Finished Friday

It's been quiet in this space for far too long.

Part of that was the fullness of Christmas preparations followed by the dullness of January and February, which truly expanded my parenting skills set.  How to keep these busy boys of mine occupied?  Indoors?  For days at a time when the weather is too, too terrible to play outside?  Truly a Herculean feat.  The weather has been giving us glimmers of an imminent spring, which has allowed more outside time in the past two weeks.  Today, despite the cold and breeze, we took a walk around our beloved little lake, the path having been cleared of snow by the sunshine and weekend thaw.  Oh, to be out of doors again!

The other, and admittedly larger, part of why this space has remained quiet for the past three months is that I've needed some time for introspection.  You see, I have needed to confront several ugly aspects of my personality, and subdue them (with the help of God and the Saints, of course).  Whether out of exhaustion, or laziness, or blindness, or all three, I allowed things like thoughtlessness and a quick temper to overtake the good and fragile bits of myself, the bits that take much more cultivation to grow and flourish.
I'm not saying the ugly are gone for good.  No, the sinful chunks of me are too deeply rooted to be banished so easily.  But the ugliness has been acknowledged, and I am on the lookout for it, which is half the battle.  And rather than go into greater detail, I'll leave it at that, knowing that at one time or another, other thoughtful and self-aware people have had to go through the same process.

The sweater above has been finished for quite some time, but never made it to the blog.  It's T's, and he wears it regularly because I choose it for him.  (Z knit him a scarf last week, which he wears daily because she made it.  Sweet boy!)  I used this pattern, chose the bone buttons here, and the yarn is my go-to workhorse yarn.

I hope to visit this space more regularly, but who knows what life will bring?