39 Goals

Every year counts, but as I was nearing 39, I started thinking how I wanted to make this last year before the big 40 special. I want to make it count. This means a few things to me and I decided to make a list. I am not sure if there will be 39 goals, but this list is the start of my goals for my 39th year. I will keep adding as I think of more. I will also update the list or posts updates about it as I cross items off from it.

1. Give up sugar - I have wanted to do this for a long time. I don't drink pop or much juice, but I do have some homemade desserts and sweetened cereal bars/cookies, etc... I really want to make an effort to only eat naturally occuring sugars (as in fruits, honey, etc..).
2. Give up white foods - As a family, we eat more whole wheat products (bread, pasta, etc..) but we do sometimes buy the white pasta or rice. I can feel a big difference when I eat those. I want to eliminate these from my diet completely, not go back and forth anymore.
3. Continue drinking lots of water
4. Implement a workout routine with light weighs and strenght exercices
5. Continue running and work up to a half marathon
6. Include hill work in my running training
7. Start biking more
8. Learn a new technique in quilting
9. Finish sewing and quilting projects (calendar quilt, christmas quilt, Adrienne's wall hanging)
10. Walk Orion more often (every day?)
11. Read more!
12. Read at least 2 classics
13. Let my hair grow - I enjoyed having short hair, but never felt very feminine with it, so I am letting it grow again. I am adding it as a goal, because I know how difficult it will be for me to get passed certain stages of letting it grow!
14. Start volunteering somewhere with my oldest child
15. Learn a new language (Spanish?)
16. Take more nature photos
17. Grow more food in our vegetable garden
18. Grow more flowers, especially flowers I can bring inside, in our garden
19. Take more photos of my family and friends
20. Attend a theatre play
21. Attend a live concert
22. Sleep under the stars
23. Continue to cook new recipes
24. Visit an art gallery
25. Visit a museum
26. Continue to save money
27. Plant a tree
28. Visit more local conservation areas
29. Spend more time at the lake or near water (very relaxing to me)

Quilting and a Birthday!

I have been doing a bit of quilting these last few weeks...These were for thank you gifts, a little snack mat and coasters. One set went to California, the other to Massachusetts.

More projects I have been working on, a gift for my mother, a baby gift and helping a friend with her project.

This was on the previous picture, now it is finished! I helped a friend get started in quilting and she asked me to finish this big one for her. It is a gift for her father. She designed the quilt, chose the fabrics and we worked on it together. I did the back (see next photo) for her and the quilting and binding.

The back of the quilt in the previous photo.

A small quilt I will be sending to my mother as a birthday gift. See the odd block in there?

I celebrated my birthday last week...39!

Banana Popsicles...and Mother's Day

Mmmm... Banana popsicles taste like summer. I had my first one this year on Saturday after we spent the afternoon at the Science festival. It was fun, but not as much fun as last year, still we were glad we went.

I have come to the realization that I don't really like holidays. Not vacations, but the holidays like Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, etc... I never bought into the commercial aspect of these "special" days. I also think that every day should be special. Every day we should make a point of being kind to each other. It doesn't have to include physical gifts. The best presents are not things in my opinion.

For example, I didn't get presents yesterday for Mother's Day, but at the end of the day, my husband worked hard on our computer and succeeded at retrieving all the files, documents and photos that we had lost a couple of days ago. I was so relieved and told him that this was the best gift he could give me at this time!

my sweet

Out for a walk with the family,

Celeste and I were playing with the iTouch:

listening to music,

tracking how far we walked,

and of course taking pics with the Hipstamatic app.

We are both happy.

It's Spring! 

And we are both getting excited

 for our birthdays,

we're both May babies!

Sneak Peek...and Homemade Trail Mix

I am back! After taking this week off, I feel refreshed and ready to start posting again! It's nice to step away from blogging for a short break once in a while. Blogging should be enjoyable, like writing a journal, in my opinion.

I have been making some thank you gifts this week. I can only show you a sneak peek, but as soon as the gifts have been received, I will share the rest! I love making small quilted gifts. It brightens my day!

I also wanted to share my trail mix with you. We have made trail mix for ourselves for years, some of the ingredients change over time... Right now, my kids and I love eating this particular one! I mix the following together:

- pretzels
- salted peanuts
- raw pumpkin seeds
- raw sunflower seeds
- dark chocolate m&ms
- chocolate covered sunflower seeds

and that's it! Very yummy, mixture of salty and sweet!