Thankfulness, 2023 edition

I originally wrote this at the beginning of January, but was unable to upload a picture without using a third party software. I'm thankful that seems to have been a temporary requirement.

Let's start the new year off with a tradition of thankfulness. From the Thanksgiving chain in 2023:

hymns my grandma sang
thankful for loving family
Zeph
handwritten letters
gardens
good teammates
Charlie Brown cartoons
walks
Brock
Grandpa
Caitlin
falling leaves
lasagna
Noah
wool
Evie
Eli
Jaden
Luke
Mom
good neighbors
sky
Kyla
Avery
God's grace
Nana
Italians
Trung
Hot Wheels
wind through the leaves
candy
camp stool
coffee
carmelle apples
Santa
neighbors
Zeph
Jeremy
steak & rice
changing colors
coffee & a book in the morning
Karen's sense of humor
my job
time in prayer
time to pray
our nation
grace
old friends
music
health
Christmas lights
dinner with loved ones
Sonya
days off
yarn
God's love
fall leaves
pasta
sandwiches
our wonderful family
crunchy leaves under foot
being Italian
yard work
my sons :) :) :)
painting
sons, which are a lot of fun
Nico
family
banana shakes
autumn clouds
Nico
vegetables from the garden
TAC gloves
Lazz
Grandma's ice cream
a bed and blankets
peace with friends and family
Dad
Lazz

Comments

reasons I knit

I haven't posted a lot of knitting on here in the last few years. Not much to say about it but I still knit. I knit because I love to create. I knit because I love sweaters. I knit because I grew up with a mom who is artistic beyond the acknowledgement she receives, and it's in my blood to do something creative. I knit because I love the good things God grows, like sheep and wool and muskox and cotton. I knit because I love colors. I knit because my boys wear what I knit. I knit because I like the rhythm. I knit because it has a beginning and an end, and they are achievable. I knit because when my hands are busy, my mouth slows down, and it gives my brain a chance to make better decisions. I knit because I'm really, really good at it, and it's one of the few things that others acknowledge, and we all need that. I knit because I love to knit. I'm working on a colorful shawl in alpaca.

modular knitting

On the plus side, modular knitting gives one interesting options for colorwork and color blocking. Sometimes the dye process can give the yarn its own commentary, like this changing of scales. However, there are often many more ends to weave in. This one is not too bad, but there's at least four ends on every row - 14 rows. Still, interesting to try something new! Details on my Ravelry page , if you are interested!! Have you tried modular knitting? Thumbs up or down??

getting through winter

As classes of all sorts get scheduled, rescheduled and postponed due to weather, and with the short days with less light, I often find January and February to be a forced pause. Years like this convince me that I should get good at reading rain gauges and keeping track of the temperature. It seems like we've had an usual amount of snow. That should be good for our snow pack and seasonal runoff to fill creeks, lakes, basins, but we'll see what the spring brings. In the meantime, I have been trying to tick off indoor chores and projects, and working on garden things. We have started a handful of seedlings: basil, foxgloves, verbascum, lavender, rosemary, onions and something new to us, naranjilla . We have varying levels of success. The naranjilla did take a long time to germinate; I think we used 11 seeds, and we currently have five seedlings, some a couple weeks older than others! We're still 12-14 weeks out from planting and I really had my hands full last year -

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