Wrapping Things Up

It's New Year's Eve and that's usually a time for retrospection and forward planning. I can go with that trend :-)

DH and I celebrated the conclusion of a very successful year-end sale
with dinner at Chili's yesterday evening. We each had a Patron
Margarita and chicken enchiladas with green salsa sauce.

The chicken enchiladas with green chili sauce and cheese were
really fabulous. Although they were unlimited (we could have
had more than the initial three), we were good and passed
on that. We're still trying to lose weight - LOL. 

A year ago I started to work out with the goal of self-improvement very high on my list. Last December I was in the mid-190's for weight and was feeling crummy, sluggish, and quite unhappy with myself. I joined the YMCA in late December 2014 and started attending in January 2015. I was at the Y a total of 247 times in 2015 and have lost a total of 48 pounds. I still have another 30 pounds that I want to lose, so I'm not there yet, but I have a really good start. Now to make a schedule a habit that I can't live without ...

I love playing with fire, and it's rather necessary in a lot of the
metalworking that I do. Setting up a safe place where I can do that
is one of the goals we have while reworking our space. 

I attended Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee again, and had a great time playing with stone and metal. I didn't do a single beading project, but I did play with fire, and that's always the perfect play thing.

I didn't get an opportunity to do a lot of individual art projects, but I started planning and working out my holiday cards really early this year and was very happy with how they turned out. Almost all of them have now been received and the feedback has been very positive. The wheels are already turning for next year's card.

We sold the small house late this year. It was one place I had
been thinking about possibly using as a studio, but I'm actually
really happy to have it out of our hands and into the hands of
our house flippers. They've had a large trash container in front
of it for a few weeks now and they're doing some serious work. 

Cleaning - since we began the long-awaited update of our house with new carpeting and laminate, we're cleaning and organizing in our craft rooms. If we can ever retire, we need to be able to fit our assorted interests into the space we have, not rent studio space elsewhere. It's been wonderful to have the dual locations of the shop and home for our work areas, but if we're retired, we won't have the shop any more. What we have there, has to be able to move here. Shoehorn, anyone?

Happy New Year to all of you - my friends and readers. It's been a
great year and 2016 promises to be even better. Now ... off to the gym! 

As we enter a new year, I hope it is a year of happiness and fulfillment for all of you. I have a beading project in the works, a lapidary project in the works, I'm continuing to wake up at the gym every morning, and I think I'm very lucky - I'm married to a stubborn man, but he's one of the good ones. Here's hoping you see the year out in style and have a very Happy New Year. I'll be watching "Sherlock" tomorrow night and I'll be posting again on Monday the 4th of January! Happy New Year to all!