Looking at 2011

Since this is the last Friday of 2011, I thought today would be fitting for me to look at my recap of the year. 

All in all, I think it went well. Even though I didn't get to all my New Year's guidelines, I thought I could take stop by copy pasting that portion of my very first TCoML post. My comments are in red. 



I want to finish my first rewrite of Doorways by the end of April or the middle of May. 
Done. On 25 April.

I want to do this while working. 
I did that. 

Good to know I at least managed my first two guidelines. I usually don't get that far. 

I want to be back to fluency in French. 
Cough cough. Not yet. Really should start working on that. 

Cough cough HACK cough. 

I want to revise and study Mandarin. 
Same here. Picking up French will be much easier. 

Hack hack cough cough. 

I want to speak Italian at at least a moderate level by next January. 
Probably should start this first, as I don't speak any Italian. At all. 

Uhm... yeah... seems 2011 was a linguistically challenged one. 

I want to have written at least half of Guardian by December, but this is of lower Priority, since...
Good goal, this. I just need to find the character again. And her voice. And her story. I haven't touched Guardian since January.

Never did get to this, but I did finish another book and do half of a third, so I'm not too fussed. Thankfully, only the rewrite to the former was lost permanently. 

I want to start querying Doorways by next year. 

I'm planning to start edits in May, which might make writing Guardian a bit more difficult. 

Optimism. Sheer optimism. 

I want to get back to stabbing people for fun. (For those of you that don't know. I'm not completely psycho. I fence.)
Really still want to do this. But this time slot was taken up by singing. Singing might become something serious, like... a ticket to the stage. 

And so it was. 

I want to be back on my healthy lifestyle by the beginning of February. 
Failed miserably at this. Only getting to it now. 

I did get the hang of it around October. 

I want to stay on that lifestyle indefinitely. Or at least until December. ;-P
Let's get to the lifestyle first. 

It lasted until Christmas. Hey! I'm new to the lifestyle thing. 

I want to finish my degree and get completely out of the previous phase of my life, since this year will pretty much be spent in limbo. 
Amen.

And Hallelujah!

I want to make a stronger commitment to God. 
Amen.

I do think my commitment is stronger, even if it was a lot harder work than before. Maybe God made my life a little more complicated so that I could cling to Him more. 

I might or might not want to read the complete works of Shakespeare... 
I might want to start reading again. Period. 

And I did, but still no Shakespeare. 

It's interesting to look at my goals like this, because it does pretty well to show what I achieved in 2011. Maybe it was a small portion of what I wanted to do, but what I did achieve was important to where my life is headed. The time of those things that I didn't succeed in was spent on other very important events. Such as my singing, so I won't complain. 

I'm going to do next year's goals on MFB, so if you're interested, please go check it out and let me know what you think. 

Now, let me just say: Thank you one and all for coming to TCoML and supporting me on this my first year of the rest of my life. I truly appreciated your love, advice, sympathy and support through the best and worst times of the year. I pray that God will bless every single one of you and that you will find as much meaning in 2012 as I did in this year. 

Stay safe and I'll see you in the New Year! 

Birthdays and Good Company

Today was pretty awesome, even though I'm still reeling a little from the Great Back-Up Catastrophe. 

But nothing helps the mood as much as spending most of your birthday with close friends. ^_^ 

I finally got to watch Sherlock Holmes 2. It was wonderful. A perfect follow-up. What made it even better was that I got to watch it with a friend I haven't seen in a year. 

So that's my story for today. Sorry if it's a bit short to your tastes, but I'm bushed. Promise to be back with something more meaningful soon. 

Lots of love! 

Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend.

Mine was an interesting mix of our family traditions and those of our guest. Everyone enjoyed giving out presents and receiving gifts. 

Mine were awesome: Chocolate, an antique jewelry box and some jewelry (including an amber ring!).

Still, when it was time for me to turn in, I read a few chapters of Matthew, since that's what Christmas is really about. 

Yes, the gifts are good. Being with family is great.

But knowing that our Savior was born a few thousand years ago is priceless. It's always wonderful for me to remember that, since it's something that does get forgotten in all the activities that go along with the season. 

Do you also read about the birth of Jesus over Christmas time? 

Finished by the eleventh hour

Sorry I missed yesterday's post. Things went a bit hectic after we got an unexpected guest, but after a busy few days, I finally managed to finish my Christmas present.

Due to the fact that my brother got a new car from my uncle (and that the above mentioned guest is a Muslim), I decided to give the men key-chains instead. Still, some of the bookmarks still made it to the tree. As promised, my hand-made presents: 

Our Guest's

My Uncle's

My Brother's

My Brother's (He asked really nicely)

My Mom's

My Uncle's Birthday Present

My Gran's

So there you have it. I managed to make gifts for all of my house-guests without blinding, maiming or otherwise impaling myself. 

The branches in the background is our Christmas tree, but if you really want to see what's going on, you better go check out my other blog. 

Then, I also want to ask you to please pray for a friend of mine. She lost her husband yesterday and is currently fighting a condition that flared up again as a result of the car accident that took his life. 

