The Results of My Winter To-do List

I don't know how things are where you live, but spring seems to have sprung here in Virginia over the past week!!!  My daffodils are blooming, my cherry-plum tree is about to burst into flower, and I went ahead and planted peas yesterday.  I'm sure we'll get some chillier weather yet before the end of March, but it's looking like winter is for real over already.  I can remember one year when I lived in NC as a teen where we planted our garden in February too -- just happens this way sometimes.

Anyway, it's time to look at how I did on my to-do list for the winter.  I have to say that this is probably the best I have ever done at checking stuff off one of my season lists of stuff to accomplish!  And sharing them here with all of you really helps me stay accountable, in a way, and makes me really want to achieve these goals.  So let's go!

~ Finish reading Song of the Ean by Emily Nordberg  Check!  My review is here.

~ Read Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien  Check!  My review is here.

~ Reread A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens  Check!  My review is here.

~ Read three more books from my TBR shelves  Check!  In fact, I have read six!  Four from my physical shelves and two from my Kindle shelf:  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, The Jane Austen Guide to Life by Lori Smith, A Flame Shall Spring from the Embers by Heidi Pekarek, Montana Rides! by Evan Evans (review coming soon), Once by six different authors, and Where Treetops Glisten by Tricia Goyer, Cara Putman, and Sarah Sundin.

~ Read three books from the library  Check!  I read six from the library as well:  A Wreath of Snow by Liz Curtis Higgs, Becoming Holmes by Shane Peacock, Nimona by Noelle Stevenson, Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma, That Part was True by Deborah McKinlay, and The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder by Rachel McMillan.   It's been a great winter for reading!

~ Start blogging about my favorite adult coloring books  Check!  I've written about two so far, Whimsical Gardens and Color Me Jane.  I want to write about one each month for the rest of the year.

~ Figure out what book challenge I'm setting myself for 2017  Check!  I am participating in a very relaxed and leisurely read-through of The Lord of the Rings hosted by Risa at The Next Chapter, and I'm planning to read some other Tolkien-related books as well.  Calling it My Year with Tolkien.

~ Start blogging about how 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation  Fail.  But I intend to start in on that in March.

~ Finish sewing my black-and-white skirt in time to wear it for Christmas  Check!  I've worn it several times since then, too.  It goes so well with almost everything!

~ Knit myself a scarf like Newt Scamander's  Fail.  I've started one, but I'm only about twenty rows in.  I will just have to finish it over the spring and summer so I can wear it next fall.

~ Finish the baby blanket I'm making for my best friend from college  Check!  It took longer than I'd expected, which is part of why I haven't done much of my scarf yet.  But the blanket needed to be done before the baby arrived (it's due in about six weeks), whereas the scarf is just for me for fun, so has no time limit.

~ Finish a rough draft of my western Little Red Riding Hood retelling, "Cloaked"  CHECK!!!  I'm really getting excited about trying out the whole self-publishing thing with it, too.  I'm working with a professional editor on it right now, and in the planning stages with an artist to design the cover.  Right now, I'm hoping for a June release -- definitely this summer, anyway!

~ Watch two Christmas movies  Check!  In fact, I watched three, and two of them were new to me!  I watched The Holiday (2006), Donavan's Reef (1963), and Holiday Affair (1949).

~ Watch 3 movies from my TBW shelves  Check!  There's some overlap with the above category here, but I watched five movies from my TBW shelves:  The Princess and the Pirate (1944), Donovan's Reef (1963), Holiday Affair (1949), Sense & Sensibility (2008), and China (1943).

~ Print, frame, and hang family photos in our foyer finally  Fail.  Well, sort-of.  I did print and frame the photos, but they're sitting in my bathroom upstairs, waiting for me to hang them. Check!  After I posted this, I was like, "You know... hanging them should take like ten minutes.  I'm going to do that right now."  So I did!

~ Make "Porter Cake" from An Unexpected Cookbook by Chris-Rachael Oseland  Check!  And it was magically delicious -- like you've always imagined fruit cake ought to be, but isn't.  This is a recipe I will make over and over, and not just at Christmas time.

Well, that's the end of my list.  Only three two fails!!!  I'm pretty pleased.  Time to work up my list of stuff to do this spring, huh?  I hope to post that in a few days.