Hello 2017....Please Be Kind To Us!

It's nice to see 2016 in the rearview mirror.  I'm always afraid to have positive hopes for the coming year cause each once seems to deliver a kick in the teeth at some point or another.  

New Years was quiet.  We were in bed and asleep by 11!  Such old fogies.  When my parents were my age they could party me under the table.  They were way more social than we are.  We like to stay home, order pizza and watch TV.  

Doesn't the shadow of our TV and photo frames on top look like a Dalek?  EXTERMINATE!

Since I gave away almost everything from the pre-Christmas baking extravaganza, I was out of sweets for myself.  Val & Ryan gave me this cookie kit in a jar and all I had to do was add eggs and butter.  It's white chocolate cranberry oatmeal.

I'm not sure why they flattened out so much and ran together, but they are wicked tasty and so soft and chewy.  Delish!

Our daughter in law's grandmother sent me some cross stitch kits last month to cheer me up after Pepper died so I did one of them over the course of a few days.  They are my first and second finishes of the new year.

I'll save them in case someone I know has a baby.

January 2 was Sagan's 11th 'Gotcha Day'.  I can't believe it's been that long.  He was only 9 months old.  I wonder if he has any memory of our house in Washington or if he thinks he's always been here.

He was so small and skinny, poor thing.  Now he's a big fatty love bug.

I started my very first latch hooking kit too.  Marsha gave it to me for my birthday.  It seems that everyone I know did this as a kid.  Despite being very craft-kit oriented, I never got one as a kid nor was I shown how to do it.  It seemed to me to be really hard to do and I was always scared to try it.  I have always had trouble with crafts that involve knotting of any kind.  But the design she bought me was pretty strong motivation to learn, so I looked up a You Tube tutorial and it was surprisingly easy.  I don't go fast and I'm all thumbs at times, but it's fun.

I kinda got a bit obsessed about getting it done fast, so it took me 2 days from start to finish.  Now that you see the finished design, you understand why it was motivation to do it.

So far we've escaped any real snow but there's some in the forecast, and freezing temps too.  I remain hopeful that 2017 will be much better for everyone.