Welcome, FINALLY, to the end of 2020!!! Our mother always told us not to wish our lives away, but 2020 is the exception to the rule.  Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

The end of the year brings about the review of books we've read over the year (thank you Good Reads!).  There are always surprises as we go through the list, books we forgot we read and loved.  This year we each made a list of our favorites from the year and surprisingly, we each had seven books on the list and there were five that made both our lists.

So the five that made both our lists are:

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Midnight at The Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber
Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow ~ Helen's Favorite

The others from our lists:

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
The Giver of the Stars by JoJo Moyes
A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg ~ Mary Beth's Favorite

While making the above lists we also made a list of some of our favorite authors and favorite audible reads of all time, not just 2020.

Go to authors that we will read anything they write:

Ann Patchett
Lisa Wingate
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Christina Henry
Kristin Hannah

Favorite audible reads:

7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Daisy Jones and the Six
Before We Were Yours
As You Wish
The Raven Boys
The Rules of Magic
Something in the Water
Harry Potter
The Night Circus
Gone Girl
Evie Drake Starts Over
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The links above are all affiliate links, so if you click through and buy we do get a few pennies from Amazon.

So, what was your favorite read from 2020? Favorite audible reads?

Yesterday, we had such plans. We were going to get tons of cross stitching done before today’s podcast so we would have progress to show. I sat down, got comfortable, and immediately fell asleep. When I woke up, I picked up the fabric, got one stitch in, and fell asleep again.

This happens periodically. No matter how grand my plans are, there are times when my body lets me know, in no uncertain times, that I need to just rest. It usually cones at the end of a long and stressful stretch of work or life and I need to not get frustrated at the loss of crafting time. I will get so much more work done in a much shorter frame of time if I let my body get caught up on its rest. 

Does this ever happen to you, where your body hijacks your creative mind and just shuts it down? You are not alone!

Yesterday, December 27th, we decided it was time to make some Christmas Cards.  We work on a totally different time frame than the rest of the world.  Trust me you’ll love getting your Christmas Card in March! 

Since we are, what some might call, late to the party we wanted a simple, quick and easy card to make.  Graphic45 is our paper guru so we went to their YouTube channel and found their Simple Christmas Card Tutorial.

Helen used a Stamperia Christmas 8x8 pad.

Mary Beth used Authentique Magical Christmas paper collection.

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon and we were so excited to actually be using our paper stash.

Do you make your own cards?  Who is your go to for inspiration?