I don’t want to stop things while the posts are coming thick and fast but I have a major website building deadline for the end of this month, and general life, plus the snow, plus the fever/throat virus I got last week means that I really need to step away from the internet and get the site properly out the door.

I’ll be back in early February. Have fun!

(ps. The Shop will remain open, just so you know.)

As I said in the 2009 round up post, in the midst of Christmas preparations madness I recklessly abandoned all my jobs for the night and got to grips with crochet. This is the lovely flower motif by Sarah London – the first of many. (The pattern was lovely and this novice got on fine!)

I also made a few stars, following the tutorial by The Royal Sister. (Check out the rest of their free tutorials on the right hand side of the blog.)

I was hoping to make enough to use as coasters, though really I think they’re destined to be a garland. I might even use them for the rest of the year, to cheer up a forgotten corner somewhere.

On an unrelated note, I was inspired by this to recycle the christmas cards we were sent this year into next year’s gift tags. After umming and ahhing about whether to buy a large circular punch (I will eventually since it will be great for labelling re-used jam jars), I ended up using my round corner punch instead. (This made for a very good project while up and about with FB at 5am this morning.)

I don’t do big resolutions any more. I have never found that they work, and always made me feel bad.

However there are some small do-able things that would make a real difference if I got to grips with them and so here they are:

• Use the breadmaker more. We eat a lot of bread in our house, and making it at home means I don’t have to keep going to the shops to get it. (Also it’s quicker to set up the machine – assuming I do it in time – than going to the shops.) Plus it allows me to make it lower in salt, which is better for FB.
• Stop buying commercial sweets, and make your own instead. I bought ‘Life is Sweet’ by Hope and Greenwood and a digital thermometer before christmas, and after making various things as christmas presents I’m enthusiastic to carry on once every couple of weeks or so. Plus I don’t buy anything by Nestle any more, and I feel really uncomfortable buying chocolate that isn’t fair trade given the links between commercial chocolate, child labour and slavery. So homemade sweets are the way to go. I’ll let you know how I get on.
• Buy drinks in glass bottles. I have given up my fizzy drinks but I still drink alot of sparkling water, and while I know we can re-cycle our plastic bottles I think it’s probably better that I drink more water from the tap, and that the drinks that I do buy come in glass bottles.

I think that’s enough for the first few months of the year.

Before I start documenting my hopes for 2010 it seems important to write down what I achieved in 2009:

• I learnt a HUGE amount about how I want to parent*, and both W and I worked hard to bring as much balance as we could to our lives
• I gave up caffeine and I have to say I feel a lot better for it (though I wouldn’t push it onto anyone else, given that basically what I was giving up was caffeinated fizzy drinks, since I already don’t drink tea or coffee.) Basically though, it’s made it much easier to function on less sleep, as counter-intuitive as that might sound
• I also swapped out pretty much all of my toiletries for more natural alternatives. I carried on with the bicarb and cider vinegar hair care, and made myself some face oil from Make Your Place (a SUPERB book), which has replaced my moisturizer, and which is working brilliantly
• I managed to keep both businesses going (just about) despite finding working from home with a baby really hard. Hopefully – given that we have a few weeks for respite** from the house stuff – I should be able to get some more dyeing done and get more stock into the shop very soon (there is already some stock waiting in the wings that needs adding.)
• I had my first pattern published which was exciting
• I managed to sneak ‘properly getting to grips with crochet’*** in at the eleventh hour (or rather, mid-december), which has opened up another avenue of fibre related fun
• I tried to make more food from scratch, and have cut back our processed food a great deal. That’s an on going thing to be honest, but having made bagels and barley sugars**** (amongst others) this year I’m exciting to continue making not buying wherever I can

Of course (just in case you’re thinking – yeah we get it Goody-Two-Shoes!)  it was also a year of worrying fevers, and sudden sleepless nights when we least expected it. And as I’ve mentioned here before, my grandmother died in October, and though she got the life and death she wanted, she’s still very much missed. I was rubbish at keeping in touch with people (something I’m planning to work on this year), and bit off more than I could chew a few times. Also househunting is horrible.

But all in all a very exciting year.

I’ll be back on Monday with my hopes for 2010.

*Incase you’re wondering I’ll pin my colours to the mast, for what they’re worth – attachment parenting, baby wearing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cloth nappies, baby led weaning, unconditional. I’m also getting really interested in Waldorf family life. (I didn’t know I would feel like this when I was pregnant. But I feel it now that FB is here.)

**Or at least I REALLY REALLY hope we’re getting a few weeks respite. Let’s just say that I try to have hope but we are only part of the way through the process. Let’s see what the next few weeks bring.

*** which deserves it’s own post. *adds to the list*

**** W points out they aren’t really be barley sugars since they don’t have barley in them. FACT.

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl , we’ll drink to thee.

Yesterday was a busy day -

The Three Wise Men finally made it to the Nativity, after their long journey across the living room.

There was LOTS of snow -

about 4″ in 3 hours on Tuesday night, and we woke up yesterday morning to two(!) igloos made by some of the students who live in the close. Some of them had been working on the large one (big enough to stand up inside) till 4am! Amazing work, and didn’t even make a dent of the amount of snow that had fallen.

FB got his first opportunity to experience snow, since he was about 4 months old when it snowed here last year. He had lots of fun, but it was hard work since the snow was consistantly past his knees.

When it got dark we went to Wasail our allotments. We’re very hopeful that the growing year is going to go really well. (It already is – onions are sprouting, and hopefully – underneath all that snow – the broadbeans are still 3″ high and strong.)

On the right hand side of this picture you can see our tiny orchard which was sang to, and where we scattered left over pitta bread from lunch. :)

I have high hopes that this will be a new family tradition, and love that we will be talking about the snowy first year for years to come.

There was a bit of struggling in the snow…

And then we went home to eat stew and the final pieces of our giant mince pie.

(W was there too! But he took all the photos. :)