10 Targets for 2009 update

Almost a month of the year gone (can hardly believe it, time speeds by).

1. Read 100 books - 8 read so far, at the moment am reading the Twilight books, thought I would read the first one to see if they were any good and have to say am enjoying them.

2. Finish all my knitting projects - not doing too well here, have started something new instead of finishing any old projects, am trying to master cable and its going well so far.

3. Finish my tapestry - not got back to this yet.

4. Get to church regularly - doing better at this, it helps being able to walk to church again.

5. Use my sewing machine - have plans for the sewing machine, have been looking at material in Hansons, but not started yet.

6. Lose some weight - haven't made any effort towards this, though I am trying to eat a bit healthier.

7. Join a group or club - no progress with this yet.

8. Read bible more - slightly better but not as good as I should be.

9. Get out to plays / music events more - nothing this month.

10. Think seriously about career - thinking! No decisions as yet, though am keeping an eye on the TES!

Photo Friday - Costume

10 Targets for 2009

I think I've come up with my 10 now:

1. Read 100 books - tried it this year but only made it to 95.

2. Finish all my knitting projects - I have 3 or 4 half finished at the moment.

3. Finish my tapestry - started it full of enthusiasm and not touched it for months!

4. Get to church regularly - not been too good this year.

5. Use my sewing machine - keep planning to alter a few things so that I can wear them.

6. Lose some weight - could do with shedding a few pounds.

7. Join a group or club - need to get out and meet new people.

8. Read bible more - got a bit slack with this.

9. Get out to plays / music events more - have missed not living close to a music venue and no school trips to theatre anymore.

10. Think seriously about career - am I where I want/need to be? What next?

I'll try and post regular updates.

Happy New Year!

Only a few hours of 2008 left. I hope everyone had a good year and are looking forward to great things in 2009.

I don't really make resolutions - never seems worth it when you break them within a couple days. I thought I would go for 10 targets for the year - not thought of them all yet but I'll add to the list later.

Targets for 2009

1. Read 100 books - tried it this year but only made it to 95.

2. Finish all my knitting projects - I have 3 or 4 half finished at the moment.

3. Finish my tapestry - started it full of enthusiasm and not touched it for months!

4. Get to church regularly - not been too good this year.

5. Use my sewing machine - keep planning to alter a few things so that I can wear them.

Well, that's 5 to start me off.

30 sec Nativity Story

Found this on Seven Whole Days.

Wordless Wednesday - Construction

Today I have been making flatpack furniture - not finished yet but quite pleased with myself.

Hallelujah

After hearing the new X-factor single it reminded me how brilliant the Jeff Buckley version is.

Why not join all the people downloading this superior version? If you download it here it will count towards the singles chart - apparently its already in the top ten!

Cool Site

Found this site which looks like a great idea and not too expensive - a dress, top or skirt made to your design and to your measurements. The site is called styleshake. Its good fun designing and I think I may well have to order something when I've come up with my perfect design. Here are 3 of my dress designs:

Books I've Read

Saw this on my sister's blog and thought I’d have a go …

This is originally from the Big Read. Apparently they reckon most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read. -
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Quite a strange selection, I've read 38, what about you?

Christmas No 1

As a Radio 2 fan, I'm joining in the campaign to get Terry Wogan and Aled Jones to the Christmas No 1. Its about time we actually had a Christmas song instead of just the latest X-factor winner. Join me in buying the single, after all its for Children in Need. You can see the video here.

Wordless Wednesday - Cold

Its been a chilly week in Dorset, no snow yet but who knows.
This isn't my photo, but isn't it beautiful?
You can see some more here.

Wordless Wednesday - Reports time :(

Book Quote Game

"Still nothing."

From Dragonfly by Julia Golding


Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions on your blog, and post your sentence in a comment here as well.
* Don't dig for your favourite book, the coolest, the most intellectual.

Wordless Wednesday - Unpacking

Cool Fountain

I've Moved

I've moved out of school into a nice little flat and the best bit is I now have broadband access. So I thought I could get back into blogging again.
Here is my flat:

Not looking quite so empty now I've moved all my stuff in, but its way too messy for photos at the moment!

Half Term

I had a lovely half term with my parents, even though the weather wasn't great. We had a couple of days of pouring rain but also a couple of lovely days. It was nice to take Mum and Dad to places they had never been to before and to see some more of Dorset. We went to Lulworth Cove and walked over the clifftop to Durdle Door and saw some glorious views.We also went to Brownsea Island, which is a National Trust Island. It is a beautiful island, with woodland, beaches and wonderful views. There are no foxes on the island so the hens, ducks, geese and peacocks all roam free with no fear of predators. It is also where the first scout camps were held and they still go there now.The highlight was seeing a red squirrel on Brownsea Island, right at the end to the day when we had given up hope of spotting one!

Knitting

Not posted anything for ages but after many hours of work I have finally finished some outfits for my friend Lyn's new baby, Noah. I did hope to have them done before he was born but I am a few weeks late. Still hopefully they will still fit him! They are the first baby clothes I have made and to be honest I'm rather proud of myself :> I'm sure Noah will look gorgeous in them.

Zoey the Gibbon

When we were on holiday in Dorset we visited Monkey World and we fell in love with a gibbon called Zoey, who I adopted. I've now found out she has just had a baby, look at the sweet photos!

Easter Holidays

Its been a long time since I wrote in this blog. I had a busy second half of term, not much fun but I made it through with the thought of going on holiday with Suzy and the kids. We had a great time staying at a holiday park just 40 mins from my flat. The kids loved the park, it had a playground, a soft play area and a swimming pool. I think they would have been perfectly happy not to have gone out anywhere, but we managed to persuade them to visit some places and we had a good time. Here are a few photos but you can see loads more here.