2018 Stats and 2019 Challenge

2018 wasn't a great year...I lost my sister, Karen on October 26th. It was sudden. I was in Austin, Texas working and event when I got the call from my sister, Marian. I changed my flight and flew home on Saturday the 27th. The next week was rough. I miss her so much.

I also had to retire from my job at UT. I was passed over for my supervisor's job. I wasn't even allowed to apply for it. They just put a young white male in the position.  Equity and Diversity said it was wrong, but they couldn't do anything about it. So after 37 years, I retired from UT. I was lucky. A friend, Karen Pharr saw I was retiring and asked me to work for her as an educator. I started working for her in August and have had a blast so far.

Marian and I took a trip of a lifetime. We flew to Portland and then traveled to Seattle and then back to Portland and on to Sisters, Oregon. I always wanted to visit the quilt show there and we did. It was wonderful!

Here are my stats for 2018:
Books read - 206 (all time high)
Movies watched at the theater - 30
Classes - 4 basket classes, 4 quilting classes, 1 crochet class and a wet felting class
Trips - Sisters, Oregon
Plays - 9
Concerts - 1

My goal for 2018 was to visit a small town once a month. I only did it 5 months, but I did start traveling with my job so I visited a lot of new places which is what I wanted to do.

My 2019 goal - Marian got me a book for my birthday. It is a 52 week quilter's year book. 52 weeks to explore your inner quilt genius and have some fabric fun.

Further book stats:
Shortest book - 84 pages "When Birdie Babysat Spider" by Kristen Painter
Longest book - 608 pages "Exodus" by Leon Uris
Most Popular - "Animal Farm" by George Orwell
Least Popular - "Makin' Miracles" by Lin Stepp
My Average rating - 4.1

Thursday Bee project

Thursday Bee is a bee of my quilt guild. They made Marian and me honorary members. This year they decided to do a challenge. Each participant would make an 8 1/2 x 11 inch block using the theme picked by the other participants. Here are the themes:

Me - your favorite artist
Darlene Roby - Self Portrait
Gloria Felter - Keys
Melissa Carter - At the Cabin
Patty Ashworth - Chessmen or game pieces
Candace Tucker - Paint brushes
Mary Siegfreid - Rabbits, hares, bunnies
Sandy Kambic - flowers
Diane Rhea - American West
Marian Sykes - shoes

Here are mine:

I really like how most of them turned out. I'll post all the ones I get after the Thursday Bee party on Thursday.

2019 Christmas Cookie Weekend

Taylor and I had our annual Christmas Cookie weekend. We were joined by Marian and Jessica this year. It was so much fun. We arrived Thursday night and the cookie making began Friday morning. Jessica joined us on Saturday. It was a record year this time. We made the following cookies:

Decorator cookies - 5 badges
Gingerbread Men
Gingersnaps
Fudge
Santa Cookies
Pretzel rods - 3 bags
Snickerdoodles
Buckeyes
No Bake Cookies
Pinwheel cookies
Lumps of Coal
Candy Bars
Lemon Grinch cookies
Thumbprint cookies
Cookie Dough fudge
Red Velvet Christmas cookies

We made 2 batches of everything except the ones I noted. The decorator cookies, of course, took the longest. We worked all day Friday and Saturday. We had fun. Lots of laughing and bad Lifetime Christmas movies. Taylor took all the pictures so she isn't in any of them. :(

Table of ingredients.

 Marian and I mixing cookies.

Jess and me decorating cookies.

Some of the decorator cookies

The many containers of cookies.

I love this tradition. It is so special to spend time with my sweet girl.