A Brand New Year! :-)

I am the eternal optimist, I think.  I must be an optimist if I even consider making a list of New Year's Resolutions!! When Jeff asked me what mine were, I told him they were the same as last year!! Clearly, I didn't succeed in 2010 (or 2009, or 2008, or....).  But I try, try, and try again. :-D  (Of course, the definition of INSANITY is to do the same thing and expect different results! --- yeah, that'd be me!  LOL)

Every year I say I'll lose weight and exercise.  I'll have a devotional time daily. I'll be a better steward of the blessings -- financial and otherwise! -- that I'm given.  Jeff says I need to be more specific.  So -- numbers and deadlines and such will be added to my usual list to see if that helps me fare any better in keeping my resolutions.

Another one I make every year is to FINISH! something -- so UFO's here I come.  This year, I'll have Judy's UFO Challenge to help.  She's having us make a list of projects, numbered 1 to 12, and each month she'll draw a number and we have to work on that project.   Theoretically, at the end of 2011, we'll have completed 12 UFO's.  I have MANY more than that (I do an "inventory" at the first of each year...sigh), but getting this many done will be phenomenal!

So you and Judy will help me with accountability! The rules are fairly flexible, so I've decided to finish a group of quilt tops (most very close to completion!), and to completely finish (quilting and binding!) another group that I'll list next time.  The quilt top projects are:

1. Stars Around the Garden (a Bits and Pieces Block of the Month)
2. Victory Quilt (Quilt in a Day)
3. Hometown Christmas (Thimbleberries)
4. Wilfred and Cloves  (from Australian Patchwork and Quilting)
5. Daisy Days (Thimbleberries)
6. American Heritage (Thimbleberries)
7. Geese in the Garden (Kim Diehl design)
8. Land of the Free (applique from Piece o' Cake)
9. Circuit Rider (only a dozen more blocks to have them all done!)
10. Moon and Stars Whimsey (from the book Relax and Quilt)
11. Biblical Blocks (from the book of the same name by Rosemary Makhan)
12. Dolly Madison Stars (a two-fabric quilt from BH&G Two-Color Quilts)

I'd like to severely limit my new starts this year.  Maybe Kim McLean's Roseville Album, if I can find the time!!!! (It'll work out! There's that optimism, again!  LOL)

I'll also continue to work on some ongoing projects: The Farmer's Wife Sampler and possibly Dear Hannah or A Mother's Gift and the Layer Cake Quilt Along.

And I'll at least get the Roll, Roll Cotton Boll Mystery Quilt top completed!! :-)

The apostle Paul wrote, "It is written: 'I believed; therefore I have spoken.' With that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence...Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." (2 Corinthians 4:13-14, 16-17)

He must have been an optimist, too!  "It is written," he said -- and so is my list! :-D  "I believed" -- and I do, too! LOL "Therefore I have spoken!"  ME, TOO!  Of course,  he was referring to the promises of God and the expectation that, even though we suffer and have troubles, they are nothing compared with the glory that is to come.  Isn't that a great statement of hope!! I think I like old Paul! :-)

So I will not "lose heart!"  2011 is a brand new year, full of promise and the expectation of eternal glory.

Let's get to it!!

Blessings,