A Word for 2019

January? Blink and you’d miss it

The fabulous blue sky above was taken yesterday at about 11am just as the snow from the night before was melting. It was seriously cold walking, but at least it wasn’t raining.

Unlike today 😳

I think it’s pretty obvious that I love where I live and I’m aware of how lucky I am. Particularly when it’s so wet and cold outside that I can walk for miles and no one will ever see me looking like this. (well except for a couple of the farmers)

You have to take the rough with the smooth and my dad always told me that the bad makes the good that much better.

Which is sort of how I feel about my word for this year.

2019, is a life-changing year.

I’m a Nanna and words can’t express how much this has changed my outlook on things already.
My husband and I have finally agreed to stay here in Ireland (he’s been working in the UK for a couple of years because he couldn’t find work here).
My youngest child, Kye, turns 18.

In addition to this, I have to accept that I haven’t been managing the RA as well as I could and let’s not even talk about how busy things have become. That would mean acknowledging how bad I’ve been about managing my time.

What I have come to accept, is that its all part of the process (singing Morcheeba now). Which in an ideal world would look like the photo above, but in reality, or at least mine, looks like this –

Full of smudges, mistakes and creases. Still, it’s a work in progress whatever way you look at it. So in 2019, well the next 11 months of it, I’m going to be kind to myself and cut myself some slack (something I never do).

My one and only goal is to work on making the disappointment I feel at the end of every day a thing of the past. Trying to complete my ‘to do list’ never happens, I barely get through half of the items and yet I still try.

My one and only priority is to spend as much time as I can with my family and friends. I am going to feed them, play with them and laugh with them as much as possible. Food gets a mention because I’ve spent very little of the last two years making meals, baking or generally eating much more than cornflakes and cereal myself. I love to cook and I love to feed people, so I’m enjoying (for the most part) getting back into it.

The rest, well the rest can take a bit of a back seat this year.

It’s all part of the Process.

Wow! Serious much?

On a much lighter note look at these booties, I made for Arthur

They’re to match some of the cardigans I made him before he was born. (More about them to come)

They’re the Baby Hug Boots designed by Marianna Mel that I’ve mentioned here before. You can literally knit a pair and sew them up in a couple of hours. That’s if you do them in one sitting of course.

These three pairs are all Newborn and rather hilariously don’t fit my grandson because he has giant tootsies. He had to be moved from his first size babygros into his 0-3months because his feet were too big for the foot part and my daughter told me the same is happening in the larger size now.

I’m flying back to the UK next week, so if I get a chance I might try cutting the feet off one of the sleepsuits and sewing the edge on the machine. It would mean Dina would have to put socks on Art but if it works, he’d get more wear out of his clothes.

Who knows, I might even have a go at making some baby trousers? That’s after the one, two, miss a few, one hundred or so, items on my current to-do list 🙈

(small steps right?)

Happy Making!