We're in Love

With Yankee Candles.

Whilst out Christmas shopping last December I came across a Yankee Candle shop in our local shopping centre. As the sister-in-law is incredibly difficult to buy for I picked up some candles for her as a gift, which she ended up not getting.

As is traditional in our house on Christmas Eve we had a take-away and as I didn't fancy coming down Christmas Day and opening our presents in a room that had that, you had a curry last night smell, I set one of the candles alight. Never really having had much to do with candles, unless there is a power cut, I wasn't sure it would have the desired effect, but the room was soon smelling of cinnamon, rather than curry, and the next morning no curry smell at all. Wonderful.

Now they must be good because last night we also had dinner in the living room, rather than in the dining room, and I came downstairs last night to find that husband had lit one of the candles.

It is official we are candle converts and I'm just wondering how long it will take us to burn our way through the sister-in-law's Christmas present so as that I can pick a new fragrance.

2010 Goals

Not being a great believer in New Year Resolutions I do like to set

myself some goals for the year.

Last year my stitching goals were quite simple:

To finish Celtic Autumn.

To finish the stitching I committed myself to for others.

Sadly neither of them were achieved in fact last year saw a pathetically

small amount of stitching being done.

My main goal however was to still be happily married by the end of the year. As I explained the start of 2010 new decades are not good for me:

In 1990 my first husband was killed in a road accident.

In 2000 my second husband decided to trade me in a for a younger model.

So I set as my main goal to get to the end of this year with my marriage and family still in tact and with us all fit and healthy.

Well we are still married and quite happily despite it being a challenging year, with us both being in the first year of setting up new businesses. The health front hasn't been quite so good as the second half of the year saw me unable to walk very far but that is being sorted out now and I'm back out walking again so all in all I think we can say my main goal for the year was achieved.

TUSAL

What it is to make a fresh start. The first posting on time for the TUSAL being run by Daffycat. I'm sure being on time won't last.

This is my old orts jar that I started last year, which shows just how little stitching I did last year. Hopefully by the end of 2011 it will be fuller.

Don't forget if you would like an opportunity to win the prize at the end of the year you must have signed up for the TUSAL by today, so don't delay.

Walking

As regular followers of this blog will know I am a keen walker who has been maintaining a photo diary of my walks for the last 5 years. However the last six months of 2010 saw me only completing 7 walks due to injury and as this was at a point where my work live was about to get incredibly stressful the timing was awful.

Walking is my way of dealing with stress and it doesn't matter if, like today, it is just a couple of miles around our local streets I always feel better afterwards. Not being able to walk much further than the short distance to our postbox and back over the last few months has been challenging. I have missed the best autumn on the hills for a long time, which I found incredibly frustrating. More importantly I had no real way of de-stressing at the end of the day, other than a glass of wine. As I'm currently working somewhere between 10-12 hours, 6 days a week and about 8 hours on Sunday I really did need to unwind somehow. Before I was injured even if I didn't stop work until 10:00 pm I'd often go for an hour's walk, as it really helped me unwind and get things straight in my head. Not to mention the obvious fitness benefits.

Thankfully I've now been given the green light by my physio to start walking again and wow what a difference it makes. My workload is no lighter but having the time away from the desk with just my thoughts certainly helps me get my priorities sorted and makes everything somehow seem more manageable. I'd also forgotten how many ideas come to me whilst I'm out walking and the sheer pleasure I gain from admiring the world around me, like today's wonderful sunset.

Health permitting I'm determined this year to walk at least 1000 miles as a way of getting fitter. That works out at 19.23 miles a week or 2.74 miles a day, which should be relatively easy for me to achieve. Before I was injured my average daily stroll was between 3 and 4 miles long, I have measured it using Memory Map. Combine that with hill walking, where anywhere between 300 to 500 miles per year is easily attainable it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. I just hope I stay injury free.

TUSAL

Just a quickie to let you know that Daffycat is taking over running the TUSAL which starts in the New Year. If you are interested in joining it or want to know what it is all about then follow this link
.

I've already got the dates for posting the pictures in my 2011 diary and I'm planning on not missing on one post as she is also running a competition for those people who don't miss posting a picture, with what sounds like a fabulous prize. To enter the competition you must have joined by the first new moon which is Tuesday 4th January 2011.

Framed

I was so pleased with how these two designs came out once they were framed and ready to be given as Christmas presents to my sisters.

A Flying Post

A whole month has been and gone and I've not managed one post and I'm sorry to say things are unlikely to change in the next few months. I'm not complaining as the lack of blogging is because my little quiz setting business has seen some rather rapid growth in demand over the last few months and I am now very busy.

I have managed to place one or two stitches onto some linen and have a piece that is waiting to be finished up and shipped out to its rightful owner. When I'll find time to do it I don't know but it will get done eventually.

In September we made a quick trip to the Lakes and managed to fit in two completely dry walks during 5 very wet days. They haven't made it onto my walking website yet.

Whilst I'm rarely leaving comments your blogs are usually the way I psych myself up to start work each day, which is actually what I'm doing now, so I guess I'd better get back to it.

I can at least promise you that I will be back posting properly by May 2011, as that's when the league quiz season ends, but hopefully I will get some time to post before then. In the mean time a lot of quiz leagues and pubs need me to get back to it.

Sorry for going missing on you all, I will try to get back before May but I'm not promising anything.