It didn’t go too well, this month. I was just too busy and too tired.

My list of things:

:: the garden is still a mess. I love gardening, but not in the rain and cold. Oh well, may be I’ll find some time to pull the biggest weeds later this week.

:: the bookcases: not a very big thing, so that I could manage.

Before:

After:

:: sew a beach bag

I found some very strong cotton at the thrift shop for only 2 euro, so I decided to work with that. Those colors felt “beachy” to me. I started cutting yesterday afternoon.
I ended up making a rather simple bag. Big enough to make our beach towels disappear (they were in there when I took the picture), so it will easily hold some waterbottles too.

I didn’t make a pocket for my camera (too complicated) but I did make a zippered pocket for our phones and wallets etc.

I forgot how to make one of those pockets, but luckily I found a tutorial online. The rest of the bag was routine. I made so many of those years ago… This is not one of my best, I have to admit, it does have some little issues because I was in a hurry, really wanting to finish it in time for this post. But it’s big and sturdy, so it will do.

So these were my three things this month. And the last “three things on a tuesday” for a while. I’m going slow down a little on blogging (well, mostly on my dutch blog, it’s slow here already). Listing three things to do just doesn’t fit into my life right now (we’ll be on Curaçao again next week). I think I will probably be posting pictures once or twice a week, but we’ll see how it goes. I have no idea what to expect this time.

Some of you (hi, E.!) were on to me. I was looking examples of short hair on Pinterest and pinned some of them. So this may not come as a surprise for all of you. But I did it. It’s gone.

I had been thinking about this for a few months now, but somehow never worked up the courage. Until it occured to me how silly it is to think it’s quite normal to consider moving to a Caribbean island but being scared of a haircut. So this afternoon I went to the hairdresser and had it cut off. I like it.

(please don’t say the long hair looks better. I can’t put it back on 😉  )

Oh my, more than a week has past since I last posted here.

Every year I have these big plans and dreams. And every year I’m reminded that January is not my best month (that’s an understatement). It’s busy (doing taxes and things like that) and I’m usually not really feeling well.

And that adds up to feeling uninspired to blog and use other social media. It will pass, it always does. But for now I’m taking a little break (at least a week, maybe a bit longer).

See you all soon!

I am finally getting used to my phone camera. I have too, since my little always-in-my-purse camera has a problem and I’m not sure if I am going to repair of replace it. I do have a DSLR too, so it feels a little overdone, even though the quality of my phone pictures is not as high as that of the little camera. I do like that I finally can post on Instagram (and link through to facebook, twitter and flickr).

(the first two pictures were made from a moving car, hence the unsharpness in the foreground)

I’m not sure my idea of doing this blogseries is really that great. I’m having a bit of trouble finding things to do. No, wait! That’s not true. I’m having trouble to pick three things to blog about while my todo list is miles long (but can be shortened into: clean house, write book, as usually).

I did manage to decide on three things this month, so we’lll see how that goes. And next month… that’s going to be a different month again, but we’ll see that when we get there.

This month I want to:

:: sew a bag to take to the beach
We’re going to Curaçao again in February and one of the things I want to do different this time is that we used a plastic supermarket bag to take to the beach. I want a big bag that can easily hold our two big towels and a bottle of water (and maybe something to eat too). I want a few (zippered) pockets to hold our phones, wallets and keys and I’d like a pocket for my camera too (with thick lining/batting to prevent damage from bumping into things and with some closure to protect it from sand).
Also, I’d love to sew a bag again. It’s been too long.

:: declutter and straighten bookcase

I thought this was a small task, but seeing this picture… And I need to relocate some things that are in baskets now (you can see one on top of the book case, the other one is next to my bed) since I feel that when I don’t have easy access to my books I might as well toss them out. Luckily we moved some things around in our office and put the bookcase in our bedroom. Lots of empty space to work with since the only books I moved with it are the ones I wrote (which is kind of sad, since I loved looking at them while I was writing a new one, great motivation).

:: clean up front yard
Uh… didn’t do anything with it since we went to Curaçao last October. I need to clean it up a bit before we go away again (for two months this time!). Can’t ask the girls that stay behind to do the things I neglected.

So those are my three things to do this month. Or at least three things from my endless list I really want to get done…
How about you? Big plans? Or still hibernating?

Everything is preparing for spring already, even though winter hasn’t even started yet… Those buds are quite normal (I’ve seen them when it snowed too), but I’m not sure what the clematis is doing. I hope it does save some strenght for summer…

Every blog I go I see lists of goals and plans for 2014. And every time I ask myself if I’m going to write a post like that. No, I’m not.
In 2013 life threw me so many curve balls and things went so different than I hoped or expected, that I want to start 2014 with an open mind. A real blank slate.
O fcourse my mind is overflowing with goals like taking better care of myself, loose weight, stay on top of the cleaning and declutering, blog more, knit more, sew more, live greener and thriftier, and so on. But I’ll keep that list to myself. Sort of 😉

Do you know of the “one word” resolutions? I choose words every year, but usually I forget about it after a few months. We’ll see how that goes this year. I don’t even really have a word yet. I know what I want, but I can’t find the right word (and this is not a language issue, I can’t in Dutch either).
Calmth, peace, rest, content, let go… I think I mean that I just want to stop getting myself worked up over things, both important and very unsignificant. A reader on my Dutch blog chose “acceptance” as her word. I think that comes close to what I mean too…
How about you? Do you have a list or just a word (or a bunch of synonyms)?

I needed a simple knitting project to work on during the busy, busy days of December.

So of course, I started a hat. Not that I wear them a lot (it’s hardly ever really cold here and this winter is a really strange one, temperatures are still in the 40’s F (around 9 C). And knit-a-square announced they have surplus of hats, so I couldn’t make it for them.

But I still made a hat. Because I felt like it.

This hat turned out to be the first one my husband ever found acceptable on me. He usually doesn’t like how I look in hats (I don’t really either).
I used the rest of the yarn (I had three skeins in different colors – a gift from my girls) to make myself a simple cowl. A bit too pink for me, but I made sure to concentrate most of the pink at the bottom, so that will be covered by my coat when I wear it.

It will keep me nice and warm. So where’s that horror winter they predicted? (can’t find a link to an english article about it, but boy, were they wrong!)