One Day Old

Today, on New Year's Day, I feel curiously awake. I feel like I've been in a very long sleep. December was rougher on me than I realized. I didn't know how tired (and irritable) I was until I wasn't anymore. I'm grateful for the opportunity to recharge, but I'm also a little scared about the fact that it got so bad for me.

I suppose this is why people make resolutions. Everyone just wants to feel better.

The holiday season flashed past. We went home to my family in Winnipeg, where we visited, ate good food, went for daily swims at the rec centre, ate more good food, took naps, and then ate more good food. Needless to say, the trousers are a bit tight these days. Ah, life after Christmas is life in stretchy pants.

In true Christmas tradition, I met up with my Winnipeg knitting friend, Linette. In preparation, I performed my own little Christmas miracle: I knit a little last-minute gift. It's miraculous because I rarely knit for other people, and also because I really suck at being thoughtful enough to get gifts together when I go home. I blame the airlines: I pack so sparingly so I can get in and out of the plane with minimal pain, and so any gifts I do manage to scramble together are from quick runs out to the drugstore to see what's there.

Anyway, I found this pattern from one of the folks I follow in Google+. It's a free pattern called Bluebird of Happiness, which I thought would make a sweet little ornament. I whipped one off in about an hour before I realized that I'd made it out of alpaca yarn, which Linette is (sadly) allergic to. It's the one in the photo on the left, which eventually went to my mom. Luckily, I had another backup yarn in Patons Classic Wool, and since I'd already practiced on the first one, the second came even faster. 

And I'm glad I got it together quickly enough, because Linette was her usual sweet self and brought me some gifts as well: a couple of portions of roving she'd been meaning to pass on to me. Seeing them makes me DETERMINED to get some spinning in soon:

And she also brought some ADORABLE knitted ornaments, shown here with a combination lock for scale (it's what was handy, ok?). I'm wondering if I could knit a little character to wear them, something equally as adorable that needs a hat, scarf and mitts to keep it warm. Hmm...

I also brought my own knitting project, for the evenings relaxing at my parent's house: a stripey sweater than I'm making from several skeins of merino/cashmere/nylon sock yarn, from my friend Tara's Etsy Shop. Several days of gameshows and reruns meant that I finished half the body and nearly one full sleeve. Last night, I experimented with a double-knitted cuff, which, after a tedious couple of hours of grafting, I declared a failure:

So, I ripped it out and knitted a twisted ribbed cuff instead:

This sweater has been a rip-back-and-re-knit project. I had been placing stripes at random thicknesses before, and I was hating it. I decided inch-thick stripes looked nicer. Yes, it's a lot of ends to sew in. Yes, it's tedious. No, I don't really know what it's going to look like at the end, but at least I'm liking it a lot more now. And it turns out that inch-thick stripes makes it super easy to measure how much I've worked on. It'll be a cozy cardigan eventually:

So far, 2015 has been pretty good, even if it isn't even one day old yet. I got up and slogged through a frosty morning run (man, did I mention the stretchy pants?). We went out later this afternoon for a walk and enjoyed the sight of this swan family:

Do I have resolutions for this year? Not really... but I have set myself a couple of goals. I'm quietly optimistic, and yeah, I'm still working my way through losing my little Rascal. I miss him... I miss him so much. But after I finished my run this morning, I came up with the theme for me this year:

I deserve to have a healthy body, a healthy mind, and a nourished heart. And maybe my memories of Rascal will remind me that it's possible.

I made a batch of chicken and dumplings tonight, and now I'm going to go off and do some stretching and then some knitting. Day one: not bad at all.

Happy New Year, everyone.