Books I read in January, 2026

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I’m really trying to cut back on screen time. Numerous timers on various social media apps (Instagram, Substack, etc.) and a Focus Mode in the Morning so I can‘t bedrot in the morning. I know it‘s a popular topic and somewhat trendy on how to cut back on the phone but it really does start to encompass your time and encroach on the things you WANT to spend time on.

I took a look at the time spent on my phone and decided that it’s enough and I have set myself up to better use my time for reading instead. I have an old Google play account where I purchased books quite a while ago so those are my “phone’ books, I have 2 kobo readers. One is set up with a stand in my bedroom for evening reading in bed before going to sleep and one is called my “Baby” book that rides with me in my purse. I have also thrifted a ton of physical books over the past few years so I have usually have two of those books next to the couch: a novel and some sort of graphic novel or trade paperback and I alternate reading those.

It has definitely helped. I read 7 books last month and I don’t think I’m going to get more than that this month (also with it being such a short month, I can already feel it ebbing away so quickly) but I am reading a long Stephen King novel and sometimes he is a monster with that page length.

I haven’t been rating my books on StoryGraph but I do track them there. It’s a great app and wonderful alternative to GoodReads.

“Soul Music” by Terry Pratchett : a reread from the past. I stumbled on to an excellent humble bundle of his books and I’ll be picking my way through his collection as the year progresses. Soul Music is an old favorite.

“Forrest Gump” by Winston Groom : I hated this. Words cannot convey the hate read this turned into. Watch the movie instead. As soon as I finished this it went into my get rid of bag.

“The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides : mostly read because it gave me a good excuse to watch the film.

“Gunsmith Cats” omnibus Volume 3 By Kenichi Sonada: just rebuying my childhood but maybe this one should’ve been a bit later in life. IYKYK.

“Hogfather” by Terry Pratchett: I really wanted to finish this in December for Christmas but it just didn’t happen. We will be watching the 2 part TV movie by the end of February!

“The Prairie Wife” by Arthur Stringer: a book I thrifted and got a very good deal on which is good because it’s not making the cut on the bookshelf. It was fine but I’d rather read Laura Ingalls Wilder.

“Cat’s Eye” Omnibus Volume 1 by Tsukasa Hojo: I recently bought and watched the anime of this and fell in love with it and was very excited by the announcement that there was going to be a new release of the manga here in the states. I will be purchasing the rest as they come out and I highly recommend the anime. It has one of the best endings in my opinion.

My 2025 Website Absence

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It was a rough year.

I won’t go on and on but we lost a major patriarch of my partner’s family and then I also spent half the year caring for Gala, my beloved dog daughter. Then I spent the rest of the year recovering from having to make the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make in my entire life and I mean that. Every decision PALES in comparison to me having to let my girl go.

I’m proud of how I handled everything. I kept up most of my good habits, took time to read and create, went out and actually made friends. Honestly amazing.

I thought of the website often but I just couldn’t bring myself to actually update it for some reason. Which is funny because I don’t even need to make the blog posts, I should just keep up on posting my art projects but I don’t. Ah, well. At least I do it on instagram and then I can easily look back at stuff.

Some changes to the website: New art has been posted in several categories. New projects are slow going but I’m making time for them. An entire new section is for all of my cooking. I just love to cook and try new stuff in fun cookbooks, it is such a large part of my hobbies and life it needed its own section. I’m also going to breaking in to a new cookbook soon, so keep an eye out for new stuff there too.

A big goal of mine is to actually keep up with the website this year, so fingers crossed. I tend to peter out around May when I do try to keep up everything, haha.

Mavin the Martian, December of 2024

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A Christmas Gift, Per my Father’s Request!

He wanted something Marvin the Martian and he got it.

The pattern is on Etsy from StarShopPatterns. It also had several other Looney Tunes Characters available to make as well.

 

The original pattern had you use the same colors on each and every side the same way so while I used the same colors, I switched them up to add some variation to the box when viewed in the round.

I really think it helped with the visual interest of the object.

