I finally put away all of the crafting stuff that had been cluttering my sewing table. It'd gone through a few cleanups but there were a few things I had been working on when my mom died that I could not bear to put away. I kept avoiding those projects because I couldn't quite deal with them. They always brought back a flood of memories of the would have, could have, should haves surrounding November and December. So my sewing table became another dumping ground for wayward skeins, hooks, needles and patterns.

The things I'd been working on or put aside in favor of my Mom's shawl got left there in limbo, while her shawl, unfinished as it was, was bound off and taken to be with her on her final journey.

Today I decided it was time to deal with the clutter. I started with the top layer of recent projects and thoughts — putting away yarn and patterns and sketches. As I got deeper into the pile, memories started flooding back. There was the yarn for Calorimetry which I never started because I wanted to work on my mom's shawl. The shawl that I started on the difficult plane trip to her funeral was still waiting for me to finish.

I ripped a couple of things that I no longer had any desire to finish. I took my time, rewinding the yarn, and trying to figure out what it wanted to become. I took notes and put them in ziplocs with the yarn and stored those newly freed skeins away.

The hardest part was dealing with the project bag that housed my Mom's shawl. I put up the remaining yarn with no note. I don't knit cotton so I will always know what that yarn was meant for. Aden and Hunter helped me size the needles and sort the stitch markers. They've always been interested in what I do and have started asking me to make them things. Having them help was good as it helped to ground me somewhat. But it did remind me me of how little time we all have.

I need to get on with my crafting promises for the year - Hunter's shawl and Aden's blanket. I'm planning on being around for them for a good long while but there are no guarantees and I want them to have some legacy from me.

Time to get to work.

I've been quiet for a little bit mainly due to busyness at work. It's been the usual. A ton of work. Small amount of time. Extremely high level of concentration needed.

Life, family, hobbies quietly and sadly slip to the sidelines. Momma gets home at 11 PM, 12 midnight days in a row.

Now things are changing. Slowly but they are. I've new responsibilities. My staff replenished - both of my reports last year left to pursue other interests. I'm getting on my feet again.

I'm starting to fantasize about spring. To fantasize about going to the gym and spending time running in the park with the kids and visiting the Farmer's Market as a family.

I don't hold my breath and wish as I expect this to be very real. To be the way things are going to be from now on.

I won't hope or wish or make it tentative.

It will be so cause I will it and will make it happen. Not today and not tomorrow as things are still happening in the old way. But this will change very soon.

Here's a few pictures of the finished shawl:

And here's an action shot of my favorite model:

Here she is:

All the knitting was completed on, GASP!, October 21 of last year. Then the shawl languished in the eternal FINISH ME pile.

Today I was having difficulty working a swatch for a new project, so I decided, on the spur of the moment, to block Annis and finally, finally, finally finish her.

I modified the original pattern a wee bit.

Here's what I did:

I cast on using the Estonian cast on on size 10s for extra stretchiness and then switched to the main working needle size. Following the chart, I framed the Nupps and outlined the stem of the "leaves" with size 6 Gunmetal seedbeads. I knit the pattern as written until the short rows were done. Then I kept knitting straight in order to use up most of the yarn since I had a lot more than the pattern called for and I wanted to use it all. Once I figured my yarn was beginning to run out, I worked 4 rows garter, an eyelet row, a knit row and 4 more garter rows.

Tomorrow, post blocking, I will weave in ends and take glamour shots. If you're interested, you can view the rest of the nitty gritty project details in this public Ravelry link.

It's amazing how life changes. I used to be able to clean this entire apartment in about 5 hours. When single, I'd buy a cheap ass bottle of bubbly, power up the vacuum and go to town with a duster in my back pocket.

Pa-CHOW! The apartment would be shiny until the next cleaning day and life was good.

Now. Ugh, now. There is dirt and clutter everywhere. It takes more like 18 hours spread over two days to get to the point that makes me happy. That makes me feel my inner Martha. And now those hours have to be spread over the course of a weekend or two.

I have RA to thank for it. I'm so much less efficient than I used to be and it drives me nuts.

Tonight I have a mostly clean house. Things got dirty after I cleaned them so the household is not pristene but is at 85%.

Hey, with two toddlers and both of us running around full-time, I'll take it. It's one of the challenges in my life now and one of the things I/we need to find a better solution for.

Last year I got "access" to a yarn club. I wish I had the description in front of me because it was basically everything I like in life. Nice colors. Semisolids.

