January Plans

Hello.......... I love this time of year full of plans and ideas for the year to come, everything seeming so fresh new and shiny

I love starting new diaries and journals, making lists and plans. This year the lists are even bigger as I have special plans to make for a important Birthday year.

So now the Summerhouses winter guests have gone home it's time to unpack the crafts supplies and get ready for the year to come.

With a new craft to learn for a New Shiny Year,

and also a huge pile of WIP's to get around to completing, so I'm out and proud with my WIP's hopefully this year I'll be dusting some of them off and getting to some Ta-Dah moments, for some of the projects have been languishing since before I started this blog eek, there I've said it now....

Blankets and bunting started but never quite finished, and long forgotten stitching projects, hopefully will have new life breathed into them.

Just like the bulbs waking up in the garden, so lovely to see on a cold winters day.

There will be bulbs in the house to, which I planted up yesterday, I can't wait for them to flower.

There are other resolutions too, I've been told to exercise by the Cardiologist to try and improve my POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) which is not a easy task with severe ME, as overdoing things and relapsing can put me in beds for weeks.  I'm waiting to see a specialist Physio, but in the mean time I've made a start. 

It's hard to find the balance so I'm starting off with two minutes of floor based stretching designed for people with ME, while monitoring my heart rate and then resting, at the moment I can only manage that once a week, so it's going to be a slow old process.

I also have musical plans this year,  Here I am  performing at a Mid Winter Folk Festival last weekend.  Not very POTS friendly as the sheer terror of performing in public is not that conducive to keeping my heart rate low. I really need to learn how to master the art of playing and smiling at the same time.  

I find music and songwriting keeps me going during the tough times, even if I can only play for a few minutes at a time and  a lot of  days not even that. Performing at the local folk night, is wonderful but usually puts me in bed for about a week, so I can't really manage to go that often, that's the thing with ME there is always a huge payback from doing anything.  

As I mentioned earlier this year I'm having a birthday with zero, so I've started making a list of 40 things I'd like to do.  One of the things I've come up with is to try and read 40 books, and here's my first one 'Tender is the night' by F Scott Fitzgerald.

I'm putting together a list of books if anyone has any recommendations it's going to be a mix of classics and modern reads, so far I've been taking inspiration from book lists like 100 books to read before you die and also the top 100 holiday reads. 

I'm sure you'll be hearing more of my 40 things as the year passes....

and of course I've be crocheting, as....

It wouldn't be the Summerhouse by the Sea without yarn and a hook.

I've recently set up a Facebook  page for the blog so if you fancy popping over for a chat, I'm generally about.

Happy Crafting and a Happy New Year

Clare xx