book that would be useful to folks who are working on family tree research - or enjoyable perhaps to others who, like me, just like to read and learn about how things once were here. I really do need to start back into working on that project - very much so.

In between trying to find the time to read those books, finish those two quilts, do some more granny squares, figure out some things I can sew, knit or crochet and work on this research thing, I still have to keep tabs on the Princess and her brother, the baby Prince, cook meals and clean up my kitchen messes afterwards and also, can't forget to make time to keep tabs on the blog too! I know people who do all of those things and still manage to hold down full-time jobs as well so I don't think it is an impossibility for me to manage them - just need to get some incentive and do just that - "Manage" them! So wish me well in my endeavors there, will ya please!??? Say lots of prayers too that I don't mangle any of them too much in the process as well.

I've heard or read this before someplace that as we age we become more like our parents and boy, for me, that is really becoming the truth. My Mom was a very talented seamstress - I am not of her caliber, not by a long shot, but she also had a tendency to procrastinate - greatly. Someplace in this house there is a pink wool dress, intended to be a Christmas dress for a 9 or 10-year-old girl, in partial states of completion. Yes, this was supposed to be a special dress for me for Christmas and it never got finished and I really don't want to leave this world with things like that left undone for that many years too!

When it comes to "revamping" and trying to do some of my own special needs housecleaning, I really do have my work cut out for me now, don't I?

And what about you? Anyone else who collects ideas, materials and has plenty of great intentions and yet, years later, they are still undone?