I just finished painting my first coat of paint on my canvas per the instructions of Croppy.  We are doing a project with our One Little Word and that was the first step.  Now, I’m not sure if this is really a mystery project to all her participants, but it is a mystery to me as to what this is going to turn out to be.  Here is my canvas so far:

Remember my word?  Cherish.  I think that is why I haven’t written here that much this week. I was too busy cherishing my laundry.  Hehe  – sorry I couldn’t help that one.  Ok, while, I wasn’t really cherishing my laundry, I did cherish my children a bit and my husband from time to time.  I also cherished Rollie Pollie Ollie and rubbed his tummy when he did an especially good job on the living room carpet.

I spent pretty much the entirety of today working on my Etsy shop.  I had some new things to list and I did some dyeing.  I have a new fiber that is also a 50% Merino/50% Tencel blend but it is not as drapey as my normal Merino/Tencel.  It has more spring and bounce.  The only thing is that I’m not sure if it is superwash because although it was listed as superwash, it is not acting like superwash so far thus I think to be careful, I will just pretend that it is not superwash.  It is very pretty though and the tencel does a nice job of adding sparkle.

I am very excited to be starting Tangled Yoke Cardigan soon!  Here is an interesting piece of data.  There are 520 Tangled Yoke projects currently listed in Ravelry with 1831 people listing it in their queues.   Compare this to Dark Victory that has 6 projects and 28 people listing it in their queues.  I think there is going to be plenty of info out there!   I just have this thing that I love to read about the project that I am making.  I like to see as many as I possibly can and find out what everyone thought.  Also there are 2 Mad Knitters also making this for extra Knit Along fun!  Cast on is soon, right Cheryl?

1. To have the highest regard for: prize, treasure. Idioms: hold dear.
2. To recognize the worth, quality, importance, or magnitude of: appreciate, esteem, prize, respect, treasure, value. Idioms: set store by.

Last night, Agent K and I attended her high school orientation. Yesterday, if I had written to this blog, it would have been a vent post about scheduling and conflicts and such. Today, I’m not going to let that bother me and I’m going to write about my word. There was a group of current high school students who got up on stage to talk to the 8th graders last night. They emphasized 2 things. First, that doing homework and being organized are supremely important for high school success. Second, that TIME FLIES. That one was for the parents, I think. Only 4 more years until K sprouts wings and flies away from home. Only 4 years. How can that be? Just yesterday she was that baby that we brought home. We placed her in the middle of our bed and just looked at her; amazed that she was ours. She is in transition now. During the next 4 years she will become less and less our and more and more her own.

On Wednesday, Jenny posted her One Little Word on her blog. (The idea is from Ali Edward’s blog and her post can be seen here.) Since Wednesday, I have been going through words like candy. I explored and rejected quite a few words (like Freedom, Pure, and Quest) because even though they seemed to be me, they just made me feel stressed. Quite often people tell me “enjoy your girls now as before you know it they will grow up and be off on their own.” So maybe this is the year to start doing that; to stop and finally say, “This is what we have and it is good. ” Maybe it is time to just stop everything and CHERISH what I have, what we have as a family…

This morning Jenny sent me the link to a blog with the most delicious header that I have ever seen. This blog is called Altogether Too Happy and I bloglined it immediately. I loved her entry for her word. I loved the quote from the book On Becoming An Artist by Ellen Langer. I loved how she used her word as a starting point for other words/actions (and I’m going to do a little copying…)

C: Clarity
H: Harmony
E: Engage
R: Relax
I: Isthmus
S: Spirit
H: Humor

I also think that CHERISH is going to be important to my New Year’s Resolution. I don’t want to just GET THROUGH my 3 to 6’s. I want to start to ENJOY my 3 to 6’s. It is not going to hurt to stop to CHERISH each moment, even if it is a stressfilled moment comforting an junior agent who may have had a bad day…