Incoherent Scribblings

What more can I say? I failed the NaBloPoMo challenge after only four days. Although I could probably come up with a whole list of excuses as to why I haven’t posted since last Wednesday, I won’t list anything because if I have learned one thing during my almost six years of blogging, it is that I don’t have to apologize for my lack of posting. Besides, I am proud of myself because after months and months of little to no posting, I still managed to blog for four days in a row. Now with that said, I am also announcing that I am rededicating myself to NaBloPoMo in order to finish November strong and with the confidence I need to participate in Holidailies in December.

Today is the last day of Holidailies 2008. Of the 33 days, counting this post, I posted 29 times. I feel pretty good about that considering at the very beginning I was feeling kind of burned out. I guess that weekend that I decided not to post did me good after all.

A lot of what I posted during this time was just filler in a way, but I did post some good stuff. As a matter of fact, for the second year in a row, one of my posts (She Still Believes) received the coveted “Best of Holidailies” award label. I enjoy participating in Holidailies and unless some major catastrophe prevents it I am sure I will participate again next year.

Beyond Holidailies, I have finally decided it is time to mention something that some of you may have already noticed… And that is that I am two weeks away from celebrating my 5 year blogoversary. I know a lot of my other blogging buddies have recently celebrated a 5 year blogoverary too so I guess I am not that special, but I just want to congratulate those of us who have hung around the blogosphere this long.

It’s crazy. When I started this humble little blog in 2004 I never would have guessed that I would still be scribbling away five years later.

I am not planning on having some big giveaway or anything like that to celebrate, but for the remainder of this month I hope to highlight, and perhaps comment on, some of the things I have written about over the past five years.

It should be interesting.

About three or four years ago I taught myself to knit, but I am just not a knitter.

Don’t get me wrong: I was very excited about knitting at first and even made two or three dishcloths, but then I stopped because knitting frustrated me.

I was (obviously) a novice and I knew that as a novice I would never get better unless I worked at it, but for some reason I couldn’t summon the patience that is needed to actually practice. I couldn’t help it: Whenever I sat down to knit the only thing I could think of was how much good cross stitching time I was wasting.

During my short stint with the knitting needles I actually got pretty good at knitting and purling, but honestly I got bored; it just felt so repetitive. I was OK with knitting a dishcloth because it was small, but when I thought I was ready to move on to a scarf I got impatient and ended up finishing it as a dishcloth too. It was my dream to one day knit an afghan, but when I realized I couldn’t even finish a scarf, that idea was put on indefinite hold.

Fast forward to this past June.

I was going through a little stitching slump, so I decided to try knitting again. I had some skeins of yarn and some needles that I bought on clearance a couple of years ago, so even though I knew I wouldn’t be making anything spectacular, I figured I could at least try again to knit a scarf. For about four days I knitted. Everything was looking nice and I thought I had a good length of scarf started. I was proud of myself. But then I got busy and all my knitting things got put away. I practically forgot about the scarf.

However, last night I began thinking about it again and tonight I dug it out from the bottom of the closet. Unfortunately, upon examining the “scarf” I realized that I wasn’t nearly as far along as I thought I was and my knitting wasn’t nearly as neat as I had remembered. I was so disappointed by the whole mess that instead of putting more stitches into it or finishing it into a dishcloth, I just ripped it apart, wound the yarn into a ball, and gave it to the cats.

After all, you can’t call it an UnFinished Object if there is no object to start with, now can you?

On the last day of my Winter Break I made the executive decision to do nothing but stay in my pyjamas and stitch all day while watching one of my favorite stitching series, Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

I was wondering what to work on when I received a call from Dawn asking me if I wanted to SAL today on “Summer’s Magic.” Sounded good to me!

Here is “Summer’s Magic” after an approximate five hour stitching session. I made some great progress today! All the sand is now finished. Next time I work on it I will backstitch what I did today and then move on to the big dragon. I predict that I can probably finish it in two (or maybe three) more sessions like I had today. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dawn finished today though because when I saw her “Summer’s Magic” at Thanksgiving she was about two stitching sessions ahead of me.

Unfortunately I have to go back to work tomorrow but all the stitching, sleeping, and reading that I did over the last week and a half was good for the soul. I feel refreshed and ready to start thinking about the spring semester.

Although the world has a clock that runs from 00:00 to 23:59 each day, for me the day doesn’t end until I go to bed, sleep for a certain amount of time, and wake up. What does this mean? Well, it means that even though my watch says it is 01:20 and is technically Sunday, January 4, as far as I am concerned it is still Saturday, January 3. Therefore when I post this entry I am going to count it as my Saturday entry to fulfill my daily blogging commitment. Yes, I know I have just posted 117 words of pure drivel but the point is I have written today… and that is all that matters.