I'd been waitlisted so it was super exciting to get my Paypal invoice. That's how I knew I'd made it in to the club. I'd been following the chat hyping it and  I remember thinking, wow, if the yarn matches the pictures, then it'll be super awesome... but I also kept a really open mind as to what I would get in the end.

It was my BIG birthday present to myself. We couldn't really afford it so I put it on the, da da dum, credit card, with permission. You know, the one we keep for things like EMERGENCIES.

So I charged something like $150 to an emergency card because I expected it all to be all that and a bag of chips and more... and wound up being disappointed... every single shipment. The first one -- washed out mint green something or other that reminded the fiber artist of melting snow in a particular mine in some state. OOOOOOKKKKKKAAAAAAYYYY. Nice, um, but not my style and not what I was expecting.

And it continued from there.

I should have expected my disappointment. I am very particular about my colors. VERY. And everything I got was really nice (seriously -- even the mint green stuff) and would have more than floated someone's boat... but to me it was just ehhhh. Again, I'd spent a LOT of money on something I thought would satisfy my fancy yarn urge for the YEAR so I was really kinda let down. And... I'd been led to believe -- from reading other yarn club descriptions -- that most threw in some fun freebie stuff... pencils, pads, coupla tootsie rolls, ya know, supercheap stuff to make the buyer feel loved. This one threw in a discount coupon for a pattern. That's it. Thanks, but a dollar off a sock pattern I had never wanted to knit in the first place doesn't make your yarn club super.

The way the club was operated wasn't as well as I expected either. The last two shipments -- one remains -- were all over a month late. With no apology and no notification via email. Eventually a Ravelry post was made but it was about a month after the ship deadline. I have trouble with my post office so I couldn't tell if it was the yarn club or the crackheads delivering our mail. In all honesty I thought I was going to have to file a paypal dispute for the goods.

While the fiber artist knew her original audience, she opened up her club to the world and sadly I didn't belong in it. So not her fault but I got sucked in on the promise of a dream...

 I'm not blaming anyone for my disappointment nor am I selling or trading the skeins just yet -- I think Hunter/Aden may want one to be a hat or scarf or socks one day so in stash they will remain. I think that the ambiguity in Mystery Yarn Clubs is not what I want. I need to know what I am physically buying (in real form and not imagined artist fancy( and am gonna have to sit any offers out going forward.

Anyway, I tried it. And was sorely disappointed -- during a very hard year. So I won't be doing it again. Which fortunately ties in to the goal this year which is to knit from stash -- so I gotta get cracka-lackin on that.

I'm back and still jetlagged from the off-site in LA. This was the only thing I was waiting for before trying to get back to real life; the only "holiday" thing left to get out of the way.

For those wondering, I found a great dress and fabu (and cheap!) accessories on Saturday. I will admit coming out of my hotel room, dressed in a (not so) little black number with my 3" high Fluevog heels, dripping in fake Old Navy jewels plus a wrap to hide my tats and looking both ways down the hall 'cause I was feeling so self-conscious. Of course, I bumped into my boss at the elevator who said, "Wow, you look great." And I said, "I feel so damned silly," And then the night was on. I got to the super-extravaganza and I danced and rocked and was myself. (Back at work, one of my co-workers said, "You are a party ANIMAL!" so I guess the fun I had was evident. ;))

I'm still waiting to find someone who has a pic of me and I will share it, but thanks everyone for the comments and feedback. They really helped.

Now it's full on diet and fitness and taking care of my RA and finance and navel gazing and knitting and everything else. The kids will be four this year and we want to send them to pre-school but not round these parts. A move of some sort is imminent and we need to see what that looks like from all angles. My health needs working on, stat. I'm on Humira and other drugs and need to balance it all out.

And I need to own my grief and deal with it. I have been a lot but there are days and moments and sad times...

Then there's what I need to do for Mark. He needs some love and not in the sense you are thinking of. He needs nourishment of his ideas, care of his psyche, attention to his wants. I need to show my hubbo more of the love for the hard hard work he does day in and out.

I turn 42 this year. A significant number in the Hitchhiker universe. My goal is to make 42 rock. To make it the great comeback year. To make it the year from which all other years are measured.

I have a lot of work ahead of me.

I'm flying to LA on Monday for the company's annual off-site. I've been dreading and kvetching about this for at least a month now so it will be good to get it over with. I know that I'll have a good time once we get there but the timing sucks because it is in the middle of a really busy time at work.

One of the reasons I'm hating this trip is that the fancy dinner on Tuesday is creative black tie.

