Hello lovely readers, a happy New Year to you! Did you have a partying start to the year or a quietish one like me? I like the quiet ones these days and think I’m doing well if I’m awake to see the fireworks. Wild I know!

This blissful week between Chrissy and New Years is one of my favourites all year. It’s a time when I can catch up on a few things, recover from the year, and think about what the next one has in store. I managed to finish the beanie that matches my Inca Gold Scarf, then started three new crafty projects, all of which have been unravelled. You know when you start making something and it just doesn’t look like you think it will in your head? So after unravelling what seemed like the 6th hour of work, I figured I wasn’t really meant to be crafting.

So I got to work on cleaning out my pantry and a heap of kitchen cupboards and drawers that I’ve been meaning to do all year. Boring as batsh!t I know, but man did I feel good afterwards! So much so, that I went to the kitchen a few times that night just to open the cupboards and admire the orderly neatness, which is so not normal for me. The neatness, order or admiring of cupboards! Anyways, I realised that as much as I try to remember to take my own bags shopping, I inevitably forget them sometimes, and always seem to have a collection of plastic bags.

Making something cute to pop them in was my reward after the big day cleaning and rearranging, and this is what I came up with. It’s nothing spectacular but it does the job. I used bamboo yarn which is soft and strong, and not surprisingly, made it up as I went.

On New Years Eve I started this new project and so far I like it, fingers crossed that’s it for unravelling this week. It’s going to be super hot over the next few days so it makes sense that I’ll be crocheting a baby alpaca blanket! That’s just the way I roll.

2014 was an amazing year, I managed to travel to some incredible destinations that to be totally honest, I never thought I’d  get to. On New Years Eve we looked back at a heap of our holiday photos and it was so wonderful to see all the special places we’ve been to and relive bits of the holiday again. I feel so very lucky and blessed.

And yet next week I’m back at work and I’m really dreading it already. So I’ve decided to try something new on this blog. A regular post that will hopefully generate some blessed and lucky feelings to combat the dreary dread. You see I don’t like Mondays (cue The Boomtown Rats) and would like to make going back to work after the weekend, slightly less painful. And it’s not that I have a terrible job or anything, it’s just that a) it’s not crocheting all day and b) I need to do the 9 to 5 thing a bit longer if we are to live our little semi-self-sufficient dream one day.

So here’s my plan… each Monday morning I hope to post a photo from our holidays last year. There’ll be little or no writing, just a photograph of something that made me smile on our holiday. A reminder for me to remember the details of our trip and how lucky I am that I was able to visit these places. In turn, I hope that my pictures will be at the least, just some eye candy for you to start the day with, and at most, maybe a little inspiration to believe that dreams really can come true. So what do you think? Do you get Mondayitis too? Will you pop in on Mondays?

The last two photos were taken at Santa Monica Beach, LA. The first one represents Joy to me, and the second one was taken from the top of the Ferris Wheel at Pacific Park, Santa Monica Pier. Both taken during the Labor Day long weekend in the first week of Autumn.

May you have sweet holidays to remember and look forward to, and wishing you a 2015 filled with Peace Love & Harmony.