January was a bit of a rough month for getting things done/made, between a brain fog that required vitamin D and daily sitting in the sun to clear up, followed by all of us getting COVID (get boosted, ya'll, it helps!), and then my partner having back surgery and requiring lots of aftercare. Making pretty things is soothing to me, but also requires the ability (and the time) to concentrate. So I made this little macramé bracelet from a Bella Vita kit that I had stashed... ... and a pair of commission gloves (same pattern I was using last month , but she chose a lovely green for the liners that this photo really is not doing justice to). I also did a Sulina shawl  for Kandy as a shop sample - no finished photo because she requested that I return it without binding off. Since it was a crescent with a significant number of stitches by the end, I didn't argue. It wasn't necessarily anything I would make or use for myself, but the pattern was engaging and the Woolfolk Luft yarn ...

No cabin fever yet, and indeed when I attempted to take a child with me on a drive-through errand after we'd all been in quarantine for a week (so the Bigs missed ballet and ninja gymnastics) there was a meltdown over the prospect of leaving, so I'd say we've all adjusted pretty well to being home most of the time. Perhaps a little too well. Less has been done than I hoped, but rest has also been possible since the things I wanted to do were pretty rather than essential. I have read a sizable stack of books, and one aloud to the Bigs (The Borrowers, and then we watched The Secret World of Arrietty). I've journaled with some regularity, finished a couple of commissions, and started several projects for myself. I've also taken a lot of naps, sat in the sun, taken a surprising number of walks for January (some in short sleeves), and cared for a house full of sick people (including myself). The massive clean out/organizing project I hoped to complete has not even been s...

I mentioned at beginning of the month that I'm planning on hibernating through the winter. So far, I haven't found any downsides to this. It's required a bit more forethought with grocery shopping to ensure that everything can be gotten in one go (arranging my pick ups so that what the first store doesn't have I can get at the second store) and without having to make midweek trips to get items I forgot or ran out of sooner than anticipated, but that's also been good in that the kids have learned if they insist on eating the entire economy sized box of fruit snacks in one day, they will not be having fruit snacks until next week. A minor loophole I've found is asking my partner to get iced coffee for me on his way home from work, but given that my main objective was to keep everyone healthy and also to rest and not to drink less coffee, I don't see a problem with it. One thing that's surprised me has been how quickly we all adapted to it. There's a M...

The calendar says that it's winter, and Day has begun its slow crawl back toward spring, although here in the US south there are still plenty of days that I can open the windows. Even so, I've decided to try something new this year: hibernating. I noticed last year with all the staying home that we didn't get the Yearly Ick, that thing children love to share that they contract once a month and takes three weeks to properly get over before beginning again. I'm not sure why I had accepted it as inevitable, but having once escaped it I'm not eager to go back. So, until the kids are older, we're staying home in the winter. Especially the little one. Stir crazy as I become when I'm stuck at home due to weather or car trouble or other external circumstances, I am actually looking forward to this - probably because it's voluntary and planned. I have a stash of brightly colored knitting projects, and enough books to read one myself and one aloud to the kids each...

 Shifting I continue while nature cycles the light within me greeting the edge of  sunrise now instead of the edge  of night as I rise from my mat A pot of strong tea two cups, to welcome day my cup sits cooling while I forget The words a little easier now waiting for me as thought they set their own alarm an appointment made an appointment kept Elated, I return.

  Projects! First, two pairs of fingerless gloves (my pattern - Love Out Loud  - on Rav or contact me if that's not accessible for you). All of mine seem to have gone missing (I'm sure they're probably in the only pocket of the only coat I didn't check) so I made the blue pair for myself - and then as usually happens when I post fingerless gloves I've made, someone promptly commissioned a pair. I used stash for both pairs, so in terms of continuing to allow my yarn collection to fulfill its ultimate destiny this year's off to a good start. Another impulse/stash project was a "soap bar." Lush has you wash your hands with a sample of their soap when you first come in the store, which serves the double purpose of getting your hands clean and also making you want it. I've found they're the perfect size for the kids' hands, and they enjoy getting to choose which one they want to use, and when I mentioned this the last time I was in, they found m...

