This year Christmas came early, and in the form of my very own DSLR. For years I’ve used Sean’s 20D, or (my preferred) Canon point-and-shoot because the 20D was big and bulky for my smaller hands. I hate sharing – I’m just not that kind of person. I like my own computer, my own camera, my own Kindle, etc. Sean knew this, and gave me the option to pick between two cameras he had already looked into for me. The Rebel T6 is what I decided on, and shortly after it arrived I unboxed it so I could start using it already (opening presents as an adult on Christmas morning…

The whole house has been hit with what appears to be (or at least feel like) the plague. We just keep cycling through, with one of us passing it to the rest of us and, for a brief moment, we all feel somewhat healthy again before it’s right back downhill for all of us. I’m beyond tired of it and my patience is wearing super thin at this point. The lack of any personal space with a toddler on a normal day drives me bonkers, but with a sick toddler? DO NOT WANT. Gone, I guess, are the days of a leisurely sick day – the one where you get to…

  I don’t want to talk about the election today – there’s nothing I could say that others haven’t already said, anyway, and there’s really no use in dwelling on things. So allow me to distract you (and myself) and tell you about my weekend. For 6 years now I have been blessed to have my best friends join me in a cabin in the middle of the woods for a knitting weekend together. It’s something that started off one year after I complained about how expensive knitting “retreats” are, and has since bloomed into this annual tradition that we all look forward to. We take turns cooking for each…

  Earlier this month I took a trip of “firsts” – first proper vacation in my adult life, first airplane trip, first visit to the beach, first time trying real lobster, first time trying an oyster (and there’s video of it to prove it on Facebook, but spoiler: they’re gross), first ocean sunset, first 2-piece bathing suit in public without giving a damn… It was a blissful 5 days of food, relaxation, knitting, reading, shopping, and all of it kid and husband-free! I finished a sock and a book on that trip, which might be the first time I’ve finished anything in that short of a period in who knows…

All it’s missing is a few buttons at the neck line on the side, but otherwise this little sweet sweater, aptly named Sweet William, is completed. It took me far longer to knit than it should have, but I’ve basically lost interest in knitting temporarily so it took forcing myself to knit on it to get it completed. Life is busy, and exhausting, and mostly at the end of the day I just want to sleep than knit. So I’ve turned my focus toward decluttering more, because much like AA a recovering hoarder is always workign to stay on the wagon. The busier life gets, the easier it gets to let…

This sweater is taking far longer than it should. All that stockinette should have gone like a breeze, and all in all it probably would have if I didn’t have to fight to keep a toddler out of my lap (or keep him from trying to “help”). For what it’s worth, my kid has his own knitting – a dishcloth project in progress that didn’t have much yarn left to tangle up – but what mama works on looks more fun, I guess? I not-so-secretly love that he wants to knit, though, and hope this keeps up as he gets older but I’m trying to keep my dreams in check…

A photo posted by @candiceknits on May 29, 2016 at 11:58am PDT Stitch by stitch I’ve muddled my way through the beginning of the pattern and am on the chart now for the sweet little rabbit yoke. And by “muddled” I mean that I read the directions, re-read the directions, looked up on Ravelry to see if there were any helpful notations on other projects, scoured for pictures to figure out WTF the button band at the neck was supposed to look like, read the directions for a third time, and then proceeded with caution because not only have I been brain-dead after work this week, I’m also a generally un-trusting person…