Saying goodbye to 2017.......

Like many of you I am not sad to see 2017 leave.  It seems to have been a rough year for many.  I know I am genuinely fatigued from work, from life, and from all the horrible news reaching my brain every single day.  All of the natural disasters have been horrendous, but I fear the man made disasters within our government will be far worse in the long run.  It seems like you can never catch your breath before another bit of hopeless news comes over the screen.  Are you as fatigued as I am?  The problem with that, as we all know, is the more tired you get the less you want to listen and stand up for what is right.  I won't let myself get to that point but it would be nice to get a break.

I worked three days this week and the kids were all crazy, and the parents even worse.  I found out two of the kids that I have worked with for years will be cut in their services.  They need help so I am not sure if it was what I wrote or the Medicaid system in Florida wanting to reduce services.  Either way I feel I have let them down, not the way I wanted to end my year.  This has never happened to me before so I fear I am losing my touch a bit.

 I have been cleaning like a mad woman the last two days since I have been off work.  All of Christmas has been put away again for another year.  Floridian homes are famous for their large shelves to but up decorations.  We call them planter shelves and as far as I can tell they mostly collect dust.  Once a year I climb on my ladder and get the dust all swept off.  Well you can imagine the whole room needs to be cleaned after that. It is a grueling process, but needs to be done.  I like to start my New Year clean, all the dust and rubbish from the last year needs to be gone.  I clean our sheets, I clean our towels, bath mats and whatever I can get my hands on.  I want to start the New Year with nothing hanging over from the year before.  Of course all that cleaning landed me in bed with a massive headache last night, Lord knows I don't want to start my New Year off in pain either!

I am not one to look back too seriously at the year as it ends but I do have a favorite make, my Mezzaluna Wrap, made with yarn I bought on a whim.  It makes me happy just to look at it.  Overall I used up 13,495 yards of yarn, making 36 finished projects.  I was down in yarn usage from last year but worked a lot more so that makes a lot of sense, there is only so much time in the day.

We lost our dear Max in September.  I am still grieving and am feeling the loss of my beautiful boy.  I am sure this year will bring us a new puppy, I think Little Buddy needs a special friend to grow up with.  I needed to get through the holidays before I got to thinking about it seriously.  Do I have the energy for a puppy?  No way, but I think it is important that Little Buddy have a furry friend to grow up with, there are no other little ones in our family, and no little ones in our neighborhood.  I am not sure how an adult dog will treat him, with a puppy I have a bit more control.  Still I will miss my beautiful Max forever.  He had the kindest soul, well that is until you got him around children or the pool, then he got quite cranky.

As much as I hoped to be further along on this new project I'm not.  I seem to be as busy as ever this past week and rarely had a second to sit down and work on it.  I do realize that very little knitting occurred in 2017.  I was much more comfortable with a hook in my hand.  I hope to knit a sweater in 2018, I have beautiful yarn in my stash calling out to me.   That is my only creative goal for the year, one simple knitted sweater.  By the way even though yarn was added to my stash, with the 13,495 yards used and all the yarn I donated, much more yarn left my house than entered.  I am going to try to whittle the stash down even more this next year.  I'm not going to be all crazy restricting myself, just more aware of my purchases.

Along with projects and yarn used I always keep a list of the books I have listened to or read.  I am in my car a LOT for work, so I listen to a lot of audio books.  The best audio book I listened to this year was, The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, it was incredible.  The best book read was, Glass Houses by Louise Penny.  The best series read was the Women's Murder Club by James Patterson.  I started at, 1st to Die and ended with, The 16th Seduction, read one after another.  They were wonderful.  After you finish a series don't you feel like you are missing good friends?

Once again this little boy of ours made life merrier for all of us.  He is a pistol and so much fun all at the same time.  He is excelling in school, learning to be more social with his peers and advancing slowly but steadily with his motor delays.  Of course you have no idea who I am talking about  do you?  This boy has many disguises and is constantly trying to trick us.

Well who could ever not recognize that crooked smile?  Little Buddy is the best!

Wishing you all a happy New Year.  My wish for all of us is peace, safety, happiness, security and love.  I want my country to be kinder, our world, too.

Thank you for sharing your lives with me this past year, and thank you for coming to visit.  You all mean a great deal to me.