It’s that time again! It’s been one more month of this crazy idea of mine, so I thought it was time to review my progress. Lately I’ve felt rushed and not very crafty, so it was good to sit down and see what I actually accomplished. I was tempted to hold off on writing this until I could maybe finish one more craft project, but decided honesty was best.

The thing I’ve learned most this month is to really focus on being more productive with the time I have. I’ve had to shift my dinner prep time to the mornings, or lean more on the Husband to help get it done, which has forced me to be more prepared.

I’ve also reset my alarm to be 15 minutes earlier, so that on mornings I have less time, I can still get things done. I have had some episodes of insomnia and have been able to get things done when I would normally be sleeping. It’s not an ideal situation, I’d rather have the sleep, but at least I can be a little productive. This morning was one of those mornings. Fancy woke me up at 5:30 am to go outside and I couldn’t fall back to sleep, so I’ve washed two cast iron pans, made taco meat for dinner, and made eggs and bacon for breakfast. Now I just want a nap, of course.

So on the the review:

23 new recipes, 5 of them were family/my recipes. I used six new cookbooks, Market Fresh, Bacon 24/7, Icebox Pies, Nancy Drew, Garlic, and the Food of China.

The hits for the month were definitely the Thai Spiced Duck from Garlic, and the Pasta Carbonara from Bacon 24/7. The Husband also liked the Smothered Pork Chops from the Nancy Drew cookbook. Pretty much everything is a make again. We didn’t have a whole lot of misses. I’ve been going with my gut for seasoning and adding more spices if I think they might be necessary. I’ve also had the Husband do more with actually making the dinner and it’s worked well.

I’ve realized that I should remember that I don’t have to make a new recipe every day, especially on days where I have to work late. Canned soup, leftovers, or things from the freezer are also good options. The Husband assures me that he can actually feed himself if he needs to.

We are getting better about meal planning and I’m trying to use what we have. Making more things, like the crescent dough and flour tortillas for dinner tonight is also theoretically helping our food budget. We’re terrible at sticking to one when we go to the store, so if I can automatically take some of the items off the list, it will help. It can be super annoying sometimes. Lately all it seems I’ve been doing is cooking and it leaves no time for crafting or sewing. Hopefully I can make a better balance with those two things.

Speaking of crafting, I did nowhere near as well as I wanted to with finishing projects. The Snowball quilt top is still not ironed and folded in a pile and I haven’t finished any other big projects either. I mostly made Etsy or vending items, which I need to take better pictures of so I can post them. I’m going to run a sale on my Etsy store in the next week, but want to get some more items up first.

The finished craft list is 4 tea wallets, Kanzashi pins, and two hip wraps, a black and gold one and a grey and black wrap. Granted, I was out of power for a few days and have had extra work, but it’s still a little disappointing. I started it to get motivated to finish things, not let them sit half finished.

I get antsy and cranky though when I haven’t had a good crafting session or a good book to read, so I know I need to fit it in. I’m a counselor, for goodness sake! I tell my clients all the time that they need to find the time for self-care and for things that make them happy. You’d think I’d be able to make myself follow my own therapeutic goals… I should have some time on Wednesday and Thursday to buckle down and clear out a space to sew in. I’ll try to decide later tonight what project for me I’ll work on this week. Normally the decision of what to make is half the battle. I did straighten up my craft space bookshelf and find several more craft/sewing books as well.

Also, a confession… The Husband and I went to the thrift store to see if we could find a dog gate because Fancy is getting too pushy around his computers. We didn’t find a gate, but did come home with three new cookbooks… I couldn’t help myself, and he enabled me. 🙂 One is a slow cooker book, which is good, the one we have has not been terribly impressive. The second one is a Lebanese cookbook and has five separate kibbe recipes in it. I was introduced to fried kibbe last year and it is amazing. There’s lots of lamb recipes too, which the Husband was excited about. The third one is a home cheese making cookbook! It has recipes for homemade cheeses and how to use them.

I know, I shouldn’t have even looked, but I did and somehow the books just leaped into my hands and came with me to the checkout. And now that they are here, I have to add them into the rotation.

So my goals for this next month will be to stay away from the cookbook section in any stores, finish at least two big craft projects, and use at least two new cookbooks. I think it’s doable.

In the meantime, I have a dog dancing a jig because she wants to go for a walk and tortillas to finish.

Stay tuned this week for my new favorite picture of my Fancy pup and thanks for reading along.