A to Z 2016 Survivor Issue

How is it that the two weeks since the A to Z Challenge have gone by soooo much faster than any ONE week DURING the Challenge?

Hint: IT'S A CHALLENGE.

But I made it. I survived. One month. 26 Pinterest projects. 26 posts. 

This was my third A to Z Challenge, and my second year to use Pinterest challenges for my theme. Incidentally, there are currently over 50 BILLION pins on Pinterest, and it's STILL practically impossible to find Pinterest projects for those pesky letters like "Q," "X," "Y" and "Z," or else I'm just terrible at using the search feature. Or both.

For the first time in three years, though, I actually pre-planned some of my posts. I wrote several of the end-of-the-alphabet posts very early on, which turned out to be fortuitous, as my precious two year old cat Ruby suddenly became very ill and was diagnosed with cancer on April 22; we said goodbye to her five days later. The last thing I wanted to do at the time was re-create Pinterest pins and write about them, but I did it, and with the help of the posts I had already written, I made it through to the end of the Challenge. (Ruby has been featured in many of my blog posts over the past two years, and my heart is absolutely broken.)

Here's what I learned by doing the Challenge:

I still haven't learned to read recipes or project directions all the way through before I start and I probably never will.

Melted white chocolate can travel very far when propelled by an exploding balloon. I am STILL finding bits of white chocolate stuck to surfaces in my kitchen, and it's been over a month. (The day after I wrote the post, I found some white chocolate stuck on one of our cats. True story.)

I can still conjure up the taste of avocado chocolate smoothie and it is still a very, very bad memory.

I may not be ready for that Etsy shop, but I can crochet a slouch hat now.

I could probably do a whole A to Z Challenge with just preschool projects, but I limited it to two this year, making marshmallow catapults one day and a rainbow on another with them.

I liked the little tealight cake I made so much that I stood at Hobby Lobby and contemplated spending $12 to buy a scalloped circle punch just so I could make more of them.

My favorite Pinterest challenge was the exploding box, or fall open box, as I more aptly named it. I am now obsessed with buying paper to make more of them, because they are that cool. Today, I experimented with the scraps and made teeny tiny boxes.

In my utter sadness after Ruby died, I fell behind in reading other A to Z entries, but I'm working on catching up (although I fully realize I'll never completely succeed). I found several new blogs to follow, including Weekends in Maine and Angels Bark, which is a great reason to be involved in the A to Z Challenge in the first place.

Until next year, peace out.