Hi friends! It’s been a while. After Spinzilla my will to blog – or do anything with any regularity – kind of disappeared. After some reflection, I don’t think my posts are working as well for me as they once were, though I may change my mind about that and go back to the schedule I set last February, which I was pretty consistent with until October/November.

Looking over my posts from last year, I entirely forgot that I did National Poetry Writing Month in April. Though I started a few days late, I made those days up in May so I’m patting myself on the back for that accomplishment. I was going to submit some of them to a contest run by Narrative Magazine, but then never actually got around to it. Maybe in 2018 I’ll do something with them.

As far as knitting projects go, I finished:

• 3 hats, including a pussy hat
• 2 sweaters (A Bohus sweater kit & a cabled sweater – I’ve been wearing one or the other daily now that the weather is cold)
• A sleeveless summer top (which I wore all summer long)
• 3 pairs of mitts or mittens (2 pairs for a friend’s baby, 1 for Lola the kitten)
• 1 scarf for Lola (every kitten needs a scarf, right?)
• 4 shawls, one of which was a commission
• 1 blanket square for knittingthestash’s Knit Together Project
• 1 blanket for the Welcome Blanket Project
• 6 hearts for Hearts for Cville
• 1 Calcifer

As for spinning:

• I participated in Tour de Fleece, which was interrupted by getting the commission for a Wonder Woman shawl.
• I participated in Spinzilla for the first time.
• I had 12 spinning projects. I could calculate length spun, but that’s a bit too much effort.
• I spun some of the fleece from Shenandoah 2011.
• I have 2 FOs from one spinning project (a hat and Lola’s scarf).
• I used singles from another project to embroider an explosion or fireworks (which is an explosion, but I’m getting nit picky, I suppose).

And embroidery:

• I finished 2 pieces.
• I saved leftover spun singles for more project.
• I have a potential future commission based on one project, The View From Mt. Peg.

Miscellaneous Accomplishments:

• I published one new pattern, available for free on Ravelry, This Is My Heart.
• I consistently went to my Wednesday knitting meet-up and went several times to a new-to-me meet-up at Finch Knitting + Sewing Studio.
• I blogged relatively consistently from February – October.
• I continued to keep my toe in the tech writing waters by editing presentations, project plans, business communications, and other miscellaneous project documents on demand.

In personal news:

I feel like I had my best year mood-wise in a long time. I took all my meds, saw my therapist about once every 2 months or so, psychiatrist quarterly. I also made an appointment for & went to a checkup with my GP. (However, I should have made an appointment later in the year because my BP started creeping up despite meds. Next year.)

I kept my family alive, again. So far my record for this is A+, 100%.

• Ethan graduated from high school and started college at JMU. The transition was difficult because of some drama that exploded in August, but he has adjusted and is doing well.
• Brandon started his sophomore year at WVU and, since really breaking up with his girlfriend who goes to VA Tech, is finally settling in and making more friends and doing what college kids do (party, but not too much). He barely passed Calculous 2, but is now done with Calc forever.
• Henry finished 7th grade, went with Ethan on a big trip to S. Korea on their own for 2 weeks, and when he came home, his voice dropped – his hormones have come in. He’s grown at least 3″ and his feet are now bigger than mine. He’s in 8th grade, made Honor Roll, and is on the leadership team at tae kwon do, which means he’s helping to teach classes and has cleanup duties.
• My husband is a contractor; he was commuting to Denver during the week, flying home every weekend. That particular contract ended at the end of June and he’s been looking for a new one since then. He’s an IT Consultant with a lot of experience in telecommunications and the healthcare industry – here he is on Linked In if you’re curious/interested. He has a lot of irons in the fire, but none of them have led to his next gig. Hopefully next month something will turn up!
• We lost Moose, our retriever mix that was a rescue that we rescued from Florida. And we gained Lola, a black polydactyl kitten born in early September. She has an extra toe on all 4 feet and has brought a lot of positive energy to the house.
• We rearranged our family room, which involved some construction, but it has opened the room up and given us more floor space. Sitting on the couch gives you a view out the windows now instead of walls, which I love.
• Edited on 1/1/18 to add that I started tae kwon do in February and just earned my light blue belt, which is halfway through the belts to get to black belt.

If all goes as planned, I’ll post tomorrow with some goals and plans for 2018.