Happy New Year - welcome 2015!!

Well, there's nothing like starting the year out with the best of intentions!! We'll just see how long that lasts!!  LOL!

It's time for a 2014 wrap-up!  I love doing these - my year doesn't seem "finished" until after the wrap-up - so here we go!

Not a big year for reading!  Around 50 books and a lot of those were re-reading favorites.  Do you ever do that??  I did forget to add Kindle books to my list, so had to go looking for which ones I read that way ... not an exact count this year.  :(

Best books this year:

Bad Blood by Dana Stabenow.  Kate Shugak series is a real favorite of mine.  Gotta love spunky women!

Notorious 19 and Takedown 20 by Janet Evanovich.  Both of these Stephanie Plum books got 4 stars from me! And if you look up "spunky women" in the dictionary, surely Stephanie Plum is pictured!

The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch by Marsha Moyer - great fun

Pure by Julianna Baggott - science fiction -  an unusual story line. First in series of three

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon  I can't believe I kept away from this series so long!  And I thought I wasn't interested in "Historical" books!!  We had Outlander Series on Starz parties too!

Pope Joan - Donna Woolfolk Cross  A book club selection that surprised me with how well I liked it!  Historic!  Who knows - maybe I'm NOT set in  my ways!!

Deadline - John Sandford  Featuring Virgil Flowers as a friend put it, "I love me a good cowboy!"  Made me reread all the other Flowers books.  This one was awesome!

The Arsonist - Sue Miller Small town under siege, loved the main characters

One Hundred Names - Cecelia Ahern  I loved this book, also out of my 'box' - contemporary Irish tale.  In the author's notes at the end she tells how she got the idea for the book! She was at a literary awards dinner; heard "one hundred names" and went off in her mind on the tangent of what that could be about.  She 'came back' to the present just as the award winner was saying, "and look for our movie out in March "The Hunger Games"!!!  I'd say that idea was pretty pushy about who was writing it!!

Year of Pleasures by Alice Berg I love her.  I get so much insight into me by reading her books! How does she do that??

Now to the fun part of my year - quilting!  I'm happ-happ-happy to say that "Birds of a Feather" a BOM offered at Gretna's Quilted Moose is finally done-done!!!  YEA!  Poor baby languished for years, but finally made it to the big times! You can read all about it here!

The other big finish I had was J's recovery quilt - My beloved SIL celebrated a year free of cancer around his birthday.  So this quilt was his present.  You know how those 'quiet' steady relatives usually don't get quilts - because they don't nag you about them???  I pieced the top the same time I made my Nephew's college graduation quilt - ummm, 2 years ago!  Thankfully, he felt it was well worth the wait!!

There were 4 QOV; baby charity quilts; Christmas stockings; fabric post cards and too many doll clothes to count! (apparently!)  But it all equaled a great deal of fun!

One more thing before I close today - you may know I have a Pinterest account :)  There are approximately 13,800 posts(!) and 1,400 followers(!)  A fact that amazes me and my daughter!!  But makes it a great deal of fun! If you want, there is a icon on the left side of the blog that will take you right there!

I'm not exactly sure why Pinterest is so-o much fun.  But for me, a list-maker; an idea keeper; a creative woman who thinks she can recreate anything that strikes her fancy!!  It's really nirvana!  And so easy to update when you're watching something on TV that doesn't need your undivided attention!

My idea is to go back into my boards and look at what I've pinned and figure out why? what attracted me to that pin and what it says about me??? Just a thought!

Today's board  I evaluated was "My Quilts Thru the Years"  I usually make a "word" copy of each year's blog entries; and check to see if the quilt pictures are on this page.  I like having them there - for quick access.  I don't know about you, but digital pix are hard to keep track of!  There's 1000s of them, in different places and mine really need a spruce up!!  Meanwhile, I need to look back on them to remember details or sizes ... well, here's where they are!

My first go at saving the quilts was early in my Pinterest 'career'.  I looked to see if they actually saved and each one had a 'pin' already.  Oh, gee - what did I do wrong?  But no - someone had actually created a board on their Pinterest featuring all my quilts!!  Was that admiration or stalkery???  It did make me think!!

Do you have favorite quilts that you've made?  They could be "standards" that you make for many people.  They could be a quilt that resonates within you; because of who it is for, because what was happening at the time; or just because.

That's all for now - this has been so much fun!  More of it in 2015, please!!