Preparing for 2024 Reading Challenges & Week's Goals

Every year, pastor/blogger Tim Challies issues a reading challenge with four different levels - Light (13 books), Avid (26 books), Committed (52 books), and Obsessed (104 books). I enjoy participating because it helps me to read in a variety of areas and genres. And since I need the help of charts to keep me from being too scatter-brained, I made myself a chart which I printed up and plan to fill in over the next few weeks, hopefully mostly from my own unread shelves. This way I'll have a plan ready for the new year. Note that I did not even bother making a column for the Obsessed category?! 😁 I'm being realistic, mostly.

If you are also interested in this reading challenge, you can go to his website to look it up. I kinda wish he had some way of reporting what you'd read, but I realize that would take more of his time than he's probably got. If you want to copy the chart I made, feel free. I hope you can copy them and paste them into a spreadsheet or word document. If not, it's not too hard to make up something simple like this

I will also make up my list of classics to read and report on for the Classics Club. I'm currently doing pretty well with the reading part, but am very far behind in reporting. 😑.I'll have to work at catching up before the end of the year.

Speaking of catching up, I made absolutely no progress on my Scrappy Spools quilt last week. Sigh. But I did finish or make progress on some others.

These bottle cap trivets are backed with felt and were made using my yo-yo maker to draw up the fabric before I inserted the cap. I made several for gifting.

In the evenings I've enjoyed cross-stitching some little projects that I'll use as gifts throughout next year. The patterns are from Sweet Annet on Etsy and I'm really liking her designs and the clarity of the charts. I bought a bunch (10, I think) at once and am printing them up as needed.

I'm not sure if I'm going to do the scalloped stamp-edge outer frame or not. It depends on how they look over the little pieces of wood that I got for finishing them.

Another thing we accomplished this week was to put in a new "poop chute" under our mama rabbits because the angle of the old one wasn't quite doing the job. We got a roll of vinyl flooring that's 9'x6' and cut it to fit and slope well. So now I only have to take care of the unpleasantness once a week.

And this morning I put in the first nesting box since "Doenut" is due to kindle on Thursday and then "Dozey" on Saturday. Excitement!

So, this week's goals are:

Homemaking

* Continue dehydrating apples (hopefully faster than the rate at which they're being eaten)

* Bake a last batch of our favorite Christmas cookies and then quit eating sugar 

* Bake sourdough

* Try at least one recipe from "Indian-ish" by Priya Krishna

Homesteading

* Keep learning about growing vegetables indoors

* Put in Dozey's nesting box on Wednesday

* Keep an eye out for kits

* Be consistent with indoor shoots-growing

Crafts

* Scrappy Spools

* Continue Hobbit Hole X-stitch

* Mend daughter's zipper with fear and trepidation

* Prep wall-hanging for hand-quilting

* Plan next year's UFO finishes 

Reading

* Dark Clouds Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop

* Mini-farming by Brett L. Markham

* Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher

And I want (yet don't want) to make myself go for daily walks despite the cold, snow, ice, and wind. We'll see how firm I am with myself. 😏

May your week be full of blessings and moments of pure joy.