The Various Sides and Top

Diagonal Views

 

This Pattern was a little difficult to complete. One reason was I have never really done an uneven edge on a Bargello project before, so that was a learning curve. I also haven’t layered pieces to create depth either which I did with the front of his helmet, that was a whole separate piece that was stitched.

I’ve also done a digital piece of Marvin for my Dad too. He likes what he likes!

A Christmas Hibiscus, December of 2024

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I have a business partner who I adore. She has a Hibiscus flower bush outside of her house and it’s her favorite flower. I always knew I would eventually stitch her a hibiscus but I didn’t know when or how.

The main hibiscus is from Etsy seller LaSelvaDesign and I found the smaller flower design from Pinterest (no artist credited). The Mesh sieve is thrifted from an Antique Store. I did change the colors because she likes the darker red flowers in the hibiscus family. The smaller flower design was not a Hibiscus in design so I altered those.

I did go back and forth with myself about perhaps painting the handle but decided to embrace the antique nature of the the object.

I had a very fun time with this and have purchased a few more sieves to use in the future for a project but haven’t touched them yet.

Close up of the aforementioned stitched flower.

A Minion's Gift

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How time changes so quickly.

I made this set of 3 Minions in September of 2024 for a family patriarch. He was in his mid 90’s, lived independently, and his mind was quick and all there. I say was because this was all true until this past Summer.

He had recently expressed a fondness for the minions and looking for a way to repay him for his hospitality for years when my partner and I would go stay with him and visit Pennsylvania. I jumped at the chance to make him a gift.

I purchased this pattern on etsy from the seller: CrossStitchANASTASIA. There were five different minion patterns in it and I chose my favorite 3. I also happen to have 3 kits that contained matching frames so I thought this would be a perfect little set for him. I cannibalized the sets and got to making the Minions.

They were gifted and he had them perched on his window sill in the kitchen until they couldn’t stay there anymore.

Two of these Minions are back in my possession. One gifted to his daughter in remembrance of PopPop. The two are now hanging in my gallery wall that I get to see everyday.

Miss you Pop!

12 Months of the Year

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Better Late Than Never?

In September of 2024, I completed a 12 Tissue Box endeavor of Bargello. I made a fun short for my Instagram and I’ve finally uploaded it to my YouTube to post here on the website!

I’m very happy with the completion of this and I’ve been working diligently on other projects as well since then. Everything just takes so long!

I made these tissue boxes from the PDF pattern from Etsy Seller RaindropsAndMemories and the PDF is called "Birthstone Boutiques in Plastic Canvas"

Click here to go see the Video!

A Fiber Art Update

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A Mantle Clock Made out of Yarn

 

My Dad turned 75 recently and I’m not going to lie. I was going to do something else, but unfortunately this was supposed to be a Christmas present and I really did not give myself enough time to complete this. So it turned into a birthday present instead. I do think this is a better birthday present now, but I digress.

I found the pattern on Etsy (seller: crossstitchbeautyart) and it is from the pattern called Plastic Canvas Pattern Clocks.

My Dad collects clocks and him and my Mom always want me to make something for them so I thought this was a perfect fit! I did change the colors of the pattern because this thing was supposed to be different shades of brown and how boring is that?

 
 

April Tissue Box Topper is inspired by the Diamond! I only have 3 more to make of these and I’ll have made all 12 and that is very exciting.

Pattern is purchased from Etsy seller RaindropsandMemories. The pattern itself is from Leisure Arts and it is the Birthstone Boutiques in Plastic Canvas. They changed their listing now and unfortuanetly if you want to purchase these patterns they are all individual now.

 
 

A simple basket for my reusable napkins. I had my napkins in a stand that held them vertically but they kept sticking to each other so I made a basket sized for them and it’s perfect. I designed the chevron pattern myself.

All of these have now been added to the Fiber Art section of the site!

Gotham Knight Snickerdoodle Cookies

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I was playing the Gotham Knights video game and was checking Jason Todd’s email and Dick Grayson sent him a recipe for Snickerdoodle Cookies. It looked like a legit recipe so I decided to try it out!

These were the softest and fluffiest snickerdoodles I’ve ever put in my face and they are going to become a regular staple in this house.

Mix together shortening, sugar, and eggs.

Sift flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and stir in.

Roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll into mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cooking heet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Snickerdoodles

1 cup soft shortening (or unsalted butter)

1.5 cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

The Finished Products

1 tsp baking soda

1.5 tsp Salt

2 TBS Sugar

2 TBS cinnamon


I used unsalted (and dairy free!) butter as the base and ended up getting 30 servings from the batch and they were 122 calories per cookie.

My Top 5 Movies of January 2024

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Much like the rest of the internet, I’ve created a LetterBoxd account to track and rate movies I’ve been watching. I started it last October so my end of the year results were a little skewed since I watch Horror movies in October. I have a nice clean slate for 2024 though and thought it might be fun to talk about my favorite movies each month.

Charade (5 Stars)

I’ve been watching a lot of Audrey Hepburn and enjoying her movies A LOT. This movie was a fun caper and with her costarring with Cary Grant? I wish more had been made with the two of them together. I’ve always loved Cary from Arsenic and Old Lace and the more movies I see with him the more I fall in love.

The Batman (5 Stars)

I did not appreciate this movie as much when I first saw it but it has definitely grown on me more and more. I do hope in the next one that we get to see a bit more Bruce Wayne or if not give me all of the grappling gun,

Poor Things (5 Stars)

I know this movie is a little controversial with people but I truly enjoyed the performances, the costumes, the music, and the settings. It was a visual and auditorial feast.

Anatomy of a Fall (5 Stars)

I’d love to see the French judicial system happen in America. Just a little.

Also the most realistic depiction of an argument between a couple ever to grace a film screen. Intense. Uncomfortable. Perfect.

The Holdovers (4.5 Stars)

I’ve been on the search for actual good Christmas movies. It’s a difficult task. So many are just trite basura.

This is not one of them. Imperfect characters with their own realistic baggage and nothing in common forced to come together for the holidays. I was rooting for all of them by the end and while I don’t want a sequel I do wonder how the characters end up.

Bonus: Worst Movie of January 2024

Fantastic 4, 2015 (2 Stars)

Yikes.

I was catching up on a lot of missed comic book movies and ended up watching this and I gave it 2 stars for Michael B Jordan basically.

The Tower

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Sometimes I feel like the universe is in on the joke. I drew the tarot card: The Tower. It’s not a great card to draw. Things are happening to you, you just have to sit and ride the ride until it’s done and then rebuild. Nothing quite so dramatic has happened but my Dad got injured and is currently convalescing in a rehab facility until he can get strong enough to come home.

Hopefully this week he’ll be home at some point but it has been a journey where nothing can actually get done and there is no changing anything and I’ve really just had to sit through this journey until it’s over.

Even though I’ve been stressed a few of my friends have been like, “you seem to be doing okay” and I’m like, “There is literally NOTHING I can do or control at this point, it is what it is”.

A big key to managing the stress is not letting my schedule go to shit. I’ve been doing so good with keeping up my goals so far for the year that I am determined to not let everything go by the wayside. Am I giving myself some grace though? Absolutely. Still tracking food but not being so militant about calories. Skipping my exercise on one day but doing both sets exercises the next day. Looking at my tasks each day and being like, what can I reschedule later in the week, what can I realistically get done on the actual day, and what can I just get rid of because it truly doesn’t matter. It’s been helpful.

Also coupling this all with work where I had to work extra because people had asked for time off. Absolutely no complaints, everyone deserves to have their days off that they ask for. Nothing we do is so important where it can’t happen, it’s just another time constraint to work within. I think I’m doing okay with it.

I am exhausted today though. I may take a nap at some point and you know, that’s fine.

Goal Tracking 2024

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I’ve been a Goal Setter for much of my life so far. It really hit a head when I joined The Geek Girls of The East Valley Meetup back in 2010 and there was a goal setting group within that meet up. Ever since then I’ve taken setting goals very seriously and have meticulously worked at achieving many of them.

A big goal was running. I was running pretty prolifically at one point and was running in multiple races. I had a half marathon a month goal and I even ran a marathon during that time.

I made a comic with my best friend, Connie, and we went to several Comic Conventions hawking our wares and the comic.

