Blog for Saturday 31st January 2026

I woke up at twenty to four this morning so was able to just lie there for a few extra minutes before the first “T-r-i-n-g!” of my alarm.

I was out of bed pronto and slipped out the bedroom to make my first mug of coffee for the day, before going up to my studio to have my Quiet Time.

Wow! January is now almost over – one month down for 2026 already! And so far in my chronological reading through the Bible again in two-years, I have finished the Book of Genesis and am almost through the Book of Job too and am enjoying it even more this time round.

After my Quiet Time I went downstairs and got dressed and ready for this new day.

I decided that I had to finish the hemming on the little smocked dress, and check that I had neatened it inside and out, so I did that.

Yahee! Hallelujah! It is at long last, finished! These are a few photos of it – sorry it is not ironed yet, but I wanted to show you that I really had completed it!

 The little smocked dress for a two-year old that I have made for Zara, our first great granddaughter. I chose a pretty floral cotton to smock for her.

The back of the dress with an untidily tied bow!

A close-up of the reverse smocking and embroidery on the front of the dress.

A close-up of the details of the sleeve

 I used small heart shaped buttons on this little dress

Well, there you have it. All done and dusted ready for a little girl to wear one day!

For the rest of my day, I felt listless and not sure of what I wanted or did not want to do! You know that feeling straight after achieving a goal and not sure what your next goal will be?

I cannot just sit and do nothing, so I began to knit a new baby jersey to add to my baby layettes for our future great-grandchildren. This time in the palest of pinks. I have never seen such a pale shade of pink, and it is beautiful I tried a new pattern, but in the end, or rather, at the end of the day I was not pleased with it so undid it all!

In the early evening, I watched a documentary on Netflix called “Twister” – wow, on a tornado - absolutely incredible and those who lived through it had pretty scary stories to tell and video footage to show too.

This morning, I put on a beef lightly curried stew in one of my slow cookers, and for supper I served it on toast with mashed avo,' baby spinach leaves and the beef stew on top. It was very tasty.

I headed for bed as soon as I able to and was soon fast asleep.

What lesson did I learn today? You can achieve any goal using planned baby steps to get there.

What am I grateful for today? Finishing Zara’s smocked dress.

My saying for today is …

“Life is like the rungs on a ladder. The reason they are placed so close together is that we can learn to take baby steps and reach our destinations safely.”

– Tom Baker