New Freebie: My home and New years resolutions (piccie heavy)

Good morning to you all: how are you?

I am good. 

Yesterday hubby and I actually had our first ever day to ourselves in years which wasn't hospital related.  DS stayed at the grandparents and we went exploring.  It was so exciting!  I wanted to go to Sligo to visit the craft shop so we decided to see what else was there on the way.

First off we stopped at the church where W Yeats is buried.  A Nobel prize winning poet and politician as well as spiritualist, I guess this guy really lived!

He is buried in a church with his wife where his own grandfather was a rev.

It was very pretty and no disrespect Mr. Yeats but I prefered this grave.  It is of a young man but so much thought has been put into it that it oozes love and character. 

The patch in front of it is filled with plants and someone gave him a pumpkin!

If you look up close....

 

It is a  natural piece of rock and they have attached something from the sea, from the hills and from the sky: fossils, a shell and what looks like a little piece of meteorite.

How lovely.  How loved and missed this young man must be.

We then drove on through the countryside and all the way we saw rainbows.  My youngest son says I can't put in all the piccies as they would make you go to sleep so I will just add a few.

On our right are the mountains; on left is the sea.

 

And the rainbow followed us all the way back to Sligo.

 

When we got back into Sligo town we decided on a detour just for the heck of it.  We don't treat ourselves often, petrol is just too expensive but this was our day!

 

We drove up into the mountains and came across this lake: and onwards we went!

We had found Lough (lake) Gill which is wonderful really because we never realised it was lost!

On we went following signs for a castle.  You risk a lot following these signs in Ireland.  They can lead you for miles through dreadful roads and you turn up and all you find is a single rock or a pathway through a field of cows complete with Bull which no sensible person would even think of navigating!

But eventually we came across this.

A real castle, restored complete with visitor's centre.  It wasn't open but that was fine.  We had just driven for 30 minutes without seeing a single person; I love my home!

I decided to break every rule in the photographic book and take some pictures with the sun facing me: I love the effect it gives.

 

In reality the day was like this:

 

Clever hey?  

We drove back into Boyle.  I don't know how many of you are familiar with the TV program Moon Boy, but this is where it is filmed.  It sadly doesn't have to try very hard to look like the early 1980s as it is quite run down which is a real shame as the community there are very active and always arranging festivals and shows.  They are very resilient.

This is Boyle Abbey.  We were driving with the window down so the fact I managed to get any pictures at all is pretty amazing.

Sligo is about 40 minutes away from us (quite near in Irish terms) and Boyle is about 15 minutes. 

I love my home: it is so wild and changes depending on the season and what direction you look at; lakes on one side with mountains, sea on the other!

It was a great day and much needed.

I have been busy stitching.  I have nearly finished week three of my Victorian Christmas SAL but can't show you yet.  Here is week one and two finished!

 

 

Well, I had to get my fireplace in there didn't I?

I have made some decisions of late regarding my stitching and to ensure I stick to them I am making them my pre-year resolutions.

1.  I will no longer prescribe to mystery SALS or monthly ornaments.  I fall for it everytime.  It is like the equivelent of lemmings jumping off a cliff. We all rush for it and you know what?  I don't even like them half the time.  I know some people do: this is not knocking any one or any designer: but I bought into Santa's Village and I still get them and I only stitched the first one!  The clue to me not enjoying it is the fact I don't even like houses!!  Not to stitch anyway.

2.  No more JCS.  I bought it last year and I was really, really disappointed.  I just don't have the money to waste on things I don't even like.  So no JCS.

3.  I am going to just stitch what I have.  I have had some lovely charts bought me from my wishlist as part of the RAK blog and as gifts.  I really want to finish them to show how much I appreciate them and the people who got them me.

4.  Continue with the designing.  This is quite hard as my brain doesn't work well with words: I don't see mistakes or repetition because of the chemo damage but well, if you guys let me know when I boob, it would be much appreciated.

And here is one of a two part series: the first is free.

I will put it here and then put it on the Christmas chart area of the blog.  

Enjoy!

The threads are WDW mainly but you can easily adapt it.  I hope it helps putting it up in colour.