How To End A Year

These are the flowers my girls bought me for my birthday.

If you know them, you will easily be able to guess which girl picked out which flowers....

The amazing thing is that they all look so amazing together!

 

Friends, I've some things on my mind....

Here we go!

• I spent a while going through my blog archive the other night, looking for some information on a project that I once attempted.  While I never found the info, I did get a big reminder about how much fun the blog once was, and how proud I am of the content.
• Curiously enough, this wasn't upsetting.  There was no gnashing of the teeth, tearing of the hair, or wailing about why-oh-why the blog has stumbled over the last year or so.
• Nope.  None of that.
• Instead, I found myself thinking...I could do this again! 
• In fact, I WANT to do this again!
• 2015 can be a year of rebirth.
• On a side note...it is really, really strange that this OCD knitter has NO information about that specific project anywhere.  Crazy.
• Anyway...the point is that I've spent the last couple of days working to reorganize my personal space and tie up loose ends.  I feel change coming, and want to meet 2015 unencumbered. 
• So what have I been doing? 
• Well, I cleaned up my corner of the basement....which had turned into something that vaguely resembled a garbage dump.  (Seriously....my entire family has a bad habit of throwing my stuff into my corner, a problem which was made worse by several of my own searches for specific items over the last few month in which I basically upended boxes of supplies all over my desk.)  Fortunately, this didn't take as long as I feared it would. 
• Then I made a new knitting list.  This is something I did on a regular basis up until a year or so ago.  I'm really not sure why I stopped...but that's a question to explore on another day.  My knitting list has always been a record in traditional outline form of K(nits)I(n)P(rogress), planned projects, yarn stash and handspun stash.  It was super fun putting my list back together again.  More on that later. 
• Step three was to transfer all of my files from my old laptop to my new laptop.  This is a fraught process for me because every time I've had to do it in the past I've had something bad happen.  Good thing my husband is a computer guy.  Still...gives me the shivers just thinking about it....
• During all of this, I've been pulling any unwanted items to donate to charity.  I am fairly good about doing this on a somewhat regular basis, so I don't have mountains of stuff to get rid of...but every little bit helps.  I come from a family of savers, and while I understand that compulsion I'm pretty anti-extra-stuff myself.
• I've also been working with the rest of my family to get caught up on the housework. 
• True story...I paid my older child $10 to help her sister clean her room.  Best money I've spent in a while!
• I've basically two more days to wrap stuff up, and my plans for that time include to make a few lists of goals and projects I'd like to tackle next year.  I also want to finish getting the house into the best shape we can get it in.  
• I'm going to admit...I'm an awful housekeeper.  One of those goals is to develop new habits so that the house stays in better shape.  I'm considerably better now than I used to be...but I've got a long way to go.  (Just ask my husband.) 
• I also want to take some time before the year ends for some reflection and relaxation.  'nuff said on that point!

Honestly, I have no idea where all of this is going to take me...or if/how it's going to affect the blog.  I just know that I feel really compelled right now to take these steps.  It feels important.  It feels like it could be the start of something new.  It feels necessary in order to make room for change. 

 

So thank you for hanging in there with me through the lean times.  Let's see what 2015 brings!