Long Time No Blog

This is NOT my Living Room...but my spare bedroom is starting to resemble this!

It has been a very long time since my last blog.
I've been very, very busy but I can't tell you what I've been busy doing. Funny how that works. The pace of my life has been so frantic that I haven't had the mental energy to organize my thoughts enough to blog!

Today is the first day in a very long time that I don't feel like I'm running a race that I haven't trained for. I have a bunch of stuff to do but nothing that "has to be done" by a certain time. Phew! My usual breakfast is coffee and two Aleve, but today....just coffee!

Let me spend this Funday Monday quickly catching you up on my life.
I'm still trying to knit 12 sweaters in 12 months, I'm still flying, I'm still eating my way through Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with my Valentine and I'm still starting way more projects than I'm finishing. Friends have had babies and are having babies, have finalized adoptions and have watched their babies graduate. On the flip-side, friends have also had to say goodbye to loved ones. It's been an emotional few months. It seems that my "knitting completion factor" increases with my emotional state and the pressure of having a deadline imposed by Jill or an e-News commitment. The happier I am the more completion. The more stress I feel, the more scattered my attention becomes.

Writing a blog is very therapudic...it allows my thoughts to surface and my slow typing allows the thoughts to formulate. As I write this blog entry, I'm am thinking about quick and easy knitting projects for the summer and a Fall project plan to carry Knitwits through the Fall, Holidays and dreaded Winter. I am hoping that blogging will help me decide what to focus on.

I am blogging because I am inspired. Janet, Jill, Sheryl and I went to Columbus yesterday for the BIG TNNA yarn market. It used to be so overwhelming to see the millions of vendors and booths. This year, we walked the Columbus Convention Center with the intention of buying nothing and just soaking it all in. We ended up buying a few things, reordering a few things, and Janet and I had our hair done. We're real suckers for give-aways, good snacks and things that are sparkly. Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves and realized that we had a pretty good handle on our inventory and offerings. The vendor booths were good sources of both inspiration and "what not to do".

As we formulate our Knitwits plans for the future, we're leaning towards doing knit-a-long activities that teach new skills and keep knitters accountable for completing projects. For the summer, we're knitting Monsters, doing freeform knitting evening bags, and working on the Knitwits Scarf-a-Long, In my mental queue, I have a Fair Isle bag or toy, a mystery blog-a-long colorwork baby sweater and assorted other baby stuff, and starting the "12,000 Gifts of Christmas". For the Fall and beyond, I'm thinking about Knitivities, a Stocking-A-Long, a sweater knit-a-long and a million or two other projects.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the Blog-A-Long. I think I'll spend the rest of the day working on the details. Ciao!