by Kat | Dec 1, 2025 | General, Welcome
Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
I am so glad to slam the door shut on November… so very glad. But as I look at December lying before me, it seems a lot. A lot of “must do’s” that I am not sure I am feeling capable of… so I am going to slowly ease myself into the month.
I am beginning slowly, with a couple of books to ease me into December… Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor (Thanks Carole for this recommendation!) and Nina MacLaughlin’s Winter Solstice: An Essay. Essays, short stories… seem just what my brain can handle right now.
I am going to try to put up a tree this year… wish me and Frankie luck. I think the memories that a Christmas tree holds will be good for me this year. My hope is that Frankie is entirely bored with the whole situation.
And… perhaps my most favorite thing of December is the Mystery Gnome knit along with Sarah Schira. I love the slowness of this knit along… the pace is perfect. I am really looking forward to it this year.
But that is about it and I feel good about the minimal-ness of it all.
What do you hope December brings for you?
Header photo by Adam Lukac
by Kat | Dec 2, 2024 | General, Welcome
It is December, and nobody asked if I was ready. — Sarah Kay
Hello December,
How are you here already?! I mean, I swear it was just July! I know that I might have silently wished for a cool December breeze on one of the many hot July afternoons… but really, it was just a passing thought!
And I for sure was not ready for you to come roaring in like a much colder and incredibly windier version of a March Lion!
I asked all my kids for “lists” … or ideas… early in November. I am still list-less on all fronts so I think a bit of Nagging Mother needs to be released into the Text-World.
Also… of course I did not get all my bulbs in during the mild November days. I still have 50 varied hyacinths to plant. I am hoping for a bit of a warm up this week, but I think nature has other plans for me because our forecast is full of bitterly cold, well below freezing days. Sigh.
Franklin gets his final puppy shots this morning… and I am hoping to get his “snip” surgery scheduled for January. I have also reached the point of really hoping for him to be done having to go out in the middle of the night. Things I did not consider before beginning this Puppy Adventure: Steve’s unwillingness to get up *even on the weekends* with Franklin. I am feeling very depleted…
This December will be the first in my life that I have not put up the Christmas tree. But I really did not want another task to tackle by myself and I think that in this rambunctious stage of puppy life, putting a tree up is inviting disaster. However, we purchased two small birch trees for the mantle that I hope to get “spread out” and incorporated with the fairy lights before this week is over.
AND… the first day without a single digit windchill, I will take Frankie out with me to get the outside lights up!
The ONLY other things on my December list are to savor the joy of Gnome Knitting as Gnana’s story unfolds. And, perhaps more pressing, I do have a bit of “homework” to accomplish before Felix’s BuJo class on the 6th… I need to ask myself the following question: “What DID I do in January?!” The answer is what I need to “get myself started”… I am hoping for a bit of time this week to look back and think about it!
And that is about all the brain bandwidth I have for things I want to accomplish this month. What about you? What do you hope this month holds?
I will be back on Wednesday and I hope you will too!
Header photo by Luna Lovegood
