2009: A review

Edited to add: I give up. I switched to the new blog editor, believing, as it said, it would make life easier. I've tried and tried to reformat this post, and every time it's ended up with either huge spaces, or no spaces, or a mixture, and photos in the middle, to the left, and generally all over the place. So I'm going to apologise for the higgledy-piggledy-ness of this post, and move on, perhaps with a new template, perhaps with the old editor, perhaps with a new blog hosting thing. We'll see. That's all.

Well, here we are at the beginning of 2010! I love the new year, the possibilities seem endless, the year stretches ahead, and I tend to do lots of plotting and scheming and planning and dreaming of all the lovely things that will happen in the coming months. 

Being stuck in the house without being on holiday, I've already done a fair bit of plotting. And I will share some of it on here this week. However, I think it's time for a little look back at 2009 first, don't you? 

Oh, I've had such fun this evening trawling through my photos of this year, laughing at the endless blurry pictures of all kinds of birds in the garden, many, many attempts to get an interesting end-of-phd photo, pictures of grass, and sky, and failed baking fiascos that never made it as far as this little blog... 

So, 2009 brought this little foray into Blogland, where I've felt very welcome and at home, ambling awestruck around other people's blogs, and trying to find my feet and put a little bit of my world out there into the big internet world. The idea was to document what happened in my little garden, and to encourage me, well, to encourage me to spend more time in the garden, and less time staring at the computer screen (no, I'm not sure I can work that one out either). 

As always, to my surprise, I planted things and they grew! 

And by the summer, our little garden was overflowing with flowers and cheeriness. We even managed to grow some food! In a rather haphazard, stick-things-in-and-see-what-happens kind of a way. I think 2010 will bring a little bit more strategic planning for the garden (just a little bit, mind you, since I do so enjoy the stick-it-in variety of gardening!)

2009 is also the year I had a go at a few new things - mostly small cheery things which seem to run along a theme of doing-rather-than-buying, like making soap:

making clothes:

making jam:

and er, eating flowers:

There's also been quite a lot of sewing, especially since April, which was when I decided to make all of the presents I gave people for the whole year. Hmm - we'll have a review this coming April on how well that's gone... 

According to my photo archive, 2009 also involved a lot of baking, and sitting around drinking tea and eating the results of the baking: 

In fact, a fair amount of sitting around in general: 

I've also found a new appreciation for being at home this year, which is good, as I've been at home an awful lot. We've been slowly (very slowly) sorting out various bits of the house, boring things like putting in a shower, and a bathroom carpet, and more cheery things like sewing glamourous stripey curtains for by the bed:

and just looking at the sunshine on the living room floor (does that count as a project?? Probably not!)

And finally (for now, since this is getting ever so long, and I really should be doing something else), I've enjoyed watching the seasons change, the sunshine:

the autumn leaves:

and the snow, yes, snow, which is quite rare round here, and so Very Exciting:

So, I think that pretty much sums up the year - learning new things, having a go, growing a bit, watching to see what happens, a fair bit of work, and quite a lot of hanging around. 

Sounds like a good plan for 2010 too, don't you think??