My wishes for 2013

It's the first day of 2013 and I am all hopeful and excited for the new year ahead. With a whole 12 months to spend, I feel like a child, happy with anticipation, yet impatient to begin. I have made a short list of what I hope to work with in 2013.

In the last few months of 2012, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do, what direction I want to take. And it occurred to me that I often moan and groan about how I don't have time to do this and that. "I wish" is often what I start my sentence with. Well, this year is going to be the year I fulfill all my "I wish". Maybe I won't be able to satisfy all my wishes but I'm going to make a good attempt.

There will be more applique (more than the running rabbit) and yes, quilting. 

There will be beadwork. Maybe it won't be possible to do the complicated items which require a lot of man hours. But there will be beadwork in one form or another.

There will be crochet and there will be knitting. Bear is wearing a crochet "basket" and attempting to knit himself a long skinny scarf.

There will be lace. And if by some miracle I can pull it off, there will be beaded lace.

There will be more drawings. Some of them will find their way to my pouches and bags. Some may find other mediums.

There will be embroidery.

There will be felt. I really want to combine felt with other mediums like beads and fabric.

 
There will be stamping.

There will be a few silk-screen totes. I haven't decided if there will be birds.

And just for fun, there will be paper crafts.

And finally, there will be running. Lots of running.

For as long as I can remember, I have always run 3km(1.8 miles) or less. The one and only time I ran 5km (3.1 miles) I was a student at 18 and at my ahem, athlete peak. Anyway, I had never felt motivated enough to run more than 3km. It was what I was comfortable with and I stuck with that for decades. Then last year things changed. Hubs and I participated in 2 group runs. I guess I needn't do it but you know the saying: the couple that does stuff together stays together. So I did my first group run for 3km. Hubs did 6km. Then hubs upgraded and signed up for a 10km run in November. He trained like crazy for it. I stuck to my safe 3km as my excuse was my left knee had been injured. But the organiser's shabby treatment of the 3km runners really frustrated me. We were like nobodies. So I made up my mind that I would never run in a non-competitive run again. I decided to upgrade to 5km or 6km.

Most of November and December, it rained horribly and I'm someone who doesn't like to run on wet grounds. Hubs just merrily carries on with his 10km runs. I don't know how he does it. But I need dry tracks. Finally after my Christmas craft market ended, I decided to once and for all make an attempt to run 5km. After all, if I can't hit it on my regular runs, there's no way I can do it in a competitive run . So last week during periods when there's no rain, I ran 3 times. Each time I increased by 0.5km. I didn't care so much about the time it took to finish it. I just wanted to do the distance. This week I ran twice. Today is the day I ran my first 5km in decades. It took me 42:42 mins to run 5:02km. I know. I ran like an old lady. But I'm so happy because I finally did it. It means that from now on, psychologically I'll be able to do 5km. But let me tell you this. My last km? My legs felt like iron. My aim is to run 5km in 30min. But one thing at a time.

I know what you're thinking. I forgot about bags. There will always be bags and this year I hope to make 2 to 3 patterns for my faithful followers and 2 for beginners.

On the home front, I'm not going to try and cook more or do housework more frequently. It's super useless. I'll just do it whenever I have to!

Oh, I almost forgot. I promised my girl I'll make her a pair of shorts! hahahahahaha