We're going to be having a Casino Night and the theme is "Montecarlo." I've been hearing people talking about how they were dressing to the nines ("dripping in fake jewels", "fingerwaving my hair flapper style", "dug out a floor-length gown") and beyond for about two weeks now. I know that the last time they had this event, there were door prizes for the best dressed, most creative, etc.

Now, I haven't gotten dressed up for anything other than work since my wedding so I don't just happen to have the perfect dress in my wardrobe. Throw in that I have arthritis-induced psoriasis and acne, can't really walk around in heels and am at the heaviest that I've been post-pregnancy and you can see why I'm not thrilled with an event that will lead to me being judged by my appearance.

My boss has been stressing all week how important (and fun, it will be!) to dress the part. And then the reminder email that came out yesterday spelled out that cocktail dresses or dressy evening separates were required for the ladies.

Tomorrow I need to go through the painful process of trying to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING. I'm at the high-end of the misses spectrum but the very low end of the Plus sizes. Which puts me in an awesome limbo. There's usually nothing left at the higher Misses and the low Plus does not fit me well at all. The whole ordeal is causing me enough stress to not even want to go to the dinner but I know that won't go over well.

I'm feeling really insecure and body conscious. I know I need to get over this and find my confidence, my flow.

These were posted on Ravelry and are a direct lift but I thought I should also post them here to look back on throughout the year:

1. Finish all my UFOs. Period. Either frog it or finish it, but get it done and into happy hands. My mom passed away this year from terminal cancer (age 56) and there was one item that I really wanted to finish but she was taken too soon. I knit for joy, comfort, the challenge of it, but also to express my love. Next year I want to let as much love out as I can.
2. Knit from stash as much as humanly possible. Seriously, I have soooo much yarn but every time I want to knit something I buy new, special yarn. Well the yarn sitting in my stash was special once and deserves its time in the limelight also. I especially want to make use of the acrylic I inherited from my husband’s mom and grandma.
3. Knit more for my loved ones and for charity.
4. Do at least two really big heirloom worthy projects (one for each kidlet). I’m thinking some type of complicated blanket for my son and a wedding shawl for my daughter.
5. Do one project that really challenges me. (Might be the same as #4).
6. Have fun through it all. It’s only knitting…

So that's it. The knitting hopes and dreams laid bare. I have sewing and quilting dreams but I will save those for later, for when I can actually excavate my sewing and show you what I'm planning.

I've been knitting in the evenings for the past two nights and hope to make this a habit. Through this extra knitting I was able to finish a cowl I started when I got the bug for matching accessories. I was going to knit cowls and hats in coordinating colors to get me through the cold winter and past my mom's illness. When I painfully learned that she had terminal cancer, I put everything else on hold and tore into a shawl for.

At the outset I knit as much as I could, as quickly as I could. Workload and rheumatoid arthritis hampered me so I slowed down my pace. But I was optimistic. My mom had six months to live. I would get this wonderful hug to her — this shawl to keep her warm when I could not be there. This shawl would stand in for how much I loved her while I struggled and dealt and saved up to visit her with the whole family in February so that we could all say a true goodbye.

She unexpectedly died on December 10th — just six weeks after the devastating news — and the shawl was very much unfinished. I will go into all of that at another time, though. I bound off the shawl as it was and she was laid to rest with what I made her. It was not enough and not in time but it was.

These days my knitting brings me bits of comfort and helps to fill an empty space. It also helps me to concentrate my thinking. So if I'm grieving, I can give in to that. If I'm thinking, that's where my focus is.

I've got four active projects right now — a vest for Hunter; the shawl I started after my Mom died the recipient of which is unknown to me; a silly silly silly scarf made of novelty Pom Pom yarn for Hunter which I think will bring her much joy; and a blue chenille garter scarf for Aden that I think will please him just because it is for him — that I am alternating knitting on during my morning commute. I am working on one of these each night, and will be starting a brand new project when I fly to LA next week. It will probably be the Evenstar shawl even though I don't have the right yarn for it. I like starting new projects while flying. It gives me something to look forward to. I hate to fly, am terrified of flying, so having that carrot really helps a lot.

When I get back from LA, I'm going to start digging through UFOs and see what I should complete and what I should frog. I want to have gone through at least 50% of my UFOs in this fashion by the end of 2011. (I have many more UFOs than are listed in my Ravelry account at the moment...)

Every day we'll take a breath and assess. Every day we'll be thankful to still have the ability to create.

(One of my mom's nicknames for me was "Your Majesty". She also called me "Queen Elizabeth" frequently when I was a teen. While I never thought that to be an accurate representation of me, I do use the royal "we" an awful lot. Mami, I miss you so much.)