Speeding by*

The days, weeks, months and consequentially this year have sped by without my noticing. Seriously, where has it gone?

I have an ongoing desire to try something new** each year of my life and while that usually revolves around my birthday I try to hold it true for the calendar year as well and then I possibly can squeeze in two new and unique experiences into each year. I’m finding it hard to remember anything I did this year, much less the something new. Of course there are a bunch of things I’ve done that I’d never done before but I don’t think changing toothbrush brands counts. So now I’m feeling hard pressed to get something new going on before December 31 and I’m planning new things for 2007 – it won’t slip past like 2006 has.

I’m only 2/3 done knitting a fairly involved Christmas gift. I’ll take it to work with me and take my hour lunch at Subway and knit while I eat my turkey on wheat. Hopefully the recipient won’t mind a little mustard on her gift. I didn’t even start the other one that I was to do because I kept casting on and starting it and not liking it so I scrapped the idea and I’ll start it on January 1 – should be plenty of time for a birthday gift or Christmas gift next year. Ha.

I have shopping and wrapping and knitting and cleaning to do all before we leave on Friday. I can’t even wrap my brain around it all.

I just remembered another Christmas gift I need to buy. When did Christmas become so much of the buying and getting? I feel bad if I don’t find something to buy for someone rather than seeing something I know they’d love and wanting to purchase it. I hate feeling like I HAVE to get something but I guess a card saying “Sorry, no gift for you this year, I didn’t see anything I wanted to get you in the past two months when I was thinking of buying gifts” isn’t very nice after all. I know the solution but somehow I can’t force myself to buy Christmas gifts in January when I see the perfect thing for somebody because I’ll want to gift it right away or it’ll get put in a “safe place” in my house and I’ll forget about it or won’t be able to find it and then I’ll be more stressed because now I have to replace the perfect thing with something not perfect and I hate it.. Hi Mom! Yeah, my mom does this, but she gives us the stuff when she finds it. She used to find it and try to hold on to it again for next year but sometimes she’d have something for three years before just giving us the Easter bunny pin on Christmas Eve and the Christmas ornament on a random day in July. It’s just easier that way and I love it! It’s the fact that the giving and loving and the having a person in your mind so constantly lasts all year and not just when it’s time to wrap up something all pretty and put a bow on it.

The gift I’m knitting is that way and the one I was going to knit was that way, I saw the patterns and knew that the recipients HAD to have the knitty goodness and thus I started. I think the problem with the second one is that I settled on the yarn and I don’t love it for it’s intended owner, so I’m not giving it, it’s just not right and thus my stash will have increased by 4 balls of malabrigo in a color I like but don’t love. Oh well. The first one I love the yarn and I love the patttern.

*However, apparently this post is not.
**New as in exciting, noteworthy, fun, not just something I've never done, sometimes that happens daily.