A voracious reader who swiftly read my way through the books intended for me at the tiny local library in my childhood hometown, I moved on to The Classics at a fairly young age, which being predominately a collection of writings by white men on white men's exploits, heavily featured the word fortitude . Stirring narratives of exploration and conquest and being mistaken for deities, a cup of tea in one hand and a flag in the other, were eager to explain how much courage they exhibited in the face of pain and adversity. But without an appropriately balanced historical lens to view those tales through, I didn't realize how damaging that message could be. Sometimes you have to leave your home and find a new one - according to Amnesty International , there are currently 26 million refugees scattered across the globe, driven from their homes by manmade and natural disasters. But a lot of the trials that the "heroes" of my books faced were largely self inflicted. Traveling ...

Some time ago, a friend mentioned taking a specific action for "tomorrow me." I think it was something like cleaning the kitchen before she went to bed, or meal prepping her lunches for the week - the details faded in the light of a concept I had never considered before. Historically, I don't take very good care of Tomorrow Me. I leave her messes to clean and projects to finish, and send her to bed hungry because Right Now Me was more interested in whatever she was working on than in dinner. My fledgling morning/evening routines have been a bit of an attempt to care for Tomorrow Me - setting up the night before, and taking charge of my day from the beginning rather than beginning it three steps behind and then struggling to catch up. It's also become a household topic. "What can you do right now to help tomorrow you?" is a much more evocative conversation starter than "what do you want to do this evening?" (I've been practicing my interviewing...

Reliability. That which can depended on to consistently fulfill its designated function. I generally think of reliability with vehicles - reliable transportation.  Most of my driving life, I've had a comfortably functional vehicle that (through combined care and force of will) never gave me any trouble. Something that would go when I needed to go and get me there with both of us in one piece.  For two summers in a row in my early twenties, I did not have access to that. The first time, I was doing an internship and naively thought I'd get along well enough with my roommate and fellow intern for us to run our errands together in her car. I ended up doing a lot of walking around a Cleveland suburb that summer. The next year, I flew into New York City determined to master public transportation (not really a thing in the South). This experience altered my definition of reliable. I had previously put a lot of extra demands on it that it doesn't necessarily inherently hold, and I...

I exist in a paradoxical state of thriving on both structure and spontaneity. Too much structure and I begin to feel trapped, too much spontaneity and everything crumbles into chaos around me. So I need to keep them in balance. I've been this way since childhood, distinctly remembering The Day I Didn't Make Any Decisions with horror (I believe it was supposed to be a teaching moment but I do not remember the lesson) but also having clung with near desperation to any ritual or tradition I could find. One way that I manage to have both at the same time is with "systems" (this is the family term for them). Each day has a designated theme (for the kids) and then is divided into roughly two hour blocks. But that is just the penciled outline - how we color it in day to day is up to us. It's Words Day today - will we sit under a blanket and read all day together, play phonics games, split up and read in our own spaces, put together the alphabet floor puzzle and hop aroun...

When I think of tenacity,  I think of the lizard that I tried to catch as a child and who then decided to return the favor by biting my finger. Lizard eyes stared at me as they held on tight, not really hurting (once I got over the initial panic) but also impossible to dislodge. You wanted me, buddy, now I'm hangin' on.  After a moment, I set my hand (and the attached lizard) down gently on the grass and waited, my gaze slightly averted. The lizard eventually agreed to the truce and ran off to continue their scaly business elsewhere. It's a funny memory, but an interesting thought to ponder. While tenacity is simply defined as persistence or determination, in my own mind I also add a layer of unnecessary effort to my understanding of it. The lizard didn't need to keep hold of my finger - they had no way of knowing, but a quick nip or simply putting all of their wriggly effort into escape would have been enough for me to let them go. But it became a battle of wills inste...

It's 2021! I'm planning to spend this first bit examining my rituals and routines. Early last year I was beginning to have a realization about working with  my natural limitations and inclinations, but then 2020 twenty-twentied (we can use it as a verb, yeah?) and that was the end of that. But it's a new year, and I've dialed back my personal expectations - again. I'm committing to be really honest about the predictable rhythms instead of trying to bulldoze them. Life is less a highway than it is a rambling hike on a dubiously marked trail, and that's alright. I'm working on revamping my morning and evening routines, and including an alternate version for weekends and the one week out of every four that my body demands extra rest. Accounting for exceptions and variations is more effort on the front end but I'm hopeful it will produce better long term results. Different rituals and routines work for different people, so please don't feel bad if anyth...