New Year’s Project List


Today was a day spent working while Kim entertained Amelia. They visited kittens in a pet shop at the nearest shopping centre, and then baked sticky sweet cakes and whizzed up revolting milkshakes using a dubious recipe before collapsing in a post-sugar slump in front of a movie about a racing zebra. As a result, I think I am almost finished my last big illustration project so now my head is free to contemplate other projects for the year; paintings (ideas above), quilts, toys and so on.

There are housey, nesting things that are also now becoming increasingly pressing. Most importantly is the raw, junk-filled third bedroom which needs to be transformed into a bright little baby’s room before the end of May (ah! so soon!). This will include putting in proper skirting boards, a door, wall painting, curtains etc. It’s quite exciting to be able to start it from scratch and I have images of Caroline Zoob interiors and furnishings dancing in my head, but the reality is far less fun and far less glamourous, I know.

There are also other, less dire things I want to do now that I seem to have entered the inevitable nesting phase. These include painting some of the kitchen a delicious and exciting red (a small enough area to paint over if it looks a bit much or like something out of the Shining):

And curtains in our bedroom, and we need to finally get our paintings and prints hung up on the walls. I want to also make some cushions for our bed and for the couch, then there’s Amelia’s quilt and now a cot quilt for number 2. And I also want to make something to hang on number 2’s wall, as Amelia has a framed cross-stitch I finished weeks before she was born… so much to do! Right now I am going to go and watch an episode of Return to River Cottage which I got on dvd for Christmas for a little bit of living-in- the-pretty-English-countryside- growing-vegies and keeping-fluffy-sheep pure escapism.

For now, I have added some of these things to my 43 Things list.

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13 Responses

  1. Dont you just adore river cottage ..on Christmas day On the food channell they had some marathon showing of lots of different episodes..i love them all

  2. Happy New Year! Wow you are busy! I read your list of stuff to do;I liked your ambition rto raise chickens. Chickens are cool. I had a sort of pet one as a kid who escaped from a neighbour and lived in our flower beds. Amelia wil love feeding them 🙂

  3. I should point out that most of those goals are kind of life time things — like raising chickens. There’s no way we can keep chickens while we are living here, the garden is desperately chicken un-friendly… next house.

  4. My mom painted her kitchen red, and it turn out great!!!I hope this is the best year yet for you & your little (growing) family. And I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

  5. I love your list of 43 things! Will be watching (you really took a ride in an air balloon, huh?) And, oh, decorating for baby! My favorite thing to do!

  6. Good luck on your list – very ambitious – I think you should most certainly write a book, but forget about parallel parking as I’m convinced it’s impossible.

  7. I’m admittedly greedy when I say that I hope included in your 06 goals will be some Loobylu goodies up for sale. I missed out on the prints I wanted thanks to a stupid vacation I thought I needed to take. Hmph.

  8. Ooh I love all the housey nesting stuff! Now that it’s the new year I feel like doing that too and I’m not even pregnant! 🙂

  9. I painted our dining room a similar red to those photos…Red Box by Dulux…I love it 🙂

  10. Your sketch would make a lovely quilt.

  11. Just discovered about your impending arrival! Congrats, Claire – very exciting.

  12. I pleaded for river cottage dvds for xmas – no such luck!

  13. I am vicariously enjoying every little bit of your pregnancy. So thanks for sharing!
    (and that link of the Shining brought back feelings of terror from my childhood – why, oh why did my parents let me watch that at the tender age of 10 I will never know… eek)