Life after knitting...

Way back in December, after that feverish bout of designing and sample knitting for those Buddy Sweaters, I took a deep breath and decided to quit knitting…for the holidays.

I always have these grand plans for the holidays and in the end, there are just too many chores, expectations, and too little time.  And now that the boys are a little bigger, I thought they would much prefer spending some good quality time getting excited about Christmas than watching mommy go bonkers and pleading to be left alone for ‘just 5 more minutes’ to finish something or another.  So just like that, I tore up my holiday knitting list, put away all the yarn, needles and books strewn all over my house and just put it out of my mind.

And it was wonderful…

For the first time in my adult life, Christmas didn’t sneak up on me.  By the time it rolled around, I was ready.  I accomplished everything I wanted to and had a blast with the boys getting excited about it all: we made all of our own decorations for the tree, made sweet treats for our friends and fun toy gifts for all the little people in our neighbourhood, we baked, we made bread, we celebrated Santa Lucia, had dinner with friends, went to a bowling party, saw Santa, went to Church, had picnics under the tree, opened our advent stockings every night, sneaked out to cafes after dinner for chocolate milk and fanciful deserts.  We even went to see a movie in a real movie theatre! We had our neighbourhood buddies over for a Christmas party and just were really, really merry with no pressure, just fun and smiles and giggles.

And it was wonderful…

Now that Christmas is long behind us, I’m still enjoying the perks of my non-knitting lifestyle: my life is organised, we have fresh laundry (there isn’t even an ironing pile looming in the closet anymore), my house is clean and guest-ready at anytime, I’m reading a book (!), sometimes I even nap with the boys.  I joined the gym with my buddy and have actually been going three nights a week, get to bed at a reasonable hour and am enjoying cozying up with hubby on the sofa at the end of the day.

And that’s why it’s mid-February and I’m still on Christmas break.  It’s hard to get back into the groove.   Actually, I’m not even sure I really want to get back into the knitting groove the way I have been for the past 4 years.  I need more balance in my life I guess and it took a good long knitting break to see that fibre had really started to take way to much room in my life.

I hope to get back into it soon because it did mean a lot to me and I got a lot of pleasure and self-esteem from knitting and have enjoyed sharing it with you all here and on Ravelry.  I guess I just need to figure out a way to not get obsessive with it the way I think I have been in the past and that’s going to be tricky for me because once I cast on, it’s hard for me to put a project down before it is finished.    

But there’s lots of yarn in my knitting chest and there are two perfect little guys in my midst to adorn with loving woollens so it’s just a matter of time, really.

But for now, I’m enjoying the no-pressure lifestyle…

I’ll be catching up on the blog in the next few weeks with all of our holiday adventures.  I’ll cheat a little with the dates of the posts so that the dates match up more with when the activities took place so it makes more sense in the archives.  And then, I’d like to get back into the blogging even if there is no knitting to talk about and I hope you won’t mind terribly ;0)

Thank you for all the kind e-mails and all your support throughout the years, you’ve been good friends and while I haven’t missed the knitting so much, I have missed writing about life with the boys and sharing it all with you. 

I have so much to tell you…