Not to mention the many reorganizing and fixing up my house and yard goals for so many of the places I’ve lived at.

Unfortunately, I feel as if this “Goal Drive” of mine has really lost steam the last few years. I had moved again, I was helping my parents out a lot, then a pandemic, and I just felt tired. Was it age? Was it life? Was it everything? Probably.

So this past New Years I sat down and asked myself…what can I do to set some goals, track them simply, and feel as if I’m getting my act together again. I’ve done so many things to track my goals before. On my phone, vision boards, check lists, fancy journals. I never really stuck with it and I felt like I had to do a new type of tracking every time I started something. So this year I made a god damned excel spreadsheet.

My God Damned Excel Spreadsheet.

This is for January. As you can see it’s also a pseudo-mood tracker. Every day I open this up (usually in the morning so I can recount the previous day) and color code the date on how I felt while doing each particular activity. I also built in some rest days so I can choose not to do something but it has to be thought of ahead of time and not just an emergency excuse.

I have a lot of Daily Health Goals because I’m really trying to be consistent with food and working out because I’m trying to get lean and strong. I also fell off books for awhile and I’ve made it so as long as I get 10 pages a day, I’m doing well.

It’s going to be interesting to see how my mood changes as the year progresses because right now it’s January and I’m excited to be doing this. We’ll see how I am in June.

Part of the reason I’m feeling successful currently is because I’m starting off and adding to things very slowly. Part of my goal setting problems is that I got overwhelmed because I would keep adding time for activities and there is only so much time in a day. So I’ve given my self large ranges of times to get to so if I’m feeling extra tired I don’t need to do 11,500 steps…I can do 10,000. I don’t have to do a full 30 minute workout, go for 10.

I’ve added an additional daily goal in February of bein creative for 15 minutes a day. I have a lot of projects I want to complete this year and I just need to nick away at some of them a little at a time.

I also have created both weekly and monthly goals.

Weekly goals are tracking my Blood pressure (always health), Work Website Updating, my Tarot Card Draws (see the previous two blog entries for some extra thoughts on what I’ve pulled) and a place to track my rest days and why I chose to use them.

My Burger Time Relax day was especially exciting.

I do have several monthly goals but a few were left off for my privacy’s sake. One of those goals is just getting out into the world more and you all don’t need to see where I go in my time.

I really want to push myself with cooking so I have a goal of making some Julia Child Recipes a month. At least one a month but I’m doing 2 next month because my mother is looking for a good meatloaf recipe, so I want to try Julia’s, but I also desperately want to try the flan. So that’s still happening. I finally feel that all of my dairy-free alternatives have reached a really good substitution point and feel comfortable attempting these without the true ingredients.

I’ll have to make a post about my Claire Saffitz Christmas Dinner I did and the Julia Child Recipes I’ve done so far.

I also have a couple pages on my spreadsheets on Anime I want to watch with my S.O., the art projects I want to create (there are gift ideas on it, so no pics) and even a cleaning schedule to help me take care of my house without getting overwhelmed (Taskito App will be another post, sometime soon).

It’s the end of January and I’m feeling pretty good and accomplished. I hope I can keep it up!

The Five of Cups

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I probably won’t talk about each Tarot Card Draw for the next 50 weeks but I had something to say about this one.

Apparently the Five of Cups is all about Regret, Mistakes, and Trying to Learn From the Past.

Life is long (sometimes) and there are so many choices to make. Choices that are mundane, like how much Splenda to put in your coffee or choices that are life altering, like deciding to end a relationship and the whole gamut of choices in-between.

I have made many mistakes, I have a few regrets. I got slapped in the face with a regret not too long ago (Forgive the vagueness, I’m not quite ready to talk about it) and I’m never going to get to make this better. For me or for the others that were involved. It literally is what it is, and that is all that there will be.

There is too much life to never have any regrets but when you ruminate too long or too often you start getting lost in the weeds and that does happen to me from time to time. My anxieties make my brain run too much and they don’t turn off.

What I am trying to do is to forgive myself for my mistakes and to give myself a bit of grace for my regrets. I always try to act in the best interests of all that are involved and while I don’t think in this particular case I made a mistake, I do regret how it all ended up.