Fall 2008: Work, school, knitting, & vacation

Here it is, January 2009--how can six months go by so quickly? The title sums up what I did with those days...work and school consumed most of my time.

Knitting, for me, is so restorative. As my hands move in the repetitive motion and I feel the yarn slip between my fingers, a calmness and centeredness slowly creeps back in...my head clears and my thoughts organize. The past fall I reached for my knitting often: I knit in class, I knit in the car (while someone else drove :-)), on the plane and in bed before I fell asleep. I finished many projects and started several more. In the picture, my darling daughter is shown wearing my first attempt at Fair Isle knitting. The Boho hat pattern is a free download at ravelry.com.

Graduate school was intense this fall. Iregistered for 9 credits and fully completed 6 of them. Three credits are still on an incomplete because of a research apprenticeship that will continue into Spring 2009. One of the courses was Descriptive and Inferential Statistics...it forced me to resurrect 30+ year old algebra skills and to think very differently than I have so far in my doctoral studies. I survived and I learned enough to know that I must partner with a statistician for future research!

After more than three years without a real vacation, I took two this fall. Celeste and I went to Chicago over Thanksgiving. I love, love, love downtown Chicago! And, we saw Wicked. If you have not caught this Broadway show on tour (or in NYC), make 2009 the year that you do. It was FABULOUS!!

Christmas found me at home in Colorado with my family. We added six babies in 2008--five of the babies were at my brother Ken's on the 26th of December. It was a joyous, blessed family time. How privileged I am to be part of this amazing family. My brothers and sister grow more precious to me every year. My nieces and nephews, who always delighted me with their antics when they were little, now warm my heart to overflowing with their ability to parent this next generation. Their little ones are so darling...the picture above was taken at the end of the evening when most of the babies were a bit frazzled from noise and being held by strangers. It's priceless!

Back home again in Kentucky, life will now settle back into the rhythm of work, school and knitting but I am refreshed from my time away. Blessing to all of you!