May you have a Blessed Christmas and a wonderful time with your loved ones.  

This post lacks substance, but at least I'm not vanishing for a day

Today I was going to do another serious-ish post, but I'm so tired I can barely think straight. All because I woke up at 4 am this morning to get some writing done.

I did get about three hours of writing in, and then spent the rest of the day either baking or cleaning. I didn't do these things alone, but the house is really dirty. So much so that I'm wondering why my mother even used to hire a maid, since she apparently had a royal time while not doing a tenth that she'd been paid for.

Well, no matter. As soon as we have the house firmly in hand, it won't be that difficult to keep it that way. But it's difficult when something new comes out of the woodwork every time we think the house is under control.

Sigh...

Still, I'm thinking that all this makes for some wonderful exercise, since we have a five bedroom house. :-)

Unfortunately, I can't really see much in the way of payoff, since we have a black Labrador that loves sowing chaos where once there was order.

What about you? Have any pets that throw your housekeeping into chaos the moment you turn your back?

Guilt

This might sound a little weird, but I'm thinking that I might not be the only one that suffers with this, so I decided to blog about it. 

Guilt. 

It's generally easy for me to dodge most guilt trips from people (with the exception of my family, since they know me too well), but I realized yesterday that no one whips me with guilt more effectively than I do. 

Especially when it comes to my relationship with God. 

See, when I failed that economics test, my faith took one serious wobble. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't back where it was before I started studying. 

And that made me feel bad. 

I've been a Christian since I was eight, so when it comes to experience, I'm an old hand at it. So, in my mind, I shouldn't let something like a test knock a dent into my faith that God has my best interests at heart. Now that I think about it, I realize why it happened. 

If I hadn't failed, I wouldn't have felt the need to start a study group and by extension, I would not have spent a profound two weeks where the three of us understood each other deeper than most of our best friends do. It was an experience that I don't regret, except that I don't think that something like that will ever happen again. 

But the point is, it happens because I failed a test. 

Which is all very good and well, but for the weeks after I got the results, I was beating myself up because my faith had shaken because of it. 

But here's what I've come to realize after many prayers: 

1) God wants me to be in a relationship with Him because I love him, not because I feel guilty about it.

2) It's better to use every free moment I have in a day (short, but many of them) in prayer, than trying to squeeze in time in the day where I'm too tired, too asleep, or too distracted to focus on God. 

3) I KNEW this for years now, but lost perspective. Was it pride in my own faith? (Maybe.) Was it the devil's influence? (Probably.) 

4) No matter what, no one's perfect. David wasn't. Peter wasn't. Moses wasn't. Jacob wasn't. Why should I expect to be? God doesn't expect it of me. 

Still, it's a bit difficult to let go of the guilt that I've been clinging to, but luckily God is prying loose my hold finger by finger. Soon I will be free of it and stronger for it. 

What about you? Ever feel really guilty about something in your Faith, only to realize that it's not so important that it deserves the focus you put on it? 

Christmas Presents...

In the end, I decided to move away from the jewelry idea for now, since I never tried something like that before.

Instead, I decided to crochet bookmarks, since all the people who get presents from me either read or read the Bible. 

Clever yes. 

I'm even doing more than one pattern to keep things interesting for me. 

There's only one problem, though... 

I have very neat, tidy and tiny crochet stitches. To say that this is a pain in the backside when using yarn that's thin enough to fit between pages of a book is the understatement of the millennium. 

For one thing, I've crocheted for seven hours and managed to finish one bookmark. 

On my right hand, I can't feel my thumb and my fore and middle fingers are red. My left hand is cramping for some inexplicable reason. 

I may or may not be going cross-eyed. 

I REALLY hope that people appreciate my presents...

What about you? Anyone else making presents this year? Have you finished them/finished buying them? 

P.S. I'll show pictures with links to the patterns soon, in case anyone is interested. :-)

I'm back again (finally)

Sorry for my disappearing act recently. I was actually stuck without electricity for two weeks. Wasn't all that bad, except for the withdrawal symptoms I got because I wasn't on the Internet.

Anyway, I'm really glad to be back. How have you been doing?

As for me: here are the main events:

1) I didn't get the job at the bookstore.

2) I left the church choir after the Christmas Choir Service because I was tired of the three hags that I complained about before.

3) I'm currently being begged to return to the choir next year. I'll think about it in January when I'm not quite as angry as I am now.

4) I'm joining a secular choir in my university town. Next year we will perform with some big names in the local music world.

5) I finally got the libretto that I'm supposed to rewrite. Can't wait to really get stuck in.

6) This Christmas I want to make all of my Christmas gifts. So... I'm going to take up beading for a while. It should be fun to do something else creative. I have no idea what to do for the men in my family though, so I am open to any suggestions that you might have.

7) I am still praying for God to send my the perfect job. He knows better than me what I need.

So... what are your news highlights from the past few weeks?

Any suggestions as to what I can make for the men in my family?