Your say please

This is a long post. Pls bear with me, coz your views are important to me. I have a project i do at night - the water lilies. This is a huge project, and there are 20 pages. I am taking roughly two months to do one page. So, this will take me till early 2012(Phew!!) Then there are 3 projects (BOINK, OHD and AT) i am rotating, that i stitch only on the weekends during my son's nap time.

I am getting a feeling that i am not reaching anywhere:) Hence this post, requesting you all for suggestions. The reason i picked these rotation projects was that i felt working only on the water lilies was getting monotonous and no feeling of accomplishment. But now that i have added 3 projects, i am still not feeling accomplished (HA). I enjoy my stitching time, so it is not like i am frustrated. But i am trying to get ideas from you all to improvise. I will give you some information to help you understand!!

I must be a slow stitcher. I can give you this for statistics - the OHD January SAL for instance - after taking about 4-5 hours on a weekend, at times there is still a wee bit to be done for the month chart. May i remember was easy, but June and July took me slightly longer! The idea of parking one of the projects does not come to me. I do not give up on anything i have taken up;-) With this streak in me, i think i will continue with these 3 rota projects till one of them (OHD would be the first to complete as i have already finished July and am targeting August this weekend) is completed to give me room, LOL.

Let me tell you my stitching time. I am a mother to a 17mo - so we work wonders (!!!) with each other when he is awake. And then i work. My working hours give me 0 stitching time in the morning Monday to Friday *and* close to two hours stitching time in the night. Daytime in the weekends i typically get 4 to 5 hours. So for a 7day period, i have 18 hours say of stitching time in a week. And then there are some nights i do not stitch or days too for that matter, as there will be something else that needs to be done...

I should be able to move mountains in those 18 hours?? Does not look like that!

Only Lilies have confetti in them. And yes, here is another point not to be missed. If the Lilies page got completed before the month ended, i could get time on my literate friend Freddie. I have got to tell you the last i worked on him tho' was in April i think:(

We have now come to the end which is the important bit!! I would like to know how you plan your stitching. Can you pls tell me why you work the way you work, i am trying to get some best practices from you all, so for my next 'set' of projects i can [try to] emulate you. Thanks in advance!!