My FY 2009 Moxielist

It's that time of year again, and I think this birthday might be along the same lines of my 29th. Not pretty. There were way too many store-bought cakes with preservative-filled icing and far too few people telling me how great my 30s were going to be.

Therefore, to distract myself, I've come up with a list of 5 items to accomplish by my next birthday (hence, the Fiscal Year label in this post title). What can I say? I'm a goal-oriented girl. I tried to include a mix of things -- stuff I've been putting off, acquisition of new skills, silly but significant wishes, practical and much-needed improvements. It suits me, though it may not make sense if you don't know me well.

So, in no particular order (because I plan to get them all done), my FY 2009 Moxielist is:

1. hand-piece the rest of my scrap flying geese quilt top. I was supposed to finish this around the same time my Grandma K finished hers. That was at least 10 years ago. And she's made an amazing 9-patch quilt for my wedding since then, in spite of worsening arthritis in her hands. If I can pull this off, the FY 2010 Moxielist will include an item for quilting it. By. Hand. Good thing it's probably going to end up a standard size instead of a queen.


2. take pottery lessons. I'm probably the only woman I know who thinks the pottery scenes in Ghost weren't sexy. They were just plain dirty, and not in a good way. It's not a Patrick Swayze fetish, and I'm not sure I'm all that keen to kick a wheel for several hours. However, one of the first things I remember making when I was a kid was a small clay owl from some dirt in our garden. It didn't hold together after a few days of drying out, but while it was still whole, I knew it was a good shape. It felt right when I looked at it, and I loved holding it in my palm. I'm hoping to create a similarly pleasing utensil holder to sit on the counter next to the stove and if that goes well, flour and sugar canisters.


3. keep rhubarb alive. I love this plant, but it's one of the few I consistently kill -- no matter how much manure, sunshine, and love I give it. I'm asking the Moxie 'rents to bring me another chunk of it from The Home Place and a bucket of dried horse poo the next time they visit.


4. come up with a good eggless cookie recipe. I'm a pretty decent baker, and many of my best cookies call for eggs, which means the Boy Scout can't indulge. I'd like to make him something at least as good as my Damn Yankee Brownies. Egg replacer alone just ain't cuttin' it.


5. make built-in bookshelves for our house. We own more books than everyone we know except the local library, and one of the perks (curses?) of my relatively-recent job change is an endless supply of really good, totally free books. I do manage to return the ones that I know I won't read again, but I'm bringing home about 5 new tomes for every one I finish. You can see where this is going. We're hoping to add several tall, shallow shelving units to our media room since it has the greatest expanse of unused, unbroken wall space. This also means we'll get one of our rooms back; the aptly-named "misc room" is currently filled with boxes of books and comics and we're not sure what else.

Happy birthday to me, and why don't you consider starting your own moxielist?