A NEW START AND A LITTLE LOOK BACK

A new year has come, with all its hopes. We are quite glad to put 2009 behind us and start afresh around here. My boyfriend has taken the road to school this week and I am confident that this will be a brighter time for him.

I started this blog in March of last year, full of good intentions and postings ideas, but most of them got lost somehow and my blog remained bleak and sparse until I almost deleted the whole thing in December. I felt that nothing I had to say could ever be of interest to anyone, or that my English was not good enough to truly reflect my thoughts and who I am.

Then my boyfriend - thank God I have him! - helped me realise that I should not view my blog as an advertisement of what I can do, but rather as a journal of my own crafting journey. He told me to do it for my own pleasure and remain true to myself without stressing about what people might think of me, and that that's what would appeal to those with similar interests as mine.

So, I am starting a new blogging year with a more open mind, and about a thousand of projects to try. As a personal reminder of my proposed agenda for the new year, here are a few of my plans:

1. Learn how to properly use my new camera. I've had it for six months and still cannot make one good picture, unless it's taken outdoors.
2. Stop buying so much fabric and start using what I already have.
3. Get a new cabinet to store all of my fabric, which is currently located in some very unpractical plastic containers.
4. Finally rearrange my studio. We repainted in November, and it still looks like a complete mess in there.
5. Explore new territories for a chance to meet new-to-me bird species.
6. Prepare new flower bed in my backyard and plant bird and butterfly-friendly flowers.
7. Sew a few items of clothing for myself, or at least try, even with no guarantee of the result.
8. Read more classics (currently reading Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë.
9. Get back on the cooking scene now that I can not rely solely on my boyfriend to get all the meals done (although I enjoyed it very much!).
10. Obviously, write more often on my blog and report progress on my plans.

Ok, ten sounds to me like a reasonable number, at least for a start. One of my main problems with posting last year was that whatever project I had accomplished, I never felt like it was worth mentioning to the world. I may have been very proud of myself for sewing a nice little bag, but I thought it looked nothing compared to all the beauties out there in blogland, and so I finally gave up showing any of them. Confidence problem, one would say.

I am still proud of my humble accomplisments, however, and took the resolve not to compare myself to anyone but myself in the coming months. And just to recap what I have been up to when I was so quiet, here are a few, though rather bad (remember I can't use my camera just yet) pictures of some of my little projects of 2009 that did not make it to the blog:









This is it, the "kid" is back from school now. I'll be back shortly with what I am currently working on.

Good week-end to all!