As we say goodbye to the old year*, the little ones and I are stuck home sick. Not an auspicious start to a new year, but here we are.

Longtime readers will know in years past I capped off the year with meticulous calculations of yarn and projects completed. This year, I simply didn’t keep track of the numbers, and after burning out massively in the pursuit of several challenging projects, I am considering a different approach in the new year.

For all the years I focused on outputs I never gave much thought to the input: how do I give myself sufficient time to knit up all the projects I dream of? Telling myself they had to happen did not magically make the time appear, but that was my go-to strategy.

Wouldn’t you know, these past few days where I sat myself down grumpily in a chair for hours of puzzles and stories and playtime and Simon’s Cat sure worked wonders in the knitting department. My house 100% looks like something exploded inside but the baby suddenly has half a sweater.

So as we tilt back towards the sun, I don’t know what I knitted this past year or what I will knit next year but I resolve to myself to spend more time knitting. Also Phoenix summers are nothing much to look forward to, so I will snuggle deep into this cozy, kids-out-of-doors, hike all the mountains time and try to think of ways I can preserve the feeling, if not the temperatures, of the short desert winter in the months ahead.

*The Gregorian calendar is only one of many, and although out of practicality they are all the same length, they start at different times. For an absolutely delightful exploration of How Humans Do Stuff I highly recommend looking up calendars of other cultures.