A Plan

Stop laughing. I might stick with it through the entire month of August. I may scrap it on August 2. It may work for me for the rest of my cross stitching days! You never know til you try. I am one of those people who has to have a plan. I need a meal plan. I need a grocery list, I need everything written down. As you know, I don’t always stick with my plan but I do need a plan. When Vince and I used to go grocery shopping together, which we do not do any more because I couldn’t find “differences in grocery shopping methods” as an acceptable reason for divorce, I just stopped going with him. I would go to the store with my list and he would want to add things to the cart that were not on my list and honestly, it almost resulted in tears a few times. One problem is that our pantry stays completely full so I’d make my weekly menu plans, check to see what we had and what we needed and add only what we needed. Vince might come up with a hunk of salmon and say “Let’s smoke salmon this week!” No . . we can add that to next week’s menu but this week’s menu is already done. He cannot understand my way of doing the grocery list/meal plan but . . that’s ok. For us, smoking salmon means eating it different ways for several days til it’s gone. It isn’t so simple as sticking salmon on Wednesday’s menu, then resuming on Thursday as if we didn’t have half a salmon left in the fridge.

I wish I could willy nilly go in the grocery store, decide what I want to cook this week, get what I need and leave. I used to do that but now, I live by lists.

As far as my stitching plan, I thought about several comments, I considered an upstairs/downstairs stitching plan, I watched several flosstubers talk about how they do things but here’s what I came up with:

There’s my plan. I will leave this on my computer and not even print it. It’s in Google Docs so I can access it from my Chromebook, my phone or the Google Tablet where I have Pattern Keeper which I use for pdf files.

I’m only planning for 7 hours a day stitching. I may be able to do more. I should be able to do more most days. On weekend stitching, I’ll just get in what I can but, unless I need extra time for Rooster Alphabet (Cross Stitch Camp project for August), I’ll only work on weekend projects on Saturday and Sunday.

I will work on Rooster Alphabet three hours every weekday til it’s finished.

I will work on A Changed World four hours every weekday except I will start it on Sunday, August 1. Right? Sunday is August 1?? There are four full weekends in August not counting that Sunday so it will all be ok in my head.

I will work on Thy Love Divine three hours every Saturday and Sunday. That’s a WIP that needs to be finished. But, I won’t work on it on August 1, nor will I work on it on the first weekend of the month.

I will work on Away We Ride on the 1st and 3rd Weekend. This is a Blackbird Designs chart and the first weekend of every month is for Blackbird projects . . for the entire cross stitch world . . not just me. 🙂

On the 2nd and 4th Weekends, I will work on Catharine Dickenson 1840. That’s one that I bought that green frame for and I want to get it framed and see if I love that green frame as much as I think I will.

We’ll see how this works out. Now that I have my plan, I’m really excited for August 1 to get here. Doesn’t it sound like a grand plan?