Gradually Decreasing...

...my To Do (or rather TeuxDeux) list is, that is.

Although Crappy Stomach Bug last week was a total pain in the backside, it did mean I had a few days off from library work to sort a few things out here at home and in the studio and work on reducing my long, long list of things that need doing before Christmas and before the new illo project starts.

So, my websites are all updated, my accounts are pretty much up to date (without turning out the entire room to find every single last scrap of paper I need. Nope, I'll leave that til April!) and I've finished off a couple of crochet/knitting projects that were just sitting in my Ravelry sidebar over there on the right hand side. This big, old pink baby below is much the same as the yellow version I made last year, and was only 75% finished yesterday lunchtime, but I took it on the bus to work, and sat and listened to some fab Radio 4 programmes last night while I finished it. A bit crazy-heavy on the tassels, but you can never have enough, right?!

Quite a bit of Christmas crafting has been done already; I'm just waiting (and waiting and waiting) for my last payment from the Korean publishers so I can get in some more supplies to complete the rest. And some cards, wrapping paper, ribbon, food, etc, etc, etc. All that Crimbo gubbins.

*Warning - boring diet-related discussion commencing* In other news, I've reached my diet goal. Woo! I've not really talked about dieting on here as it's INCREDIBLY boring to hear people banging on about their weight, and how little they eat these days, and oo-I've-lost-2-pounds-this-week blah, blah, blah; but in March I decided I really did need to lose some weight and ideally I needed to get rid of 2 stone and 1 pound and go down at least one dress size. Mission accomplished! I started off at 14 stone 1 (eek!) and am now 11 stone 13. Hurrah! My new goal is to get to 11 stone 8, making it 2.5 stone lost in total, and stay around there permanently. I think that's achievable - once Xmas scoffing is out of the way! I'm going to make myself a Crimbo party dress out my HUGE stash of fabric to celebrate.  *End of diet-related discussion. Breathe easy now*

So, I'm off to Oxford tomorrow for my meeting about the new illo project. Fingers crossed it goes OK and it will turn out to be exactly what I'm looking for, bringing with it all the good stuff (hopefully) full-time illustration work brings.