Good morning, friends!

As I type this, I am drinking coffee, have a knitting project on my lap (I needed a break from the llama amigurumi torso) and am wondering when the Twilight Zone marathon is starting (edit: it’s already started, YAY!)  I can hardly believe it is already New Year’s Eve.

What a year.

In January, I posted the following vague goals:

1. Get married
2. Be crafty
3. Get licensed already, for the love of god

I am happy to say that I accomplished all three!  (Not that “getting married” is necessarily an accomplishment as it is a very happy EVENT but you GET IT).  Anyway, I wanted to share a recap of my favorites from this year.

I apologize in advance if I am giving off a “LET’S CELEBRATE MEEEE” vibe to this post, because that is not my intent at all. Hopefully you all know me well enough by now to sense that there’s a healthy level of self-loathing and doubt with pretty much anything I attempt. OK YAY VULNERABILITY, LET’S DO THIS.

Craftiness

Providing a hand-crafted element to my wedding was one of my favorite crafty accomplishments of the year!

My installation!

I’m really proud of the work I put into it.

I’m happy I took the leap and made an original embroidery piece.

I had grand plans of continuing original embroidery pieces, but that fell apart as studying intensified.

And I really love the Little Box of Crochet Seaside Shawl that I finished.

My crafty goals for 2019 are the following:

1.  Attempt original designs – I find this very intimidating, as I still consider myself a noob in many ways.  But I’ll never get to designing if I don’t start somewhere!
2. Craft from my stash – It’s almost laughable that I’m putting this as a goal, since this has been a failed resolution for several years now. But for real.  I have a JoAnn’s worth of supplies strategically stored around this house.  I should use them.
3. Focus and work a little faster – Reading your blogs makes me realize how SLOW I am when it comes to finishing projects.  Maybe it’s because I’m still not proficient yet at some of these techniques, but wow.  I am a very slow crafter.  I really would like to get a little more efficient on my projects. I also want to focus more, because it’s soooo easy to start a project…but much harder to finish one.

Music

According to Spotify, this is my number 1 song of the year:

Which….this is the most-played song from 2017 as well?  I need to explore more music.

I am almost embarrassed to admit this, at the risk of sounding try hard…but in the past month or so I finally got into Pantera, which my brother has been trying to get me into for the past ten years.  I just was craving something heavier and this band checked those boxes.

Concert-wise, I was able to see Bully for the (fifth? six?) time and Foo Fighters for the 2959th time.  And Dave jumped behind the drum kit at that show, which was AWESOME.

Books

I set a very low bar of ten books for this year. I figured with the wedding and my test, I wouldn’t have much time to read.  I was able to reach my goal, but just barely.  I read the following books this year:

1. Going Clear by Lawrence Wright
2. Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
3. Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
4. The Breakdown by B.A. Paris
5. Virgin by Analicia Sotelo
6. Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry
7. The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
8. The Child Finder by Rene Denfield
9. The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
10. Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn

My favorites were Under the Harrow and The Child Finder.  The worst was Emma in the Night, hands down.

My low bar resolution for 2019 is to read more than I did in 2018.

Travel

This was not a big year for travel. I definitely got into hiking more…I figured that if we ended up moving, I didn’t want to regret not taking advantage of the beautiful trails here in Austin and the Hill Country.

But I did get to go to Maui for my honeymoon…which was pretty amazing.  I think hiking in Maui was another reason I started hiking more once we returned to Texas!

Iao Valley State Park

Kapalua Coastal Trail. This trip also marked my first time seeing the Pacific. The bluest ocean water I have ever seen (I should come up with a better adjective than “bluest” but whatever).

What am I doing with my arms and why am I posing this way? This shall remain a mystery.

I should know what kind of tree this is…another mystery.

I would like to continue traveling and hiking more in 2019.  That’s pretty vague but should be easy enough to accomplish.

Well, that’s it for 2018! Thanks for joining me in my adventures/misadventures this past year!  What are your resolutions for 2019, and what are your NYE plans?  If you are planning on being a hermit and welcoming 2019 at home, then we have the same plans 🙂

I’ll talk to you all next year! 🙂  Have a safe and happy New Year!