Last August while we were on vacation, my husband, Chef John, had an idea. He wanted to spend a year not eating out, we would be cooking at home. Looking at social media, other people had tried it but most had failed at about 5 weeks. You should know. My husband is technically challenged. He crashed the federal government computer systems when he created his H.U.D. account. However, he wanted to blog about the experiment. After a really rocky start, he got the blog working. He’s posting on either Monday or Tuesday every week and we have now been three weeks without eating out.

This challenge came at a great time, I’m between jobs and it’s amazing how much we’ve saved not eating out already. I haven’t lost any weight but my blood pressure has tested in the normal range for the first time in years.

Anyway, you can follow our adventures eating in this year at BlackForgeKitchen.com – please, leave a comment there to encourage the hubby in this idea.

I didn’t make all of my WIPocalypse posts last year but that’s okay, this is a fun hobby and too many rules spoil the fun. I would also like to preface my plans by saying – I’m between jobs and finding a new pre-sales job or product/project management job may change all my plans.

Last year I signed up for 2 annual SALs – Into the Jungle by Frosted Pumpkin and Class Schedule by Armada Designs. My goal was to complete each section the month I got it. Into the Jungle made it through April and then fell to the wayside as I started to travel for work. I have completed 2 months of Class Schedule which is also the same amount of sections I completed in the 2017 SAL from Clouds Factory – the fabulous women. This year I was not planning to join any SALs but then Annette from Annette’s Acre mentioned the Fuzzy Fox SAL and I was lost when I saw the preview so not only have I joined the Fuzzy Fox SAL, I dropped my plans for the first week of January to work on the first block and I should finish it tonight.

My plans this year before discovering the Fuzzy Fox SAL were to participate in the Year of WIPs and finish off the following pieces.

On the top left is my counted needlepoint piece – Stars for a New Millenium by Antony Minieri. I started this in 2012 when the SAL group for it start on The Wagon. The Wagon was a bulletin board where stitchers hung about before Facebook was a thing. I’m down to 6 blocks and the border to finish it. This will count as 6 finishes in the Year of WIPs (YOW) challenge.

The top Right is Dragon Ride by Teresa Wentzler – I have the Dragon, the over 1 rider and the backstitching left to finish and it will be done. I started it in July 2000 on Sapphire Linen using the Anchor floss listed in the magazine. Interestingly when the pattern was re-printed on Patterns online, it used a different Anchor key which threw me off when I tried to use that pattern after misplacing my magazine. I’m glad I found the magazine again. It count’s as 1 piece for YOW 2019 but will show up as 3 or 4 stories on the Decision Roulette wheel.

Middle Left – Frosted Pumpkin Into the Jungle – You can see only 4 sections were completed so I have 8 sections and the header and footer to finish. That will count as 9 finishes for the YOW 2019. I don’t remember what fabric I used for it, I know it was something from stash and I was too lazy to do a conversion so it’s stitched in DMC.

Middle Right – Class Schedule by Armada Designs – Completed January and February leaving 10 months to complete.

Bottom Left – Magic Mini Monsters SAL by Fuzzy Fox Designs – the goal is to stay current on this which means a release 2x a month. I’m on track to complete the first section tonight. I haven’t finished the center or the border yet so those will become segments in the sections where they appear again.

Bottom Right – Tempest in a Teacup by Teresa Wentzler – I inherited this WIP from Erica Gonzalez when she sold off all her stash because her eyesight was going and she needed money to launch her new business. This is the perfect travel piece as long as I take magnifying glasses with it.

This is my plan for the year. It’s a lot of stitching. I put all the segments into my decision roulette and I’m spinning it each time I finish a piece. So far it seems to be working but it’s only the 1st Sunday of the year and I’m still working on the piece that came up on the first spin. We’ll see how it works out this year. Last year’s plans made it to April when I got a new job and this year, I need a job by March. If you know anyone who needs someone to help out their sales force by putting together amazing demos and training customers on new products – let me know.

We watched a video recently where the interviewer would go to people and ask them if they were stupid.  The correct answer he was looking for was Yes because you can’t be an expert in everything and everyone has more to learn.

Well I definitely have a lot more to learn and I need to do better at remembering that when people ask me the same questions over and over it’s because they are learning from me and as annoying as it gets, it’s a signal that how I’m teaching isn’t getting through.

Occasionally, I can’t fix annoying things like why this page says Shondra’s blog in the title when my name is Stasha and never has been Shondra. I’ll admit that right now this page forwards to WordPress and they would like me to upgrade from a free page to a monthly paid page and they keep suggesting the name Shondra’s blog for me so it may be a WordPress thing.  Honestly, at one point I looked into trying to see how I could move everything from WordPress to my own domain but failed miserably at it.  Probably because there is a lot of history out there on this blog and I got impatient.  It’s a new year though and I could use some new skills so things could still change.

Any suggestions on an inexpensive host that plays well with WordPress and YouTube?