2019 - A Year To Forget.......

Goodness me. 

Best intentions and all.

My plan was to blog more. My plan was to blog every season from 2019. My plan was to be creative in 2019. My plan was for it to be the year of the garment, not the year of the blanket. My plan was to try the new. 

I failed. 

I failed in it all.



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I had plans.........so many plans. I had wanted to push myself with my crafting. I wanted to make garments. That meant reading tricky patterns. I usually am a cop out and just do the easy.....but I wanted to stretch myself in 2019.

It never really took off.

I constantly found myself low on time. Working part time, left the days off being for the mundane and playing catch up with the never ending household lists and chores. I became resentful that I never achieved anything or got anywhere. I did the same old things everyday.....stuff I needed to get done before I could even contemplate starting on anything creative. And then I had no time.


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I went on a family Holiday in the Easter. A much needed break away with the family, but I just found that I was really anxious before it. Anxious because I was so looking forward to it and so needing it, that I was sure something was going to happen to take away that happiness and pleasure. Glass half empty girl here.

Nothing happened and I had a lovely break away.......but I felt odd. I felt dissatisfied still with my lack of achievement in the year. I felt like I was wading through VERY thick treacle. I felt disorganised in my life and in my head.

No garments were made. I had stalled creatively. I had patterns and yarn, but absolutely no enthusiasm.

So I did what I always do.......made another blanket.

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Actually, it was born out of seeing a lovely knitted patchwork blanket on a cottage bed on a pinterest picture. It looked homely and cosy and I was sold on making one for myself.

Using up old oddments of yarn, and in my predictable palette of colours.....off I went. I think I just needed to feel like I was actually making something. I didn't want complicated. I just wanted to craft and watch something be born from nothing.

I loved making it. I joined as I went. It meant that for a few moments a day I could be transported into creative happiness.

Spring, turned into Summer and I pootled along. Semi happy that I had at least started on something creative....even if it was not what I had had in mind at the beginning of the year.

Then, my world was turned upside down.

I lost my big brother.

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Suddenly. 

Unexpectedly. 

That was 6 months ago now. I still can't believe it. I can't come to terms with it. It feels surreal. 

I've mentioned many a time on this blog, how Christmas is a time that, as much as I want to enjoy it, I can never seem to. Family Birthday's take over the last three months of the year. As well as my little family bubble, my outer family also. Painfully hard when still so raw and distressed over my brother's death. The onset of Christmas cheer everywhere just made it that much harder. I felt no desire whatsoever to indulge in anything of a Christmas nature. It was made very easy by the fact that we were not having a tree this year........


A puppy made sure of that........

Meet Minnie, our Wire Haired Fox Terrier.

It just seemed easier not to even think of decorations to go alongside it. The Bear's weren't too bothered. To be honest, I think it's only me that enjoys the ritual of Christmas decorations. So that was that. No festive feeling entered the house, and I found it hard to look at everyone's Christmas joys and happiness when I was feeling so rubbish inside. I just wanted to blink really and it all disappear.

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So.........we got through Christmas. A milestone. Next year might be a little easier mentally.

We saw in the New Year. Other happenings beyond my control, lead me into an uncertain 2020. 

All in all, 2019 was a year I'd like to forget, although one that I'm sure that I won't.

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Hindsight is a funny old thing. As I came rushing towards the end of 2019, I looked back and realised I had started the year with a feeling of foreboding. I couldn't put my finger on it. I realised I had been waiting for life to be turned on its head. I knew it was coming in some way shape or form. Really quite weird.

Goodness knows how I'm going to feel by the end of 2020. Probably quite exhausted.

I wake up and quietly repeat to myself 'choose your mood'.

It's quite a hard thing, to summon up enthusiasm and energy when you feel quite numb and raw. 

Ah well, we soldier on. We get through it. We come out the other side, and hopefully, all the stronger for it.

I seek out the light, the softness, the gentle, and the reassuring at the moment. 

I know it will take time.  I just have to gentle on myself. 

My plan to blog more was sadly interrupted by life.......and sadness.

Hopefully, I can get myself back on track. Not that this is a particularly happy post with lots of creative joy to share, I guess I felt the need to jot things down......if just for myself.

“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”

L.R Knost

xxx