Try, Try Again

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi

With the Superbowl under a week away, it seems fitting to use a quote from a football coach.  Not to mention that the month of January seems to have knocked me down a little.  It's been too long since my last blog post because Tom and I have been completely knocked off our schedule.  With Tom's new job in Ottawa, our morning schedule has gotten earlier, and our arrival home has become much later.  Our 6am - 6pm work days have me doing little more than cooking, eating, and cleaning before bedtime comes around.  I don't know how people do it!  (Sheri, maybe you can explain...)

The beading blog isn't the only thing suffering (okay, so maybe it was never all that glorious), but these long days away from home have kept me from meeting most of the New Year's Resolutions I mentioned in the last post.

 Exercise goal:
- Add a weekly swim to exercise routine.  I haven't swam even once in 2013.

Eating goal:
- Try at least 1 new recipe per month that has leafy greens (swiss chard, kale, etc.) as a main ingredient.  Check!  This lentil and kale soup was delicious!  1 for 2 isn't so bad...

Work goal:
- For every negative phone call home, make at least one positive phone call home.
Nope... 2 negatives, 0 positives.  1 for 3 is kinda bad...

Spiritual goal:
- Attend a retreat and/or read a book regarding spiritual gifts. No progress here.  To be honest, I forgot I even made this resolution... any suggestions for a good book Joan??  1 for 4 is just bad...

Family goal:
- Give or send a birthday card to all parents and siblings (including in-laws)... on time!
None yet.  I did call Gramma yesterday for her birthday.  (Is that 2 for 5 resolutions met?  Still not great!)

I think the trend is to do all your resolutions in January then "fall off the wagon" as my brother Sam would say.  I'm working my way into mine.  By December I'll be on top of them!

For today I'm following my beading resolution to get my repair work done before starting new projects.  My first personal project is to fix the bracelet I made a few months back to carry my work keys.  I loved the look of the original project (see above), but after about a week of wearing it I got lazy and started trying to open doors with it still on.  Due to it's stiffness, I wound up ripping keys right off the bracelet.  Then I had single keys not on chains at all.  You can imagine how often I lost those.  So that first bracelet wasn't the success I first thought.  I still think the idea was great, so I'm at it again. 

My latest key-chain/bracelet was inspired by Joan's friend's bracelet from the previous blog post.  A bracelet on elastic makes way more sense to pull on and off easily to use keys.  The dangling bead design is perfect for hiding the not-so-glamorous elastic.  While I have neither the materials nor the ability to copy the exact design, I do know how to make single bead dangles, so that's what I did for 32 individual beads.  I like the look of this one; thank you Joan and friend for the inspiration.  Hopefully it will hold up better for its purpose.

Enjoy the last few days of January.  Keep up with your resolutions in February.  I swear I'll start doing mine... and blogging regularly.  I got knocked down, but I'm back up!