Happy New Year!

Pretty Instagram Photo #1

Pretty Instagram Photo #2

Reality!

Is it too early to have a New Year’s Resolution?  

It feels a bit like a new year to me at the moment since it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I am now 47, so not one of those big zero (or even five) birthdays, but in some ways this is one of the biggest birthday’s I’ll ever have.  You see, my mum died 5 weeks after her 47th birthday, which means that by xmas this year I will be older than she ever was.  And the truth of the matter is I still don’t know how to process that.  

Should I be writing a bucket list?  I’m bombarded everyday with a constant stream of things I could miss out on (thank you social media!).  I’m sure I read somewhere once that we are exposed to 2,000 advertising images a day.  Well, that was before Facebook!  I’m sure that now I have fulfilled my daily quota before I have even finished my first cup of tea in the morning.  

If only my life was as beautifully curated as my Instagram feed.  I posted an image earlier this year and was asked by Heather if I have just one beautifully decorated, well organised room in my house, or does the whole place look that nice?   Of course I fessed up that it was taken in the showroom and my house looks like a bomb site. The truth of the matter is often the one square metre of shelf or table that you can see in the photo is the only pretty spot in my life at that moment!   

My resolution for this year was to learn to knit garments for myself and the Oatmeal sweater I started in January is still on the needles.  I need a new resolution!  I still want to knit sweaters, but the long queue of them on my Ravelry list is daunting.  I am not a fast knitter.

I’ve lost my making mojo.  In fact I lost it a while ago.  I haven’t lost my love of yarn (god forbid!), but I have so many things I need to be making that I am totally overwhelmed by the list and can’t get started, or finished, with anything.  I think the problem is #fomo.  What if I don’t join that KAL, make that fabulous project that everyone is talking about, buy that yarn before it is gone?  When does all that inspiration becoming so overwhelming that it’s paralysing?

I think my resolution this year needs to be to focus on the journey, not the end project.  I need to live in the moment and keep celebrating where I am right now, the good, and the bad.  So, I’m going to mix that fantasy perfect life that you see on your screens, with a dose of good old reality.  If nothing else it should give you a laugh (I am the queen of frogging and I always lose at yarn chicken!).     

My resolution this year is #nofomo.  Life is short.  Use the best yarn first and enjoy every single stitch.

:)